The Indus Valley Civlilization
An overall summary of the Indus Valley Civilization and its development, culture, and decline.
Ancient Indus civilization articles which can be downloaded and read as PDF files from this site.
Recent Developments in the Study of the Indus Civilization
New studies are beginning to reveal details of the complexity and character of this protohistoric urban society that were not appreciated by earlier scholars.
Growing in a Foreign World: For a History of the "Meluha Villages" in Mesopotamia in the 3rd Millenium BCE
A fascinating article that gathers together all facts about Indus settlements and trading with ancient Mesopotamia around 2500 BCE.
Complementary Approaches to Late Harappan Subsistence: An Example from Oriyo Timbo
Understanding the interplay between subsistence systems and settlement patterns is crucial for interpretation of past economies and culture change. The Late Harappan (1900-1700 BCE) in Gujarat, India, witnessed a significant increase in the number of settlements in the arid regions.
Zahr-Muhra: Soapstone - Cutting in Contemporary Baluchistan and Sindh
This paper represents as introduction to the work of a contemporary soapstone-cutter living and working between Baluchistan and Sindh.
Statistical Analysis of the Indus Script Using n-Grams
Building on previous statistical approaches, the application of tools like n-gram Markov chains to analyze the syntax of the Indus script and form the basis for the development of a stochastic grammar to explore the syntax of the Indus script in greater detail.
First Evidence of Cotton at Neolithic Mehrgarh, Pakistan
Mehrgarh is the gift that keeps on giving to archaeologists, this time as the location with the oldest known cotton in the Indian subcontinent. Pushing back the origin of major crops, like rice recently, or silk previously, suggests that while some agricultural practices may have spread east to the Indus valley, others, like rice and perhaps cotton and crops that could rotate with other crops may have spread westwards from the Indus region.
The Indus Script and Economics. A Role for Indus Seals and Tablets in Rationing and Administration of Labor
An insightful article that focusses on the clues in a seal and set of sixteen tablets found together at Harappa in 1997 to proffer that they may have been economic tokens.
Oilseeds, spices, fruits and flavour in the Indus Civilisation
An excellent recent (2019) summary of what we know about ancient Indus foods that were, likely and speculatively, derived from plant resources, and what implications these diverse discoveries over the years have for our understanding of ancient Indus society.
Indus Administrative Technology - New Insights on Harappan Stamp Seals and their Impressions on Clay Tags
A richly illustrated slide journey through seals and sealings, how and why they were used in other ancient civilizations, and primarily what we might know and deduce about their use in ancient Indus cities. Dennys Frenez has been studying a large group of accidentally fired Lothal sealings for many years, and is joined by other distinguished archaeologists in what was originally a symposium on bead and seal technologies at the University of Padua, Italy, in 2019.