The Indus Valley Civilisation of India and Pakistan

This documentary, made by NHK (Japan) and Canadian TV, looks at the early Indus Valley civilisation, focusing on one of the lesser known sites at Dholavira, in what is now Gujarat, in western India. A well-done professional introduction to the city of Dholavira and an explanation of the irrigation and aqueduct system, collection of rain water and water reservoirs, with a CGI reconstruction of the city by NTV.

Around 2000 BC, a mysterious civilisation thrived along the Indus river, between today's India and Pakistan. The countryside surrounding the cities was successfully farmed providing ample food supplies to the cities where craftsmen produced intricate artefacts and everyday utensils on an almost industrial scale. Archaeologists began excavating the ruins of the Indus civilisation in the 1920s and although they have uncovered ample traces of its material culture, one big piece of the puzzle remains: no written text of sufficient length has been found yet making it impossible for researchers to decipher the Indus script. Therefore the disappearance of this thriving civilisation around 500 BC remains a mystery.

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilisation (3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) mainly in northwest South Asia, extending from what today is northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. Along with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia it was one of three early civilisations of the Old World, and of the three most widespread. It flourished in the basins of the Indus River, one of the major rivers of Asia, and along a system of perennial, mostly monsoon-fed, rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the seasonal Ghaggar-Hakra river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. Aridification of this region during the 3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial spur for the urbanisation associated with the civilisation, but eventually also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise, and to scatter its population eastward.

At its peak, the Indus Civilisation may have had a population of over five million. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley developed new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products, seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin). The Indus cities are noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, and clusters of large non-residential buildings.

The Indus Valley Civilisation is also known as the Harappan Civilisation, after Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated in the 1920s, in what was then the Punjab province of British India, and now is Pakistan. The discovery of Harappa, and soon afterwards, Mohenjo-Daro, was the culmination of work beginning in 1861 with the founding of theArchaeological Survey of India in the British Raj. Excavation of Harappan sites has been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999. There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan, in the same area of the Harappan Civilisation. The Harappan civilisation is sometimes called the Mature Harappan culture to distinguish it from these cultures. As of 1999, over 1,056 cities and settlements had been found, of which 96 have been excavated, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and their tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Dholavira, Ganeriwala in Cholistan and Rakhigarhi.

The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus script is still undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favoured by a section of scholars.