CRADLE OF INDIAN CULTURE 

India has made a major contribution to world history in the form of the Indus valley
Civilization. This civilization originated in the fertile plains of the Indus River (also
Sindhu), in the third and fourth millennium BC. The Indus Valley Civilization, or the
Harappan Culture, was the contemporary of the ancient civilizations of Egypt and
Mesopotamia, and is acknowledged the third major civilization in the history of
humankind. Archaeological excavations have revealed that the people of this culture
enjoyed a life of luxury and refinement, with a highly evolved civic system and
prosperous trade links. 

CITIES
Harappa and Mohenjodaro (present-day Pakistan), the two cities excavated first,
appear to have functioned as twin capitals of this civilization. Later excavations
revealed smaller cities such as Kot Diji in Sindh, Kalibangan in Rajasthan, Ropar in
Punjab, and Lothal in Gujarat. Harappa and Mohenjodaro show a surprising similarity
despite being 350 miles apart. Both cities consist of an acropolis and a lower city, each
fortified separately. The acropolis contains large assembly halls, granaries, and edifices
for religious purposes. It was thus the administrative and religious nerve center of the
cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Some of the cities had large public baths built on
highly scientific lines. These baths were generally used for religious bathing. 

The lower cities are divided into rectangles by broad streets. All the houses were
connected directly to the well-planned drainage system of covered drains and soak pits.
The grid layout of the cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, along with their advanced
drainage system, has made them the first truly planned cities in the world. Each house
had a courtyard, private wells, and bathrooms and was built with well-baked
standardized bricks.

MATERIAL DEVELOPMENT
People of the Harappan Culture appear to have known the use of the potter's wheel.
Archaeological excavations in the various cities have revealed a hoard of pottery and potshards,
which are decorated with geometric patterns. These items reflect the aesthetic sense of this
ancient culture. These people were fond of ornamentation as proved by a large number of
necklaces, anklets, rings, earrings, amulets, beads, and nose studs that have been recovered
from various sites. The artisans of the Indus Valley Civilization made exquisite jewelry, using a
variety of material like gold, silver, copper, stone, and bone. 

The most mystifying find from the Harappan Culture sites is the large number of well-carved
seals made of steatite. The seals bear representation of animals, figures, and symbols of the
religious life of the people accompanied by a pictorial script that has yet to be deciphered. One
particular seal bears an image of a male god who has been identified as the prototype of God
Shiva, as shown seated in a yogic posture surrounded by animals. The seals may have been
used for trade as some seals have been found in numerous Mesopotamian sites. 

The people of the Harappan culture appear to have used both cotton and woolen textiles. A
number of small figurines excavated from various sites show that they are clad in some sort of
garment. Skeletal remains from the different sites prove that animals like the buffalo, sheep,
elephant, bull, and camel were domesticated. People had the time and leisure to pursue fine
arts-the excellent carvings on the seals and some exquisite stone sculptures from Harappa
show the high degree of development. Of great importance is the copper figurine of the Dancing
Girl. This figurine not only shows the expertise in metalworking of the Harappan people but also
reflects the repertoire of the ornaments bedecking this figurine. Small toys like carts harnessed
with oxen are testimony to the expertise of the artisans. 

DECLINE
The Harappan culture declined suddenly between 1800-1700 BC and its end is as puzzling as
its beginning. How and why did this first great empire of South Asia decay into oblivion? One
cannot say with certainty whether massacres by marauders or the inbuilt decay that had set in
caused the decline of this powerful civilization. Another school of thought relates the demise of
the Indus valley civilization to have been brought about by a major tectonic shift that caused
continuous floods of this area. 

Research has proved that the decline of the glorious Harappan culture was due to a variety of
factors, both manmade and natural. In the beginning of the second millennium BC, there were
great changes in the environmental conditions-the climate changed and large parts of the
plains were flooded when tectonic changes threw up a dam in the lower Indus Valley. There
were also other socio-economic factors that contributed to the decline. Agricultural production
declined with the changes in the climate and the big cities could no longer sustain themselves.
People from the major centers perhaps left for the smaller outposts and slowly riveted back to
village life when they could no longer maintain the prerequisites of an urban existence.

IMPORTANCE
Even today, excavations at Harappa throw up new facts, not just about the great civilization but
also about mankind's evolution. The people of the Indus Valley Civilization are a link to the
past, a window into the life and history of our ancestors. Without doubt, the people of the
Harappan Culture led a life of sophistication. "The land where the first civilized man trod on
earth"-this is how the great poet laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore has described the fertile plains
of Punjab, the breeding grounds of this great civilization. 
 Contributions of
Mesopotamia
Artifact - An artifact is a product of a particular
time and place, more than that it represents the
IDEAS and TECHNOLOGY of a particular
civilization.

 When does an artifact become art? -

o Art engages us emotionally or
intellectually
o A piece of art should MOVE us, Tolstoy said it should
INFECT us

Many examples of artifacts are not what we'd call art in our society...
yet when we look at these artifacts they make us think...and
wonder...about the culture that produced it. Sometimes a work of ART
pushes us to think about science or technology.

Sumerian Accomplishments
 We know from relieve sculptures dating to
850 BC that the Sumerians were capable of
using the wheel. This sets them apart, as
perhaps the first culture to fuse art and
technology.
 The Sumerians employed a system of counting that is based on
60, and a circle of 360 degrees-this system was used to measure
time. It was a basis for calculating like our decimal system--it
allowed for multiplication tables, square roots, cubes.
 The need for mass production of pottery led to the invention of
the POTTER'S wheel.
 At the same time, Sumerian technology had accomplished the
casting and invention of glass.
So-without this ancient TECHNOLOGY back in 2500 BC, the STUNNING
arts of Sumer wouldn't have been.

MESOPOTAMIA - This region is known as the Fertile Crescent or land

between the rivers-the Tigris and Euphrates. The name Mesopotamia
comes from ancient Greek words meaning "between rivers"--which
exactly describes its situation. This land is shared today by Syria and
Iraq.

 This region had two

landscapes-the Northern Zone
was mountainous. The foothills
of these mountains blended
into a low, very flat plain
crossed by the Tigris (east)
and the Euphrates (west). If
you follow these rivers from
their origins in the mountains, they flow southward for 500 miles
and pour into the Persian Gulf.
 The Southern 2/3 of this area was mainly desert, except along
the banks of these two rivers. It wasn't just an issue of rain. The
topsoil along the banks was deep and rich from the flooding. It is
a good possibility that this fertile land between 2 rivers may have
been originally identified with paradise.

The people in the Mesopotamia region led us toward

civilization. The earliest men were hunters and
gatherers-NOMADS. The FIRST REVOLUTION was in
6000 BC when the hunters and gatherers in this region
became FARMERS. It was in this region that people
began to produce barley and wheat in a systematic way-
and here that the domestication of animals such as
sheep, cattle, and goats began. When the
Mesopotamians became producers instead of gatherers,
everything changed. The people didn't have to follow
the availability of wild berries and grains....they didn't
have to keep up with herds of wild animals so they began to build
houses. These houses also gave them protection from hostile tribes.
  They began to harness the two rivers-the Tigris and the
Euphrates
 The Mesopotamians realized that if they could provide more
water for the crops they could produce more grain-they
IRRIGATED. The first attempts at irrigation were crude: a person
carried a vessel of water and sloshed it on their plot of ground.
As they produced more grain, fewer people had to work in the
fields, so they could branch out. Some people dug trenches
through the levees that bordered the river to help create a
reservoir. Then they became more specialized -they created
dams and irrigation ditches, and canals to channel water to the
fields.
 Specialists were everywhere-they were measuring and
calculating, mapping and surveying. There was a need for tools,
so that created more jobs, and stimulated trade in far-off regions.
Of course they needed a CALENDAR so they could figure out
when to plant their crops, etc.
 The WHEEL was probably invented first as a pottery tool, and
then somebody got the idea to turn it on its side and things
haven't been the same since.

If people were going to stay in one place they had to have a permanent
shelter and the terrain provided the structure:

 alluvial mud-river sediment

 bitumen-a natural asphalt found in surface beds in Mesopotamia.

So the natural resources DECIDED FOR the people of Mesopotamia

how they'd build their HOUSES.

 The earliest houses were round huts sunk into the

ground. First they were places of shelter.
 Houses had an ENTRANCE, MUDWALL, and
HEARTH.
 These shelters also played a central role in the spiritual life of
the community.
 The people from Mesopotamia built houses out of tall reeds
staked in the ground in two parallel rows, the tops were tied
 together and covered with matting. The MARSH house is still
constructed in Mesopotamia.
 MUDHIF house-Guest house. In a Mesopotamian legend, human
beings were so noisy that they kept the Gods AWAKE. One of the
gods said, "Tear down your REEDHOUSE AND BUILD A boat." The
man who built a boat was able to escape the FLOOD, which
destroyed mankind. Not NOAH but UTNAPISTIM.

Here are some TOOLS that date to this time...

 Mortar and Pestle-for grinding food.

 Sickle with flint blades for cutting seeds--the blades were glued
into the wooden handle using bitumen.

This FERTILE CRESCENT gave a reason to be organized and

specialized, and it give the people enough FOOD so that they could
INVENT and CREATE HOMES. It also gave the people a REASON to be
in one place.

Cultures and civilization

In the beginning was the Word. Then came fire and water. Then came tin and bronze. Then the simple ox
and plough. And then culture appeared.

Your first thought may be of the most ancient forms of cultural expression, primitive cave paintings, the
svirel or cuneiform, but there is a form of culture which goes back even further. The word culture comes
from the Latin word colo and has a number of different meanings. In the first place, culture has the
meaning of cultivating plants, the ways of caring for the soil, seeding, looking after plants. That's why we
speak of cultivated plants, that is those plants that grow because of human endeavor. The second meaning
of the word is the human capacity to classify, codify and communicate their experiences materially and
symbolically. The two together equals civilization.

When did culture begin? Man began to study plants and use them for his own needs during the Neolithic
period but the cultivation of plants only goes back to seven or eight thousand years BC, when ancient
civilizations began to cultivate plants in different parts of the world. For this to take place, an area and the
people needed certain attributes. The area had to have a suitable terrain and climate and the people needed
to already have started on the road to civilization and to have the beginnings of an agriculture culture.

One of Russia's top biologists Nikolai Vavilov singled out seven geographical areas where plants were
cultivated.

The South Asian tropical area, where ancient Indian and ancient Chinese cultures gave the world 33 per
cent of the world's cultivated plants including rice and sugar cane.

The East Asian area, where ancient Chinese culture gave birth to tea, soya and millet.

The South West Asian area, which relates to the ancient cultures of Iran, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine,
has provided Europe with most of its contemporary plant products - bread cereals, pulses, fruit crops and
grapes.

The Mediterranean area, which includes the ancient cultures of the Etruscans, the Hellenes and Ancient
Egypt, cultivated asparagus, the olive, the cabbage, the onion and the carrot.

Abyssinian culture, which is as old as Ancient Egyptian culture and perhaps older, was the birth place of
coffee, the banana and different types of wheat and barley.
The Central American area is linked with the Mayans who made great advances in science and art many
centuries before the arrival of Christopher Columbus. This area provided more than 90 types of plants,
including many medicinal and industrial plants, such as corn, cocoa, many types of beans, pumpkin and
many different types of fruit.

Finally there is the Andes area, linked to the Inca and pre-Inca civilizations where the tomato and the
potato were first cultivated.
When looking at different types of plants and the cultures they came from, it is not enough to look at the
subject from an agricultural point of view. Each of these plants had a major social and intellectual impact
on the way of life in each of these cultures. Many of the plants appeared in the different religions of these
cultures. Plants were sacrificed for their gods and became an integral part of their rituals, not forgetting
that the life of most of these people was suborned to the agricultural cycle. Remember what the corn
meant for the Mayas and Incas and what rice means for the Chinese. Man has showed his devotion to
different plants in art since ancient times.

However the most important contribution of agricultural cultures is how it helped to bring about a
dialogue of civilizations. This dialogue began with the first caravan of rice that headed out on its journey
across mountains and deserts or when the first boat loaded with potatoes sailed into a Spanish port. That
is how, step-by-step, over the centuries, the achievements of different civilizations became known all over
the world. Can modern man imagine life without such a dialogue of civilizations?
In this Calendar, you can read about twelve of the most important cultivated plants, plants which different
civilizations created and then were used to start dialogues with others, and which today are known and
valued all over the world.