The Land of Meluha The Indus Valley civilization was entirely unknown until 1921, when excavations, revealed the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro.This mysterious culture emerged nearly 9000 years ago and thrived for a thousands of years, on from the highly fertile lands of the Indus river.More than a thousand settlements are now known from the Indus valley civilization. The civilization is known to have had a unity of culture, art, script, and technology (even weights and measures). The largest city, Mohenjo Daro is thought to have reached a population of approximately 30,000, suggesting a total population of approximately 5 million people.It was the largest of the four ancient civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India and China. However, of all these civilizations the least is known about the Indus Valley people. This is because the Indus script has not yet been deciphered. Mohenjo-daro built around 2600 B.C.E., located in the Sindh Province of Pakistan. The discovery of Mohenjo-daro led to tremendous excitement in the archaeological and historical worlds. Although the beginning of the Indus Valley Civilization predated the founding of Mohenjo-daro, and thousands of villages and towns had been discovered throughout the region occupied by the Indus Valley people, Mohenjo-daro represented the largest, most sophisticated city discovered. The city had a sophisticated sewage system with regular manhole covers. Public latrines for every block and sewers large enough to walk in.House drains, which were enclosed systems, were made of clay pipes and were connected to the sewers by open brick gutters. One of the most spectacular structures at Mohenjo is the Great Bath, which is astonishingly well preserved and measures 180 feet north to south and 108 feet east to west. It is described as a vast hydropathic establishment and the most imposing of all the remains unearthed at Mohenjo-Daro. Ancient Mesopotamian texts speak of trading with at least two seafaring civilizations - Makkan and Meluha - in the neighbourhood of India in the third millennium B.C. This trade was conducted with real financial sophistication in amounts that could involve tons of copper. The Mesopotamians speak of Meluha as an aquatic culture, where water and bathing played a central role.A number of Indus Valley objects have been found buried with Mesopotamians. The ancient script of the Indus valley people has been found in another location, Easter Island (situated in the middle of the Pacific ocean) which is exactly diametrically opposed to Mohenjo daro. This curious coincidence has yet to be properly explained. The Indus Valley Culture was extant thousands of years before the Easter Island culture began, yet the similarity between the two scripts is uncanny. Numerous objects found in excavation include seated and standing figures, copper and stone tools, carved seals, balance-scales and weights,gold and jasper jewelry, and childrens toys. Many of which, are on display in the Harappan gallery in National Museum in New Delhi. The whole collection of this gallery represents the advanced technology and sophisticated lifestyle of the Harappan people.Most prominent among the objects are the Priest Head, the Dancing Girl made in Bronze and belongs to the early Harappan period, skeleton excavated from Rakhigarhi in Haryana, terracotta images of Mother Goddess and clay pottery. Apart from these, the gallery has sculptures in bronzes & terracotta, Bone objects, Ivory, Steatite, semi- precious Stones, painted pottery and jewelry items.Many seals have been discovered during numerous excavations. These seals were probably used for trading purposes. These seals depict bulls, elephants, unicorns, tigers, crocodiles,and other unknown symbols. What a fine and well developed civilization it was, is evident from the following video. vimeo/65393454 So, how did this ancient civilization vanish, some believe, that it was an ancient nuclear explosion that ended the civilization ! But it is yet to validated scientifically. The mystery is waiting to be solved. globalpost/dispatch/news/regions/asia- pacific/india/121116/indus-civilization-2000-years-old- archaeologists
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 01:15:09 +0000
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