Harappa: The City That Named a Civilisation

1.1 Why does a whole civilisation carry Harappa's name?

The textbook says Harappa was the first site found. Mohenjodaro is better known, but Harappa came first.

Our own reading: the culture carries the name of the first site found. The name tells you where the story began, not which city was biggest.

1.2 Where is Harappa?

It is a large village in Punjab province, Pakistan. The modern town lies right next to the ancient city. The old course of the Ravi river ran north of the site. The river has since moved six miles further north.

1.3 How big was it?

It spread over about 450,000 square metres, which is about 45 hectares. The textbook gives Mohenjodaro as 125 hectares. Harappa was a big city, but smaller than its famous neighbour.

Among the five major cities named by the textbook, Harappa sits beside Rakhigarhi, Mohenjodaro, Dholavira and Ganweriwala.

1.4 Is Harappa in the Rigveda?

No one can prove it. One idea says the site is the Rigveda scene of a defeat of the Vrcivants, and records its name as Hari-Yupuya. World History calls this mostly conjecture until more proof appears. Treat it as a guess, not a fact.

2.1 Who saw Harappa before the experts?

Travellers did. James Lewis, a British army deserter, made the first recorded visit in 1826. Alexander Burnes recorded the extensive remains in 1831. Neither knew how old the place was.

2.2 What did Cunningham do?

Alexander Cunningham visited in 1853 and 1856 and made a small excavation in 1872. He found pottery, chert blades and a seal. He called the seal foreign to India.

Cunningham was the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, or ASI. People often call him the father of Indian archaeology.

2.3 Why did he miss the answer?

The seal had no known parallel in India then. Later, similar seals were found in Mesopotamia, and that pushed the age of these sites back. The textbook timeline lists his 1875 report on the seal.

3.1 What happened to Harappa's bricks?

Brick robbers took them for railway building. In 1875 Cunningham noted that the brick removed was enough for about 100 miles of the Lahore-Multan railway line. World History adds that brick robbers worked there for the Multan Railway.

3.2 Did this happen elsewhere?

Yes. Mohenjo-daro and Kalibangan also became quarries for other railways. Even so, Mohenjodaro was far better preserved than Harappa.

Our own reading: this is why Mohenjodaro gives us a clearer city plan today.

3.3 What was left to dig?

Cunningham found very little to preserve. The majority of the settlement had been stripped of bricks. Later diggers still found much to study.

4.1 Who brought Harappa back?

In 1912, John Fleet of the ASI found a number of seals. He brought the Sahiwal site to the notice of John Marshall. Marshall sent Hiranand Shastri to survey it. In 1914, Harry Hargreaves inspected it, and the mounds were acquired for study.

4.2 Who dug it?

Daya Ram Sahni began excavations in 1921. The Live History account dates this work to 1921-22 and says M S Vats worked with him. It also says Vats completed the excavations at Harappa.

4.3 When was the civilisation announced?

In 1924. Rakhal Das Banerji found similar seals at Mohenjodaro, which suggested one shared culture. Based on these finds, Marshall announced the discovery of a new civilisation in the Indus valley.

4.4 What came later?

Mortimer Wheeler worked at Harappa in 1946, says the textbook timeline. World History says he took over in 1944. The sources differ, so quote the year with its source.

An American team began excavations in 1986. Work by Dales, Meadow and Kenoyer in Mound E pushed the dates back to the early 4th millennium BCE.

5.1 What did the city look like?

It had a lower public area and an upper acropolis, much like Mohenjo-daro. The Citadel area stood on a huge mud brick platform about 6 m high. Only the walls round Mound AB have been properly excavated. They were 14 m wide at the base.

5.2 What stood on Mound F?

A ramp from a north gate leads to Mound F, which is smaller. It holds house structures and a large building with many rooms. World History says it might be a granary, great hall or palace. So the old label of Great Granary is a reading.

Fifteen units of workmen’s quarters were found, surrounded by a wall.

5.3 How did people enter the city?

By narrow gates. The gate at Mound E was only 2.8 m wide, just enough for one ox cart. World History says this shows its defensive nature.

5.4 Was it planned?

Yes, from early on. Large north-south streets existed in Harappa’s 2nd Period, 2800-2600 BCE. World History calls the grid a sign of an evolved civil engineering principle. Ur, in Mesopotamia, had meandering streets.

• Why it matters: a grid needs a plan made before building.
• Example: north-south streets were already there before the mature city.
• Misconception: Harappa was not only a granary town. The sources show houses, walls, gates and workers’ quarters too.

6.1 What did a grave in the 1980s show?

Excavations at the Harappa cemetery in the mid-1980s found an ornament near a male skull. It had three shell rings, a jasper bead and hundreds of micro beads. Jasper is a kind of semi-precious stone.

6.2 What do faience pots tell us?

Rare objects clustered in big cities. Miniature faience pots, perhaps perfume bottles, are found mostly at Mohenjodaro and Harappa. None come from small settlements like Kalibangan.

Our own reading: big cities held more wealth, or more access to rare goods.

7.1 Who did what at Harappa?

Dates as given by the sources named in the lesson.

7.2 What are the common traps?

• First vs famous: Harappa was first found. Mohenjodaro is best known.
• Cunningham vs Sahni: Cunningham visited and dug a little. Sahni began systematic excavation in 1921.
• Wheeler’s year: the textbook gives 1946, World History gives 1944.
• Rigveda link: a conjecture, not a fact.