How
the Indus Valley sites were discovered
Devised
by Judith Evans at Rosebery School in Loughborough.
http://www.collaborativelearning.org/indusvalley.pdf
In
the village of Harappa (in modern day Pakistan) there was a very old
ruined castle built on a hill. Nobody knew who had lived
there but local legend said that it had been the home of
an evil Rajah (a kind of king), who had been punished by
the gods for the bad things he did, by a huge fire that burned
down his castle. The ruins had stood for hundreds of
years and children used to play on them.
Whenever visitors came they were shown the ruins.
In 1826 an English visitor called Charles Masson
saw the ruins. Some
years later another visitor, an archaeologist named Sir
Alexander Cunningham, visited Harappa, but the ruins
had been knocked down and all that was left was a huge
mound of stones and rubble.
Four hundred miles away from Harappa was a large
area of ruined brick mounds.
The people who lived nearby thought that it was a
very old burial site, and called it Mohenjo-daro or
'Mound of the Dead'.
Historians used to think that the oldest cities
in India and Pakistan were built in 500BCE.
Charles
Masson was an English traveler who visited North West
India in 1823. He wrote about the things he saw: 'In
Harappa a ruined brick castle with very high walls and
towers, built on a hill'. In 1853 Sir Alexander
Cunningham went to study the ruins in Harappa. The
buildings had been completely knocked down, but he
looked very carefully through everything he could see.
He found some small square stones that were very
polished. They had engravings of animals and designs
that no-one in India had found before. In the 1920s R D
Banerji found polished stone seals just like the ones at
Harappa. He was excavating at Mohenjo-daro, which was
miles away near the Indus River. He found these seals in
the remains of a large city and it was at least 3500
years old.
Since
these early excavations more and more archaeological
work has been done in the Indus valley area. Thousands
of settlements and some cities have been found. They all
have the stone seals and artifacts just like the ones at
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.
When
the British ruled India they built railways to make
their lives easier. An engineer called Robert Brunton
ordered workers to knock down some old walls and empty
buildings. They laid the railway tracks on the stones.
In 1921 the Indian government paid an archaeologist
named Daya Ram Sahni, to find out more about Harappa.
A trench was dug along the top of a mound. In the
bottom were lots more of the stone seals like the ones
Sir Alexander had found.
Mr. Sahni dug further down and found seven or
eight layers of houses, one on top of the other. It was
an enormous city. It was also a very old city, from
about 2500 BCE. This meant that it was as old as the
pyramids in Egypt.
The cities at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro had
streets, baths and storage for grain.
In the houses archaeologists found gold and
silver objects, toys made from stone and jewelry made
from precious stones. Nobody knows much about the people
who lived in the
Indus valley 4500 years ago, but we do know they were
some of the first people on earth to live in cities.
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Videos, Slide Shows,
Stories and Games
Mohenjo-Daro!
An online video http://www.mohenjodaro.net/
followed by 103 indexed slides. Jonathan Mark
Kenoyer took these images over 30 years. Most have not
been published before.
Harappa
Excavations 1995-2001
Another online video
http://www.harappa.com/indus5/index.html
Around
the Indus in 90 Slides A
stunning slide show about the ancient Indus Valley
Civilization
http://www.harappa.com/indus/indus0.html
Experience
Harappa in 3D, view the latest discoveries, explore
other city sites, and read about the Indus Valley
script http://www.harappa.com/har/har0.html
Indus
Valley From the British Museum: A
Story – Spend a day with a bread makers’ son http://www.ancientindia.co.uk/indus/story/sto_set.html
Explore - Discover the ancient city of Mohenjodaro
http://www.ancientindia.co.uk/indus/explore/exp_set.html
Play
a Game
The
Indus Challenge - Match Pottery Fragments
http://www.ancientindia.co.uk/indus/challenge/cha_set.html
From the Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York
Stamp
seal and a modern impression: unicorn or bull and
inscription,
Mature Harappan period, ca. 2600–1900 B.C.
Note:
The stamp seal is on the left and the positive
impression is on the right.
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