Ancient Indus Civilization Essays

20 essays by ancient Indus civilization archaeologists and scholars, from a comprehensive tour of Mohenjodaro, to recent discoveries in Gujarat, various interpretations of the Indus script and interviews with archaeologists and scholars.

A Brief Introduction to the Ancient Indus Civilization

The greater Indus region was home to the largest of the four ancient urban civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia and China. It was not discovered until the 1920's. Most of its ruins, even...

Introduction to Around the Indus in 90 Slides

The Indus Valley Civilization flourished in the vast river plains and adjacent regions in what are now Pakistan and western India. The earliest cities became integrated into an extensive urban...

Intro to Around the Indus in 90 Slides 2

Modern archaeological excavations at the ancient Indus city of Harappa in Punjab, Pakistan have been going on since 1986. They are being conducted by HARP, the Harappa Archaeological Research...

Introduction to Discovery at Harappa

In her article about the discovery of the Indus civilization Are archaeological discoveries like scientific discoveries? The curious case of the Indus civilization, Nayanjot Lahiri writes: "Unlike...

Mohenjo-daro An Ancient Indus Valley Metropolis

Mohenjo-daro is widely recognized as one of the most important early cities of South Asia and the Indus Civilization and yet most publications rarely provide more than a cursory overview of this...

Gola Dhoro (Bagasra)

This recently discovered site is offering many new facts about the ancient Indus civilization's growth and persistence in Gujarat. For more than seven hundred years during third and second millennia...

First Explorers: Charles Masson, 1829

Charles Masson was an deserter from the East India Company's Bengal Artillery. One day in 1827 he suddenly left his regiment at Agra with a fellow soldier. They headed west, towards the Indus River...

The Indus Script

Introduction Iravatham Mahadevan is a National Fellow of the Indian Council of Historical Research, and has been working on the Indus script for over 40 years. His publications include The Indus...

Recent Indus Discoveries and Highlights from Excavations at Harappa 1998-2000

The Harappa Archaeological Research Project's excavations at Harappa have yielded new troves of information about ancient Indus life, craft production, and preceding cultures like the Ravi Phase...

Early Developments of Art, Symbol, Technology in the Indus Valley Tradition

Archaeologists studying the emergence of early civilizations often focus on finely crafted art objects in order to understand aspects of economic, socio-political and religious organization. The...

The Rohri Flint Quarries

The largest archaeological site in the subcontinent goes back hundreds of thousands of years to some of the earliest uses of fire. William Blandford reported the presence of flint cores and flakes in...

The Archaeology of Southeastern Balochistan

An exciting look at the western side of the ancient Indus civilization, where new cultures and surprises await that indicate how well developed surrounding cultures to the major Indus areas were....

An Interview with Shereen Ratnagar

Dr. Shereen Ratnagar is one of India's most distinguished archaeologists and a longtime contributor to Harappa.com. She was interviewed by Omar Khan in Bombay on December 18, 2018 following a visit...

An Interview with Iravatham Mahadevan

A wide-ranging interview with Iravatham Mahadevan [1930-2018] home on January 17, 1998 with Omar Khan. The interview, held at Mr. Mahadevan's home in Chennai lasted nearly two hours and covered the...

An Interview with Ahmed Hasan Dani

An interview from January 6, 1998 with one of the subcontinent's most remarkable archaeologists covers his Indus excavations and objections to theories by good friends. An unusual perspective by the...

Beas Landscape and Settlement Survey

Aerial Map of Vainiwal Site 2015 Between 1992 and 1996 the Punjab Archaeological Survey (PAS), under the direction of the Government of Pakistan, Department of Archaeology, conducted a large-scale...

Archaeological Photography and the Creation of Histories in Colonial India

Archaeological and photographic representations are, even today, mostly perceived on very similar terms. Index 1. Introduction 2. Early Efforts 3. Visual Truths 4. Social Saliency 5. Archaeology...

A Unicorn Seal

This Indus Seal was found between 1927 and 1931 during the initial excavations at Mohenjo-daro, an Indus Valley site in Sindh province, modern Pakistan. It was discovered by the British...

TIFR Indus Script Research

In November 2007 scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), one of India's most prestiguous scientific institutions, began publishing a series of papers on their analysis of...

The Arrow Sign in the Indus Script

It was a warm and humid afternoon in August 1995. I was feeling tired and rather sleepy after a hard day's work in the library of the Directorate of Epigraphy at Mysore, where I was collecting...