Wikijunior:Ancient Civilizations/Indus Valley
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[edit] What country did they live in?
This civilization was called the Indus Valley civilization. The civilization is also called the Harrapan civilization after the first site to be excavated in Pakistan (then part of India). It is also called the Saraswati-Sindhu civilisation after the legendary Saraswati and Sindhu (Indus) rivers. Parts of the civilization are in India, parts in Pakistan.
[edit] What did they eat?
We have learnt in recent studies that the Indus Valley civilization were excellent farmers! They had crops like, Wheat,rice, Barley and many others. They also had many fruits and they kept animals like cows and a type of buffalo for eating. In the center of the town was a grainery for storing any grain that the whole town could use at any stage.
[edit] What did they wear?
The Indus valley people were the first in the world to spin cotton and woollen yarn.Needles and buttons have been found there.They knew the art of weaving and stitching.The men used to wear a loin cloth akin to a dhoti that is still worn by a large number of Indians, even today.The women wore a type of skirt and wrapped a shawl round their shoulders.Men and women,both rich and poor,wore ornaments.Necklaces,fillets, armlets and finger rings were common to both men and women.These ornaments were made of gold,silver,copper,bronze,ivory or shells.They usually moved around barefoot.
[edit] What did their writing look like?
When seals from the Indus Valley were discovered, it was assumed that they contained the writing of the Indus Valley people. Over 4000 examples of the seals have been found, as well as 400 different signs. However, the script, called Indus script, remains undecipherable.
There are several reasons as to why it cannot be deciphered. One is that linguists don't know what language family it belonged to. Another is that the average length of the inscriptions is less than five signs, the longest being one of only 26 signs. The third is that no text written in Indus and another known language has been found. All these factors make it difficult to figure out what the seals say.
From excavations of the Indus Valley, archaeologists have found female fertility statues. These statues indicate that they worshipped Mother Goddesses. These statues included depictions of Kali and Shakti. Seals depicting animals, perhaps as objects of worship, have also been found. Finally, seals depicting the god Pashupati (Shiva) in a yogic posture have been discovered.It has not been proven yet but it is possible that some of the gods prevalent in South India, like Ayyappan and Murugan, might also have been worshipped.
Are some of them famous even today? Shakthi/Kali are famous in the Northern Parts of India. In Southern India, people pray to another form of the same Goddess with different names, like Sakthi, Bhagavati, Kali Amman etc. and male deities like Shiva, Murugan and Ayyappan.
[edit] What happened to them?
The main theories of their extinction are: 1)Natural disasters like earthquakes or floods. 2)Climate changes due to deforestation 3)Internal wars or poor administration. 4)External aliens from the Aryans or other Central Asian hordes. 5)Last but not least desertification of the Indus estuary,the retreat of the sea and parts of the Indus drowning up with sand,leaving the early 5500bc Harrapa civilization in ruins . For a long time, it was thought that the civilization was destroyed by invading nomadic tribes, but most historians today doubt that theory.
