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This blog is made for all of you to explore more about Asian and Islamic Civilization in depth despite just getting knowledge from lecture class. ( ps: it is also part of our group assignment ;) )

The blogger of this blog is ;

Chor Choon Hong

Loh Suan Ni

Ng Pei Ling

Phang Xue Jian

Shanthinee Gunasakeran

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Thank you and Have a Nice Day.

WHAT IS CIVILIZATION ?

Civilization genarally defined as the achievement of human civilization in the material while didn't ignoring the spiritual aspects as a guide towards an ideal life in the world.

However, there is other opinion from philosophers in the view of Islam and West

Ibn Khaldun said that:
Umran were the term that use in the ook Muqaddimah. Umran mean land, uninhabited place, have adequate for human needs, human achievement beyond the basic needs of life of an appreciable portion so as to pave the way for the production of creative thinking and a more refined and artistic values.

Syed Naquib al-Attas
the living conditions of human society has reached the sublety of a noble morality and culture for the whole community.

Abu Bakar Hamzah
Civilization is a result of thinking of the Muslims on Islamic ad-din which includes the aspect of the material used in their daily life.

Clive Bell
in Clive Bell opinion, civilization as the criteria for community.

Redfield
In Redfield opinion, civilization as a way of criteria life.

Beatty and Johnson
while Beatty and Johnson thing that city life and wrintings are the main basis of the birth of civilization.

                                                         seven wonders of the world

Chinese Civilization

China is one of the world's oldest civilization. The Chinese flourished in the fertile basin of the Yellow River (Huang Ho) in North China Plain. The political system was based on hereditary monarchies which is dynasties. the Qin Dynasty first conquered several states to form a Chinese empire and ending with the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912 although ancient historical texts such as the Records of the Grand Historian and Bamboo Annals assert the existence of a Xia Dynasty before.

Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC)

The Qin Dynasty is well known for beginning the Great Wall of China, Qin Emperor lasted only 12 years, he managed to subdue great parts of what constitutes the core of the Han Chinese homeland and to unite them under a tightly centralized Legalist government seated at Xianyang. The other major contributions of the Qin include the concept of a centralized government, the unification of the legal code, development of the written language, measurement, and currency of China after the tribulations of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods.

The Qin Emperor presided over the brutal silencing of political opposition, including the event known as the burning of books and burying of scholars. This would be the impetus behind the later Han synthesis incorporating the more moderate schools of political governance.


Han Dynasty (202 BC–AD 220)

The Han Dynasty emerged in 206 BC, with its founder Liu Bang proclaimed emperor in 202 BC. It was the first dynasty to embrace the philosophy of Confucianism, which became the ideological underpinning of all regimes until the end of imperial China.

This Dynasty made great advances in many areas of the arts and sciences. Emperor Wu consolidated and extended the Chinese empire into the steppes of modern Inner Mongolia, wresting from them the modern areas of Gansu, Ningxia and Qinghai. This enabled the first opening of trading connections between China and the West, along the Silk Road.

Wei and Jin Period (AD 265–420)

After Cao Cao (Qin Shi Huang) reunified the north in 208, his son proclaimed the Wei dynasty in 220. Soon, Wei's rivals Shu and Wu proclaimed their independence, leading China into the Three Kingdoms Period. This period was characterized by a gradual decentralization of the state that had existed during the Qin and Han dynasties, and an increase in the power of great families. Although the Three Kingdoms were reunified by the Jin Dynasty in 280, this structure was essentially the same until the Wu Hu uprising.

Wu Hu Period (AD 304–439)

Taking advantage of civil war in the Jin Dynasty, the contemporary non-Han Chinese (Wu Hu) ethnic groups controlled much of the country in the early 4th century and provoked large-scale Han Chinese migrations to south of the Yangtze River.

In 303 the Di people rebelled and later captured Chengdu, establishing the state of Cheng Han. Under Liu Yuan, the Xiongnu rebelled near today's Linfen County and established the state of Han Zhao. Sixteen kingdoms were a plethora of short-lived non-Chinese dynasties that came to rule the whole or parts of northern China in the 4th and 5th centuries.


Southern and Northern Dynasties (AD 420–589)

Signaled by the collapse of East Jin Dynasty in 420, China entered the era of the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The Han people managed to survive the military attacks from the nomadic tribes of the north and their civilization continued to thrive. In southern China, fierce debates about whether Buddhism should be allowed to exist were held frequently by the royal court and nobles. Finally, near the end of the Southern and Northern Dynasties era, both Buddhist and Taoist followers compromised and became more tolerant of each other. In 589, Sui annexed the last Southern Dynasty, Chen, through military force, and put an end to the era of Southern and Northern Dynasties.


Sui Dynasty (AD 589–618)

The Sui Dynasty, which managed to reunite the country in 589 after nearly four centuries of political fragmentation, played a role more important than its length of existence would suggest. The Sui brought China together again and set up many institutions that were to be adopted by their successors, the Tang. Like the Qin, however, the Sui overused their resources and collapsed. Also similar to the Qin, traditional history has judged the Sui somewhat unfairly, as it has stressed the harshness of the Sui regime and the arrogance of its second emperor, giving little credit for the Dynasty's many positive achievements.


Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907)

Tang Dynasty was founded by Emperor Gaozu on June 18, 618. It was a golden age of Chinese civilization with significant developments in art, literature, particularly poetry, and technology. Buddhism became the predominant religion for common people. Chang'an (modern Xi'an), the national capital, was the largest city in the world of its time.

Since the second emperor Taizong, military campaigns were launched to dissolve threats from nomadic tribes, extend the border, and submit neighboring states into tributary system. Military victories in the Tarim Basin kept the Silk Road open, connecting Chang'an to Central Asia and areas far to the west. In the south, lucrative maritime trade routes began from port cities like Guangzhou. There was extensive trade with distant foreign countries. The land policy, the "Equal-field system" claimed all lands as imperially owned, and were granted evenly to people according to the size of the households.

The dynasty continued to flourish under Empress Wu Zetian, the only empress regnant in Chinese history, and reached the zenith during the reign of Emperor Xuanzong, who oversaw an empire that stretched from the Pacific to the Aral Sea with at least 50 million people.


Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms (AD 907–960)

The period of political disunity between the Tang and the Song, known as the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, lasted little more than half a century, from 907 to 960. During this brief era, when China was in all respects a multi-state system, five regimes succeeded one another rapidly in control of the old Imperial heartland in northern China. During this same time, 10 more stable regimes occupied sections of southern and western China, so the period is also referred to as that of the Ten Kingdoms.


Song, Liao, Jin, and Western Xia Dynasties (AD 960–1234)

In 960, the Song Dynasty gained power over most of China and established its capital in Kaifeng (later known as Bianjing), starting a period of economic prosperity, while the Khitan Liao Dynasty ruled over Manchuria, present-day Mongolia, and parts of Northern China.

The Jin Dynasty took power over northern China and Kaifeng from the Song Dynasty, which moved its capital to Hangzhou. The Southern Song Dynasty also suffered the humiliation of having to acknowledge the Jin Dynasty as formal overlords. Southern Song experienced a period of great technological development which can be explained in part by the military pressure that it felt from the north. This included the use of gunpowder weapons to against the Jin in the Battle of Tangdao and Battle of Caishi on the Yangtze River in 1161.


Yuan Dynasty (AD 1271–1368)

Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, wanting to adopt the customs of China, established the Yuan Dynasty. This was the first dynasty to rule the whole of China from Beijing as the capital. Beijing had been ceded to Liao in AD 938 with the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan Yun. Before that, it had been the capital of the Jin, who did not rule all of China.

Ming Dynasty (AD 1368–1644)

Zhu Yuanzhang or Hong-wu, the founder of the dynasty, laid the foundations for a state interested less in commerce and more in extracting revenues from the agricultural sector. Perhaps because of the Emperor's background as a peasant, the Ming economic system emphasized agriculture. Neo-feudal landholdings of the Song and Mongol periods were expropriated by the Ming rulers. Land estates were confiscated by the government, fragmented, and rented out. Private slavery was forbidden. These laws might have paved the way to removing the worst of the poverty during the previous regimes.

During the Ming dynasty the last construction on the Great Wall was undertaken to protect China from foreign invasions. While the Great Wall had been built in earlier times, most of what is seen today was either built or repaired by the Ming. The brick and granite work was enlarged, the watch towers were redesigned, and cannons were placed along its length.

Qing Dynasty (AD 1644–1911)

The Qing Dynasty (1644–1911) was the last imperial dynasty in China. Founded by the Manchus, it was the second non-Han Chinese. The Ming Dynasty would be overthrown by Li Zicheng's peasants rebel, with Beijing captured in 1644 and the last Ming Emperor Chongzhen committed suicide. The Manchu then allied with the Ming Dynasty general Wu Sangui and seized Beijing, which was made the capital of the Qing dynasty, and proceeded to subdue the remaining Ming's resistance in the south. Nevertheless, the Manchus adopted the Confucian norms of traditional Chinese government in their rule and was considered a Chinese dynasty.

The Manchus enforced a 'queue order' forcing the Han Chinese to adopt the Manchu queue hairstyle and Manchu-style clothing. The traditional Han clothing, or Hanfu, was also replaced by Manchu-style clothing Qipao (bannermen dress and Tangzhuang).

Emperor Kangxi ordered the creation of the most complete dictionary of Chinese characters ever put together at the time. The Qing dynasty set up the "Eight Banners" system that provided the basic framework for the Qing military organization. The bannermen were prohibited from participating in trade and manual labour unless they petitioned to be removed from banner status. After the fall of Qing Dynasty, its come to modern era which is republic of China.

Western Civilization

Western culture, sometimes equated with Western civilization or European civilization, is a term used very broadly to refer to a heritage of social norms, ethical values,traditional customs, religious beliefs, political systems, and specific artifacts and technologies. The term has come to apply to countries whose history is strongly marked by European immigration or settlement, such as the Americas, and Australasia, and is not restricted to Western Europe.

Western culture stems from two sources: 

i) the Classical Period of the Graeco-Roman era and 

ii) the influence of Christianity. 

The artistic, philosophic, literary, and legal themes and traditions; the heritages of especially Latin, Celtic, Germanic, and Hellenic ethnic or linguistic groups; as well as a tradition of rationalism in various spheres of life, developed by Hellenistic philosophy, Scholasticism, Humanisms, the Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment and including in political thought, widespread rational arguments in favour of freethought, human rights, equality and democracy.

Historical records of western culture in its European geographical range begin with Ancient Greece, and then Ancient Rome, Christianization during the European Middle Ages, and reform and modernization starting by Renaissance and globalized by successive European empires that spread the European ways of life and education between the sixteenth and twentieth centuries. European Culture developed with a complex range of philosophy, medieval scholasticism and mysticism, Christian and secular humanism. Rational thinking developed through a long age of change and formation with the experiments of enlightenment, naturalism, romanticism, science, democracy, and socialism. With its global connection, European culture grew with an all-inclusive urge to adopt, adapt, and ultimately influence other trends of culture.

Some tendencies that have come to define modern Western societies are the existence of political pluralism, prominent subcultures or countercultures (such as New Agemovements), and increasing cultural syncretism resulting from globalization and human migration.S

  

       Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian Man. A symbol of the

 importance of humanism and empiricism

in Western culture since the Renaissance.

Plato along with Socrates and Aristotle

 were founding members of Western philosophy.

Additional Info: History of Western Civilization

Western culture is neither homogeneous nor unchanging. As with all other cultures it has evolved and gradually changed over time. All generalities about it have their exceptions at some time and place. The organisation and tactics of the Greek Hoplites differed in many ways from the Roman legions. The polis of the Greeks is not the same as the American superpower of the 21st century. The gladiatorial games of the Roman Empire are not identical to present-day football. The art of Pompeii is not the art of Hollywood. Nevertheless, it is possible to follow the evolution and history of the West, and appreciate its similarities and differences, its borrowings from, and contributions to, other cultures of humanity.

Concepts of what is the West arose out of legacies of the Western Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. Later, ideas of the west were formed by the concepts of Christendom and the Holy Roman Empire. What we think of as Western thought today is generally defined as Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian culture, and includes the ideals of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.

Thank you for sparing your time :)

Islamic Civilization

Islamic Golden Age

During this golden age, most of the islamic intellectual inventions occured. Philospophers, scientists and engineers of the Islamic world contributed to the technology and culture, by preserving both earlier tradition and by adding own innovative inventions at the same time.

Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

                   Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.

The foundation of Islamic culture, knowledge and skills were inherited from the ancient Middle East, of Greece and of Persia. Most of this learning and development can be linked to geography. Even prior to Islam's presence, the city of Mecca served as a center of trade in Arabia and Muhammad was a merchant. The tradition of the pilgrimage to Mecca became a centre for exchanging ideas and goods. The influence held by Muslim merchants over African-Arabian and Arabian-Asian trade routes was tremendous.

As a result, Islamic civilization grew and expanded on the basis of its merchant economy, in contrast to their Christian, Indian and Chinese peers who built societies from an agricultural landholding nobility. Merchants brought goods and their faith to CAhina (resulting in a significant population of Chinese Muslims with an estimated 37 million followers, mainly ethnic Turkic Uyghur whose territory was annexed to China), India, southeast Asia, and the kingdoms of western Africa and returned with new inventions.

Islamic Art

Persian Manuscript 

The Islamic art lasted from 750 to the 16th century. The major material used are ceramics, glass, metalwork,  textiles, illuminated manuscripts and woodwork. Among all kinds of art work, manuscripts illumination had became the greatly respected piece of art. Besides, Calligraphy is one of the essential aspect of written Arabic which developed in manuscripts and architectural decoration. Calligraphy was developed due to the forbidden of painting human-being in Islamic religion. 

Islamic Architecture and Engineering

The greatest creation of in terms of architecture would be the Mosque, a holy place for the Muslim prayer. 

The Great Mosque of Samarra, a.k.a the Malwiya Tower, was at one time largest mosque in the world. It is a vast spiralling cone with 52 meters high and 33 meters wide with a spiral ramp. It was commissioned in 848 and completed in 851. 

Unlike most minarets, the Malwiya was not used for the "call to prayer"; its height made it impractical for such use. However, it is visible from a considerable distance in the area around Samarra and therefore may have been designed as a strong visual statement of the presence of Islam in the 

             Mezquitta- Cathedral 

 Mezquitta- Cathedral is today a World Heritage Site and the cathedral of the Diocese of Cordoba. It is located in the Andalusian city of Cordoba, Spain. 

 Mezquitta- Cathedral( side view)

The site was originally a pagan temple, then a Visigothic Christian church, before the Umayyad Moors at first converted the building into a mosque and then built a new mosque on the site. After the Spanish Reconquista, it once again became a Roman Catholic church, with a plateresque cathedral later inserted into the centre of the large Moorish building. The Mezquita is regarded as the one of the most accomplished monuments of Islamic architecture. It was described by the poet Muhammad Iqbal.

Hindu Civilization

A Hindu Primer

Hinduism and The Indus Valley Civization

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The extent of the IVC

·            The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization(3300–1300 BCE; mature period 2600–1900 BCE) located in the western region of South Asia  , and spread over what are now Pakistan , northwest India, and eastern Afghanistan.

·       Flourishing in theIndus River  basin, the civilization extended east into the Ghagger-Haggar riverto northeastern Afghanistan. The civilization was spread over some 1,260,000 km², making it the largest ancient civilization.

·       The Indus Valley is one of the world's earliest urban civilizations, along with     

       its contemporaries,Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt .

·       At its peak, the Indus Civilization may have had a population of well over five million. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus river valley developed new techniques in metallurgy and handicraft (carneol products, seal carving) and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin. The civilization is noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system, and multistoried houses.

^·            The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the Harappan Civilization, as the first of its cities to be unearthed was located at Harappa, excavated in the 1920s in what was at the time the Punjab province  of British India  

·       There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan, in the same area of the Harappan Civilization.

·       The Harappan civilisation is sometimes called the Mature Harappan culture to distinguish it from these cultures.

·       The Harappan Language is not directly attested and its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus script  is still undeciphered.

 Chronology

The mature phase of the Harappan civilization lasted from c. 2600 to 1900 BCE.

With the inclusion of the predecessor and successor cultures—Early Harappan and Late Harappan, respectively—the entire Indus Valley Civilization may be taken to have lasted from the 33rd to the 14th centuries BCE.

Two terms are employed for the periodization of the IVC: Phases and Eras, The Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases are also called the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, respectively, with the Regionalization era reaching back to the Neolithic Mehrgarh II period.

Date range	Phase	Era
7000 - 5500 BCE	Mehrgarh I (aceramic Neolithic)	Early Food Producing Era
5500-3300	Mehrgarh II-VI (ceramic Neolithic)	Regionalisation Era 5500-2600
3300-2600	Early Harappan
3300-2800	Harappan 1 (Ravi Phase)
2800-2600	Harappan 2 (Kot Diji Phase, Nausharo I, Mehrgarh VII)
2600-1900	Mature Harappan (Indus Valley Civilization)	Integration Era
2600-2450	Harappan 3A (Nausharo II)
2450-2200	Harappan 3B
2200-1900	Harappan 3C
1900-1300	Late Harappan (Cemetery H); Ochre Coloured Pottery	Localisation Era
1900-1700	Harappan 4
1700-1300	Harappan 5
1300-300	Painted Gray Ware, Northern Black Polished Ware (Iron Age)	Indo-Gangetic Tradition

Geography

ancient seacoast,for example, Balakot, and on islands, for example, Dholavira

The Indus Valley Civilization encompassed :

· most of Pakistan

· The geography of the Indus Valley put the civilizations that arose there in a highly similar situation to those in Egypt and Peru , with rich agricultural lands being surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean.

· Recently, Indus sites have been discovered in Pakistan's northwestern Frontier Province as well.

· An Indus Valley site has been found on theOxus River at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan, in the Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan.

· Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on the

·       According to some archaeologists, over 500 Harappan sites have been discovered along the dried up river beds of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries,

Background- Early Harappan

·       The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River , lasted from circa 3300 BCE until 2800 BCE.

·       It is related to the Hakra Phase, identified in the Ghaggar-Hakra River Valley to the west, and predates the Kot Diji  Phase (2800-2600 BCE, Harappan 2), named after a site in northernSindh, Pakistan , near Mohenjo Daro 

·       The earliest examples of theIndus script  date from around 3000 BCE.

·       Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli  and other materials for bead-making.

·       Villagers had, by this time, domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates and cottons , as well as various animals, including the water buffalo 

·       Early Harappan communities turned to large urban centres by 2600 BCE, from where the mature Harappan phase started.

Mature Harappan

• By 2600 BCE, the Early Harappan communities had been turned into large urban centres. Such urban centres include Harappa, Ganeriwala, Mohenjo-Daro in modern day Pakistan, and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Rupar, and Lothal in modern day India. In total, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Indus Rivers and their tributaries.

Nature and Service:

·       Hindus believe divinity in everyone. Hindu dharma preaches happiness to all beings and peace at various levels. Hindus practice coexistence with ecology.

·       Hindus are nature lovers and consider service to humanity is equivalent to service to God.

Cities

Computer-aided reconstruction of coastal Harappan settlement at Sokhta Koh near Pasni, Pakistan

·       A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley

·       Civilization making them the first urban centres in the region

·       . The quality of municipal  town planning suggests the knowledge of urban planning  and efficient municipal governments  which placed a high priority on hygiene , or, alternatively, accessibility to the means of religious ritual.

·       As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and the recently partially excavated Rakhigarhi , this urban plan included the world's first known urban sanitation  systems: see hydraulic engineering of the Indus Valley Civilization.

·       Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards  and smaller lanes. The house-building in some villages in the region still resembles in some respects the house-building of the Harappans.

·       The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage that were developed and used in cities throughout the Indus region were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban sites in the Middle East  and even more efficient than those in many areas of Pakistan and India today.

·       The advanced architecture of the Harappans is shown by their impressive dockyards, warehouses, brick platforms, and protective walls. The massive walls of Indus cities most likely protected the Harappans from floods and may have dissuaded military conflicts.

So-called "Priest King" statue, Mohenjo-Daro, late Mature Harappan period, National Museum, Karachi, Pakistan

·       Indus Civilization cities were remarkable for their apparent, if relative, egalitarianism. All the houses had access to water and drainage facilities. This gives the impression of a society with relatively low wealth concentration, though clear social levelling is seen in personal adornments.

Authority and governance

Archaeological records provide no immediate answers for a center of power or for depictions of people in power in Harappan society. But, there are indications of complex decisions being taken and implemented. For instance, the extraordinary uniformity of Harappan artifacts as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks. These are the major assumptions:

• There was a single state, given the similarity in artifacts, the evidence for planned settlements, the standardised ratio of brick size, and the establishment of settlements near sources of raw material.


• There was no single ruler but several: Mohenjo-daro had a separate ruler, Harappa another, and so forth.


• Harappan society had no rulers, and everybody enjoyed equal status.

Science

Indus Valley seals, British Museum

·       The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and time.

·       They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures.

·       A comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation across the Indus territories

·        Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by their hexahedron  weights.

Bead or weight, possibly phallic in form.

·       These Chert  weights were in a ratio of 5:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams, similar to the English imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were weighed in similar ratios with the units of 0.871.

·       Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead and tin . The engineering skill of the Harappans was remarkable, especially in building docks.

Arts and crafts

The "dancing girl of Mohenjo Daro"

·       Various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry, and anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta , bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites.

·       A number of gold, terra-cotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses reveal the presence of some dance  form. Also, these terra-cotta figurines included cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs. The animal depicted on a majority of seals at sites of the mature period has not been clearly identified. Part bull, part zebra, with a majestic horn, it has been a source of speculation. As yet, there is insufficient evidence to substantiate claims that the image had religious or cultic significance, but the prevalence of the image raises the question of whether or not the animals in images of the IVC are religious symbols.

Sir John Marshall is known to have reacted with surprise when he saw the famous Indus bronze statuette of a slender-limbed dancing girl in Mohenjo-Daro:

… When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed to completely upset all established ideas about early art, and culture. Modeling such as this was unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece, and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely have been made; that these figures had found their way into levels some 3000 years older than those to which they properly belonged. … Now, in these statuettes, it is just this anatomical truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in this all-important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off age on the banks of the Indus.

Many crafts:

·       "such as shell working, ceramics, and agate and glazed steatite bead making" were used in the making of necklaces, bangles, and other ornaments from all phases of Harappan sites and some of these crafts are still practised in the subcontinent today.

·        Some make-up and toiletry items (a special kind of combs (kakai), the use of collyrium and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget) that were found in Harappan contexts still have similar counterparts in modern India.

·       Seals have been found at Mohenjo-Daro   depicting a figure standing on its head, and another sitting cross-legged in what some call a yoga-like pose (see image, the so-called Pashupati, below).

·       This figure, sometimes known as a Pashupati, has been variously identified. Sir John Marshall identified a resemblance to the Hindu god, Shiva.^] If this can be validated, it would be evidence that some aspects of Hinduism predate the earliest texts, the Veda.

·       A harp-like instrument depicted on an Indus seal and two shell objects found at Lothal indicate the use of stringed musical instruments.

·       The Harappans also made various toys and games, among them cubical dice  (with one to six holes on the faces), which were found in sites like Mohenjo-Daro.

Trade and transportation

The docks of ancient Lothal as they are today

The Indus civilization's economy appears to have depended significantly on trade, which was facilitated by major advances in transport technology.

^·            The IVC may have been the first civililzation to use wheeled transport.

·       These advances may have included bullock carts  that are identical to those seen throughout South Asia today, as well as boats. Most of these boats were probably small, flat-bottomed craft, perhaps driven by sail, similar to those one can see on the Indus River today; however, there is secondary evidence of sea-going craft.

·       Archaeologists have discovered a massive, dredged canal and what they regard as a docking facility at the coastal city of Lothal in western India (Gujarat state). An extensive canal network, used for irrigation, has however also been discovered by H.-P. Francfort.

·       During 4300–3200 BCE of the chalcolithic  period (copper age), the Indus Valley Civilization area shows ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan  and northernIran  which suggest considerable mobility and trade.

·       Judging from the dispersal of Indus civilisation artifacts, the trade networks, economically, integrated a huge area, including portions of Afghanistan, the coastal regions of persia , northern and western India, and Mesopotamia .

·       There is some evidence that trade contacts extended to Crete and possibly to Egypt.

·       There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and Mesopotamian civilizations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with much commerce being handled by "middlemen merchants from Dilmun" (modern bahrain and Failaka  located in the Persian Gulf).Such long-distance sea trade became feasible with the innovative development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.

·       Several coastal settlements like Sotkagen-dor (astride Dasht River, north of Jiwani), Sokhta Koh (astride Shadi River, north of Pasni), and Balakot (near Sonmiani) in Pakistan along with Lothal in India testify to their role as Harappan trading outposts. Shallow harbors located at the estuaries of rivers opening into the sea allowed brisk maritime trade with Mesopotamian cities.

Writing system

·       Between 400 and as many as 600 distinct Indus symbols  have been found on seals, small tablets, ceramic pots and over a dozen other materials, including a "signboard" that apparently once hung over the gate of the inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira.

·       Typical Indus inscriptions are no more than four or five characters in length

·       Indus Valley Civilization is generally characterized as a literate society on the evidence of these inscriptions

In a 2009 study by P. N. Rao published in Science, computer scientists, comparing the pattern of symbols to various linguistic scripts and non-linguistic systems, including DNA and a computer programming language, found that the Indus script's pattern is closer to that of spoken words, supporting the hypothesis that it codes for an as-yet-unknown language.

Religion

The so-called Shiva Pashupati seal

 

·       The religion of Hinduism probably has its roots in the Indus Valley civilisation

Hindus and Indus people:

·       both worship a 'mother goddess' (her names include Parvati and Sakti), and both regard the cow as sacred.

·       Hindus and Indus people both bathe in the River for religious purposes and consider rivers holy.

·       Some Indus valley seals show swastikas, which are found in other religions (worldwide), especially in Indian religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

·        The earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism are alleged to have been present before and during the early Harappan period.

·       Swastika Seals from the Indus Valley Civilization preserved at the British Museum.

·   

    Many Indus valley seals show animals.

·       One motif shows a horned figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named by early excavators Pashupati (lord of cattle), an epithet of the later Hindu gods Shiva and Rudra.

·       There are no religious buildings or evidence of elaborate burials. If there were temples, they have not been identified.

·       In the earlier phases of their culture, the Harappans buried their dead; however, later, especially in the Cemetery H culture of the late Harrapan period, they also cremated their dead and buried the ashes in burial urns.

The collapse and Late Harappan

·       Around 1800 BCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BCE, most of the cities were abandoned.

·       In 1953, Sir Mortimer Wheeler proposed that the decline of the Indus Civilization was caused by the invasion of an Indo-European tribe from Central Asia called the "Aryans"

^·            Today, many scholars believe that the collapse of the Indus Civilization was caused by drought and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia.

·       It has also been suggested that immigration by new peoples, deforestation, floods, or changes in the course of the river may have contributed to the collapse of the IVC.

·       Previously, it was also believed that the decline of the Harappan civilization led to an interruption of urban life in the Indian subcontinent

·       However, the Indus Valley Civilization did not disappear suddenly, and many elements of the Indus Civilization can be found in later cultures.

^·            Current archaeological data suggest that material culture classified as Late Harappan may have persisted until at least c. 1000-900 BCE and was partially contemporaneous with the Painted Grey Ware culture.

·       Harvard archaeologist Richard Meadow points to the late Harappan settlement of Pirak, which thrived continuously from 1800 BCE to the time of the invasion of Alexander the Great in 325 BCE.