Ancient Indus Questions & Answers

Another answer to a question from you by our panel of leading Indus archaeologists.

And what exactly is steatite?

Dennys Frenez, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Nisha Yadav and Massimo Vidale respond.

Surely for a civilization to be so strong, it would need some sort of system of government. Yet I have heard very little evidence of a ruling party or even so much as a hierarchy or caste system within the civilization?

Massimo Vidale and Mark Kenoyer respond.

Massimo Vidale
Prof. J. M. Kenoyer, who has recently investigated the Granary at Harappa, is the best person to answer these questions. My impression is that the evidence for the "Granaries" identification is quite flimsy; the type of dig made in the past, simply, was not accurate enough for such an identification, and the various theories so far proposed are pure conjectures. One of these is that the large compartmented building of Harappa was a weaving plant; I like the idea, but at present it is just another guess.

Answered by Massimo Vidale, Mayank Vahia, Gwen Robbins Schug, Nisha Yadav, Paolo Biagi and Rita P. Wright

Randall Law

Gwen Robbins Schug, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer and Rita P. Wright answer.

Gwen Robbins Schug, Paolo Biagi, Rita P. Wright and Nisha Yadav answer.

Rita P. Wright and Massimo Vidale answer.

For arguments sake if we assume the people of IVC wrote manuscripts in such mediums as cotton, is it possible for those manuscripts to be still preserved? If so, under what conditions, would they be preserved?

How much of the area that we now see as desert was actually forested in those times?

Are there any structural remains in any of the Harappan sites to point to a marketplace or shop where goods were bought and sold? What do scholars have to say about the market system in those days, apart from the well-known theory of goods being stored in a storehouse and taken by boats for trade?

Asked by Biswajeet Rath

Paolo Biagi

Massimo Vidale
We have no evidence, but they certainly had, because complex culture needs to transmitted by specialized institutions. The "Assembly hall" on the Citadel of Mohenjo-Daro might have been something similar, if the excavators were right.

Jonathan Mark Kenoyer
So far we have not found any buildings that could be interpreted as institutions of education. Indus peoples undoubtedly had ways to teach their children, but they were probably done in small houses that do not look any different from other houses.

Asked by Jayanta Baksi, Lewes, UK

Jonathan Mark Kenoyer
The floods of 2010 in Pakistan did not impact the major Harappan sites since the Harappans tended to build their cities in areas that would not be flooded even with the most extreme floods. The site of Mohenjo-daro was protected by a massive embankment constructed by the Pakistan Government to protect the site from the river which was gradually eroding the edges of the settlement. In 2010 the floods came to the top of the embankment, but did not overflow into the areas of the site.

I was watching the 6 part BBC's 'Story of India' and had a thought about the abandonment of the Indus cities and migration eastward due to the failure of the monsoon. Could this failure of the monsoon be due to the eruption of the island of Theara north of Crete? The timing seems close. The ash cloud traversed Egypt, so it would have ended up in the Indian Ocean. Is there any evidence of ash deposits in the Indus river valley from the eruption? Is it possible the ash went too far south to show up and still affect the monsoon? Just curious if anyone has thought of this before.

Did the Indus valley civilization people cultivate paddy or wheat? Was their diet vegan or vegetarian? 3 scholars reply.

Answered by Mayank Vahia.

Answered by Massimo Vidale, Asko Parpola and Mayank Vahia.

The Babylonian texts like Code of Hammurabi in Akkadian and Sumerian seals of Urukagina state legal codes and regulations. Although the Indus script hasn't been deciphered, have any of the excavations resulted in similar seals which contain major textual references or is the Indus script just used as a tool for decoration?

Would it not be good idea to publish them so many people can see them and try their conclusions?

"There can be no doubt that some Indus seals are fine artistic achievements. Probably one of the main functions of the seal's iconographic motifs, and the quality of their carving, was to convey the status of the seal owner."

Some similarities have been found in the glyphs between Rongorongo and Indus writing. As well, the direction of writing (boustrophedon) might be the same/similar to Indus. What do scholars say?

Mayank Vahia
We do have some evidence of patterns that look like a board game but the evidence is sparse and we really have no good idea about what they played. We can only speculate based on locations that look like stadia, that may be they had races and other competitive games, but we have no clear idea.