Chapter 14: The Harappan Civilization

readx;? After the Great Flood, the Atlantean civilization still survived in the Indian subcontinent. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. biquge。 info Their civilization lasted until 4120 BC. Known as the Indus Civilization, or the Harappan Civilization.

Although white Atlanteans occupy the superstructure, the demographic composition has changed considerably. Due to the large inflow of foreign populations (early and late Homo sapiens) and the small population of Atlantis, the main colored people at that time, that is, the black-haired yellow people, were distributed in large numbers in Eurasia, among which India had a more inflow due to the suitable climate, which directly changed the population composition of the Indian subcontinent. The Atlanteans, as natives with high technology, became the leaders of the regime, while the yellow people became vassals of the white Atlanteans because of their technological disadvantage and gradual influx. However, through gradual contact with the Atlanteans, he gradually mastered the use of technology by the Atlanteans. Of course, it is impossible to obtain secrets such as core technologies such as nuclear weapons.

The Indus civilization was primarily an agricultural civilization. The inhabitants are mainly engaged in agriculture and livestock husbandry. The main crops are wheat and six-row barley, and the inhabitants also grow purple peas, melons, sesame seeds, mustard, dates and cotton, which was the first to be woven in the Indus Valley. The Indus civilization adopted irrigated farming, which had sufficient technology to harvest crops in the vast and fertile Indus River basin and control the annual floods that both fertilized the land and caused disaster. Domesticated animals are dogs, cats, zebu cattle, shorthorn cattle, poultry, pigs, camels, donkeys, buffaloes, elephants. Domesticated elephants and buffaloes work in the fields. The use of ivory is quite widespread.

Farm implements were found in flint ploughshares, copper hoes and sickles, stone grinding discs and grinding rods, etc.

In 4500 BC, pottery was introduced to the Indus Valley, and faience soon appeared. Pottery is mostly made of wheels, that is, the Aryan civilization invented the potter's wheel. The tire is red or black, mostly plain pottery, and the firing is quite fine. A large number of pottery is painted with red clothes and black colors, and the mother theme is geometric patterns such as circle patterns and fish scale patterns, as well as patterned plant patterns, birds, beasts, insects, fish, and other elephant patterns. There are cups, plates, bowls, bottles, flat pots, and flowing pots, etc., and the most characteristic is the plate with high hoop feet and the cylindrical deep-bellied ware with holes throughout the body. There is also a kind of colored glazed pottery, mainly beads, amulets, seals and small containers.

The inhabitants are also engaged in fishing, hunting and various handicrafts. The Indus civilization was the first in the world to enter the era of copper and stone, using red copper to make axes, adzes, hoes, sickles, chisels, saws, fish hooks, knives, spears, arrowheads, swords, hammers, razors, containers, human figures and animal statues. There are also lead vials and hanging balls, silver vessels, and gold ornaments.

Excavated spinning wheels and fragments of cotton fabrics indicate that there was already a cotton textile industry. The graphic of the ship on the seal indicates that there was a shipbuilding industry. In addition, there is a shell and ivory processing industry for beading, inlays, combs, and bracelets, and a stone processing industry for the production of stone leaf tools, alabaster containers, soapstone intaglio seals, gem beads and other ornaments, among which etched carnelian beads are the most elaborate. The consistency of the material culture, as well as the sheer size of some stone tool sites and the wide distribution of the stone leaves they produce, suggest that there were close ties between the cities and regions within the culture.

The number of stone carvings unearthed is small, the carving is coarse, the shape is rigid, there are a figure and a sheep body and elephant trunk and other combined beast reclining statues, the most famous is a male bust unearthed in Mohenjo Daro.

The Indus civilization unearthed a large number of seals made of soapstone, ivory, red copper, and clay, mainly square and rectangular, the former is ingraved with unicorns, elephants, cows, tigers and other animals and inscriptions, and the latter only has inscriptions. It is speculated that in addition to being used for trade, some of the seals were also of a religious nature. There is a kind of rectangular or square copper plate, which is quite finely made, forged after casting, and also engraved with inscriptions and animal or human figures, some believe that it is a red copper bookplate. Jewellery includes round and rectangular gold plaques, armbands, earrings, and beads made of gold, silver, precious stones, glazed pottery, shells, etc., strung into necklaces and belts. The inscription on the seal is hieroglyphic, and the upper line is read from left to right, and the next line is read from right to left. This style of writing was also imitated by the early Greeks, and it is called "calligraphy from left to right, and from right to left" - "like an ox plowing the ground", and no one has been able to interpret it to this day.

Inferring from relics such as temples, ceremonial bathing pools, statues, seals, and amulets, the culture had its own religious system, worshipping male gods, goddesses (which were the prototype of the later Shiva couple), as well as bull gods, tiger gods, snake gods, and tree gods, among others. The fire pit in the ruins of the city of Kalibangan and the adobe cylinder in the center indicate that the god of fire was also worshipped here. Some of the excavated paintings also depict practitioners sitting and meditating, and these religious beliefs and practices are related to the worship of Shiva and yoga practices in later Indian folk beliefs.

The deceased was buried in a cemetery outside the city, a pit tomb or a brick chamber tomb, with straight limbs on his back, his head mostly facing north, and ornaments on his body. There are also burials where bones are collected after the body is exposed, and urns where the bones are buried inside and outside the house. Male and female burials have been found at the site of Rotal.

The Indus civilization included the two large cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro as well as more than 100 smaller towns and villages. Mohenjo-Daro (Larkana District, Sindh Province, Pakistan) and Harappa (Left Bank of the Ravi River, Punjab Province, India), with populations estimated at 3~40,000 each. Both large cities have a radius of more than 5 kilometers and belong to one large empire. In the beginning, Mohenjo was the first city in the world to be founded as the capital, and later due to the flood, it was changed to Harappa as the capital, but Mohenjo is still a large city.

The cities of the Indus Valley were unique at the time because they were not built arbitrarily like rabbit farms, but were carefully built according to a central plan. The layout of the city is generally divided into two parts: the Acropolis to the west and the Lower City to the east. The acropolis was the residence of the ruler, rectangular in shape, surrounded by walls and moats, and a number of watchtowers were built on the walls. The main gate is mostly in the southwest corner. Buildings in the city generally have rammed earth or adobe foundations. The layout of the city is distributed in a grid around the Acropolis, with municipal buildings, markets, workshops, storage areas, residential houses and temples. The downtown area has well-connected streets, with wide main streets surrounding large rectangular blocks, each of which is much larger than the usual blocks in a city today.

Each dwelling is built around a courtyard with several rooms, a toilet and a well. Citizens' houses have wells and courtyards. There are sentry posts throughout the residential complex.

What amazes archaeologists the most is the well-developed waste disposal system, including a covered drainage system and a chute for dumping garbage, as well as a complete drainage system. It is not even possible to achieve the level of perfection that even one of the world's most modern cities can match. On the second floor, the water from the flushing toilets can be drained to the sewers through earthen pipes in the walls, and in some cases, there are garbage pipes that dump garbage through high-rise buildings. Sewage from each house settles in the scum outside the house and then flows into the underground waterways, which are like culverts, crisscrossing the city. Faced with such a dense underground waterway, people can't help but be dumbfounded.

The building materials are mostly burnt bricks and adobe, and stone is used in the near mountainous areas. This is different from later Mesopotamia (buildings were made of sun-dried bricks) and Egypt (buildings were made of stone). In other ancient civilizations, bricks were only used in the construction of royal palaces and temples, while the Indus civilizations generally used brick construction. There are only two standard sizes of molds for bricks made throughout the Indus Valley: 11 x 5.5 x 2.5 inches and 9.2 x 4.5 x 2.2 inches. It can be seen that the weights and measures are also consistent everywhere. Such a uniform layout and orderly organization can be found throughout the Indus Civilization. The culture has a standard system of weights and measures. Analysis of the flint weights excavated shows that binary is used for low numbers and decimal for high numbers. Two kinds of rulers were found, which were 37.6 and 51.8~53.6 cm, respectively.