BharatNotes Why this chapter matters for UPSC: The Harappan civilisation is one of the most asked topics in ancient history: town planning, crafts and raw materials, seals and the undeciphered script, trade with Mesopotamia, and the end of the cities. Mains has asked about Harappan urban planning, and Prelims about Harappan sites and finds. In the rationalised 2023-24 edition this is Chapter 3, with the same title; only the "Elsewhere" box on Egypt was dropped.
Contemporary hook: On 9 October 2024 the Union Cabinet approved the National Maritime Heritage Complex (NMHC) at Lothal, Gujarat, built by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and "envisioned to be one of the largest maritime complexes in the world" (PIB, 10-Oct-2024). The same backgrounder calls Lothal's basin "the world's oldest known artificial dock"; NCERT, more cautiously, says it "may have been a dockyard". Knowing both the official claim and the textbook's caution is exactly what a Mains answer needs.
🧠 First Principles — Read This First
The first cities of the subcontinent are called Harappan, after the first site to be found. Nearly 150 years ago, railway engineers in the Punjab carried away bricks from the mound at Harappa (now in Pakistan) to lay railway lines, destroying many buildings. About 80 years before NCERT's 2018-19 printing, archaeologists recognised the site as one of the oldest cities in the subcontinent. NCERT Class VI says these cities developed about 4,700 years ago.
What made them special was planning. Many cities had two or more parts: a smaller, higher western part (the citadel) and a larger, lower eastern part (the lower town). Walls of baked brick, laid in an interlocking pattern, surrounded each part. Houses, drains and streets were probably planned and built at the same time.
A city needs many kinds of people. Rulers planned special buildings and sent people to distant lands for metal and precious stones; scribes helped prepare seals; crafts persons worked at home or in workshops; and farmers and herders in the countryside fed them all.
Why UPSC cares: town planning, crafts, trade and decline are the four standard Harappan questions, and Prelims tests which feature belongs to which site.
PART 1 — Quick Reference
Harappan Civilisation — Key Facts
| Feature | Detail | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Names | Harappan civilisation, also Indus Valley civilisation | NCERT XII |
| Phases | Early Harappan 6000–2600 BCE; Mature Harappan 2600–1900 BCE; Late Harappan 1900–1300 BCE | NCERT XII |
| Cities in Class VI | "developed about 4700 years ago" | NCERT VI |
| Five major cities | Rakhigarhi, Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Dholavira, Ganweriwala | NCERT XII |
| Biggest city | Rakhigarhi (Hisar district, Haryana), about 550 hectares; Mohenjodaro about 125 hectares | NCERT XII |
| Script | About 375–400 signs; written right to left; most inscriptions short, the longest about 26 signs; undeciphered | NCERT XII |
| Bricks | Standard ratio: length and breadth four times and twice the height | NCERT XII |
| Weights | Usually of chert, cubical, unmarked; lower weights binary (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32), higher ones decimal | NCERT XII |
| End | Change began about 3,900 years ago; by c. 1800 BCE most Mature sites in regions such as Cholistan were abandoned | NCERT VI, XII |
Major Sites
| Site | Present location | What it is known for |
|---|---|---|
| Mohenjodaro | Sindh, Pakistan | Great Bath and warehouse on the citadel; garbage on the streets and broken drains at the end |
| Harappa | Punjab, Pakistan | The first site found; gave the civilisation its name |
| Dholavira | Khadir Beyt, Rann of Kutch, Gujarat | Three parts, each with massive stone walls; a large open ceremonial area; large script signs; UNESCO World Heritage Site (2021) |
| Lothal | Beside a tributary of the Sabarmati, near the Gulf of Khambhat, Gujarat | Stone, shell and metal workshops; a bead workshop; a storehouse full of seals and sealings; a basin that may have been a dockyard |
| Kalibangan | Rajasthan | Fire altars; a ploughed field from Early Harappan levels (NCERT XII) |
| Rakhigarhi | Hisar, Haryana | Biggest Harappan city (550 ha); ancient-DNA study (2019) |
| Chanhudaro | Sindh, Pakistan | A tiny settlement (under 7 ha) almost wholly given to crafts: beads, shell, metal, seals, weights |
| Banawali | Haryana | Terracotta plough models (NCERT XII) |
| Shortughai | Afghanistan | Harappan site near the best source of lapis lazuli; traces of canals |
Discovery Timeline (NCERT XII)
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1875 | Alexander Cunningham reports a Harappan seal |
| 1921 | Daya Ram Sahni begins excavations at Harappa |
| 1922 | Excavations begin at Mohenjodaro, where Rakhal Das Banerji found similar seals |
| 1924 | John Marshall, Director-General of the ASI, announces a new civilisation in the Indus valley |
| 1946 | R.E.M. Wheeler excavates at Harappa |
| 1955 | S.R. Rao begins excavations at Lothal |
| 1960 | B.B. Lal and B.K. Thapar begin excavations at Kalibangan |
| 1990 | R.S. Bisht begins excavations at Dholavira |
| 1997 | Amrendra Nath starts excavations at Rakhigarhi |
| 2013 | Vasant Shinde begins archaeogenetic research at Rakhigarhi |
PART 2 — Concepts & Narrative
The Planned City
Citadel and lower town: usually a smaller, higher western part and a larger, lower eastern part, each often walled with well-baked bricks laid in an interlocking pattern.
Streets and drains: NCERT Class XII says roads and streets in Mohenjodaro's Lower Town were laid out along an approximate "grid" pattern, intersecting at right angles, and that streets with drains seem to have been laid out first, with houses built along them. Drains were covered, laid in straight lines with a gentle slope; house drains joined street drains, smaller drains led into bigger ones, and inspection holes allowed cleaning.
Houses: one or two storeys, rooms around a courtyard. Most houses had a separate bathing area, and some had wells.
Special buildings: the Great Bath at Mohenjodaro; fire altars at Kalibangan and Lothal, where sacrifices may have been performed; elaborate store houses at Mohenjodaro, Harappa and Lothal.
The Great Bath (Mohenjodaro): A large rectangular tank in a courtyard. NCERT VI: lined with bricks, coated with plaster and made water-tight with a layer of natural tar; steps down from two sides; rooms around it; water probably brought from a well and drained after use; perhaps important people took a dip on special occasions. NCERT XII adds: steps on the north and south, made watertight by setting bricks on edge with a mortar of gypsum, rooms on three sides (one with a large well), and a smaller building nearby with eight bathrooms. Its use is not known; NCERT XII notes that ritual significance has been "assigned" to it.
Life, Crafts and Specialists
Most objects found are of stone, shell and metal (copper, bronze, gold, silver). Copper and bronze made tools, weapons, ornaments and vessels; gold and silver made ornaments and vessels. The most striking finds are:
- Beads, many of carnelian, a red stone that was cut, shaped, polished and bored through;
- Weights of chert, carefully and precisely shaped, probably to weigh precious stones or metals;
- Long stone blades;
- Seals, generally rectangular stone with an animal carved on them;
- Pots with black designs on red.
Faience: an artificial material. A gum was used to shape sand or powdered quartz, which was then glazed to a shiny, glassy surface, usually blue or sea green. Used for beads, bangles, earrings and tiny vessels.
Specialist: a person trained to do one kind of work, such as cutting stone, polishing beads or carving seals. NCERT notes that we do not know whether specialists were men, women or both.
Cloth: cotton was probably grown at Mehrgarh from about 7,000 years ago. Actual pieces of cloth were found attached to the lid of a silver vase and some copper objects at Mohenjodaro, and spindle whorls of terracotta and faience show that thread was spun.
Raw Materials and Trade
| Raw material | Where the Harappans probably got it (NCERT VI) |
|---|---|
| Copper | Present-day Rajasthan; Oman in West Asia |
| Tin (mixed with copper to make bronze) | Present-day Afghanistan and Iran |
| Gold | Present-day Karnataka |
| Precious stones | Present-day Gujarat, Iran and Afghanistan |
Meluhha: Mesopotamian texts datable to the third millennium BCE mention contact with Dilmun (probably Bahrain), Magan (perhaps Oman, the source of copper) and Meluhha, possibly the Harappan region. The products they list from Meluhha are carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, gold and varieties of wood. A Mesopotamian myth speaks of Meluhha's "haja-bird", which some archaeologists think was the peacock (NCERT XII). Communication with Oman, Bahrain and Mesopotamia was probably by sea.
Food for the Cities
Farmers and herders in the countryside fed the cities. Plant remains show wheat, barley, pulses, peas, rice, sesame, linseed and mustard. A new tool, the plough, was used; real wooden ploughs have not survived, but toy models have. Because the region gets little rain, some form of irrigation may have been used (NCERT XII: traces of canals at Shortughai, though not in Punjab or Sind). People reared cattle, sheep, goat and buffalo, took large herds far in the dry summer, collected fruits like ber, caught fish and hunted wild animals like the antelope.
A Closer Look: Harappan Towns in Gujarat
- Dholavira stood on Khadir Beyt in the Rann of Kutch, where there was fresh water and fertile soil. Unlike cities divided into two parts, it was divided into three, each surrounded by massive stone walls with gateways. It had a large open area for public ceremonies. Large letters of the script, carved out of white stone and perhaps inlaid in wood, were found there; NCERT calls this a unique find, since writing usually appears on small objects such as seals.
- Lothal stood beside a tributary of the Sabarmati, close to the Gulf of Khambhat, near sources of semi-precious stones. It was a centre for objects of stone, shell and metal. Its storehouse held many seals and sealings, and one building was probably a bead workshop (stone pieces, half-made beads, tools and finished beads were all found). A huge tank there "may have been a dockyard", where boats came in from the sea and through the river channel.
Seals, Sealings and the Script
Seal and sealing: Seals may have been used to stamp bags or packets of goods. After a bag was tied, wet clay was put on the knot and the seal pressed into it; the impression is a sealing. An unbroken sealing showed the goods had arrived safely.
The signs on seals are part of a script, "the earliest form of writing known in the subcontinent", but scholars still do not know what they mean (NCERT VI). NCERT XII explains why the script is hard: it has too many signs (375–400) to be alphabetic, most inscriptions are short, and the language it records is unknown.
Religion: What We Can and Cannot Say
NCERT XII is cautious. Terracotta figurines of heavily jewelled women have been regarded as mother goddesses; seals with plant motifs are thought to show nature worship; the Great Bath and fire altars have been "assigned" ritual significance. A seated cross-legged figure, sometimes with animals, has been called "proto-Shiva", but NCERT XII points out that the Rigveda's Rudra is described neither as Pashupati nor as a yogi, so the identification is uncertain; some scholars suggest a shaman. Reconstructions that read later traditions back into the past are "more speculative" for religious symbols than for querns and pots.
The Mystery of the End
What changed (about 3,900 years ago, NCERT VI): people stopped living in many cities; writing, seals and weights went out of use; long-distance raw materials became rare; in Mohenjodaro garbage piled up on the streets, the drains broke down and poorer houses were built, even over streets.
Why? NCERT VI: "We are not sure." Some scholars suggest rivers dried up; others suggest deforestation (fuel for baking bricks and smelting copper, and grazing by large herds); some areas flooded. But none of these reasons can explain the end of all the cities, since floods or a river drying up would affect only some areas. It appears the rulers lost control. Sites in Sind and west Punjab were abandoned, and many people moved to newer, smaller settlements to the east and south.
NCERT XII adds: by c. 1800 BCE most Mature Harappan sites in regions such as Cholistan were abandoned, while new settlements grew in Gujarat, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh. Wheeler (1947) linked skeletons at Mohenjodaro to an Aryan invasion; G.F. Dales (1964) showed that those skeletons did not belong to one period, which undermined the "massacre" reading.
New cities emerged about 1,400 years later (NCERT VI); they are the subject of the chapters on the mahajanapadas and on villages and towns.
PART 3 — UPSC Integration
What Town Planning Suggests About Power
| Evidence | Inference historians draw |
|---|---|
| Standard brick ratio at all settlements | Some form of shared standard or authority |
| Streets with drains laid out first, houses later (NCERT XII) | Planning before building |
| Uniform weights, seals, special beads across sites | Regulated exchange over a large area |
| Citadel with special buildings | A group able to command labour; who ruled is unknown |
NCERT VI calls the planners "probably the rulers"; NCERT XII discusses several views on who held power, from a single state to several or none, and leaves the question open. Do the same in an answer.
The Rakhigarhi Genome (2019)
Shinde et al., Cell 179 (2019), tried to extract DNA from 61 individuals at Rakhigarhi; only one yielded enough authentic DNA. That individual's ancestry is a mixture of people related to ancient Iranians (the largest component) and South-East Asian hunter-gatherers, with no detectable ancestry from steppe pastoralists, as the paper's title says. NCERT Class XII summarises the study and draws wider conclusions (that the Harappans were indigenous and that there was no large-scale immigration of "the so-called Aryans"). In an answer, give the finding with its sample size, then the interpretation, and name whose interpretation it is.
Harappa and Its Contemporaries
NCERT XII describes the Harappan civilisation as contemporary with Mesopotamia, with which it traded through Dilmun and Magan. Comparisons of "who was first" or "who was biggest" between Bronze Age civilisations depend on definitions and estimates that NCERT does not give; avoid them in answers.
[Additional] 4a. Dholavira: A Harappan City (UNESCO, 2021)
| Term | Detail |
|---|---|
| UNESCO listing | "Dholavira: a Harappan City", World Heritage property 1645, inscribed 2021, criteria (iii) and (iv); occupied "between ca. 3000–1500 BCE" (UNESCO) |
| Size | Nominated property 103 ha; the sixth largest of more than 1,000 Harappan sites (ICOMOS evaluation) |
| Plan | Fortified city in three parts with massive stone walls (NCERT VI) |
| Water | "A series of reservoirs" (UNESCO) to collect water in an arid setting |
| Signboard | 10 large signs (ICOMOS: gypsum; NCERT VI: white stone, perhaps inlaid in wood) near a gateway; script undeciphered |
| Excavator | R.S. Bisht, from 1990 (NCERT XII) |
Prelims traps: the large signboard is at Dholavira, not Mohenjodaro; Dholavira was excavated by R.S. Bisht, Lothal by S.R. Rao; a signboard of 10 large signs is not the longest inscription (NCERT XII: the longest has about 26 signs). Lothal's port-town remains are on India's UNESCO Tentative List (2014), not the World Heritage List.
[Additional] 4b. National Maritime Heritage Complex, Lothal
| Item | Detail (PIB backgrounder, 10-Oct-2024, unless stated) |
|---|---|
| Approved | Union Cabinet, 9 October 2024; foundation stone laid March 2019 |
| Ministry | Ports, Shipping and Waterways (not Culture) |
| Description | "Envisioned to be one of the largest maritime complexes in the world"; to show India's maritime heritage "over 4,500 years" |
| Phase 1A | Rs 1,238.05 crore; "over 60%" complete in October 2024, completion then "slated for 2025" |
| Lighthouse Museum | Rs 266.11 crore, by the Directorate General of Lighthouses and Lightships |
| Jobs | Over 22,000 (PIB headline) |
| Latest status | A governing-council review in September 2026 was reported (trade press, 12-Sep-2026) to put Phase 1A at about 82%, with a revised target of 31 October 2026; no PIB release on it was found |
Why it matters for Mains: heritage-led tourism and soft power (GS1/GS3), and the gap between official description ("oldest known artificial dock") and archaeological caution ("may have been a dockyard"). A 2024 remote-sensing study (Gupta, Prabhakar and Jain, Journal of Archaeological Science, vol. 170) placed Lothal on an old course of the Sabarmati and on routes to the sea, which supports a port role without settling the debate about the basin itself.
Exam Strategy
Prelims traps:
- Biggest Harappan city: Rakhigarhi (Haryana, 550 ha), per NCERT XII; Mohenjodaro is about 125 ha.
- Great Bath: Mohenjodaro. Fire altars: Kalibangan and Lothal. Store houses: Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Lothal.
- Ploughed field: Kalibangan (Early Harappan levels). Plough models: Banawali and Cholistan sites.
- Script: right to left; about 375–400 signs; undeciphered.
- Discovery: Sahni at Harappa (1921); Mohenjodaro excavations from 1922 (R.D. Banerji's seals); Marshall announced the civilisation in 1924.
- Raw materials: copper from Rajasthan and Oman, tin from Afghanistan and Iran, gold from Karnataka.
Mains frameworks:
- Town planning → what it suggests about authority (and what it does not prove).
- Decline → several regional causes, none explaining all cities (NCERT VI); abandonment and movement east and south (NCERT XII); Wheeler vs Dales.
- Trade → raw-material sources + Meluhha texts + seals and sealings + Lothal.
Practice Questions
Practice (UPSC-pattern, not past papers). Real UPSC questions on this chapter are listed in the PYQ box above.
Prelims:
The Great Bath of the Harappan civilisation was found at:
(a) Harappa
(b) Lothal
(c) Mohenjodaro
(d) KalibanganAccording to NCERT, which of the following is the biggest Harappan city?
(a) Mohenjodaro
(b) Harappa
(c) Rakhigarhi
(d) DholaviraWhich one of the following features is associated with Dholavira rather than with Lothal?
(a) A bead-making workshop
(b) A basin that may have been a dockyard
(c) A city divided into three parts with massive stone walls
(d) A storehouse with many seals and sealingsWhich of the following was NOT, according to NCERT, a source of raw material for the Harappans?
(a) Oman, for copper
(b) Afghanistan, for tin
(c) Karnataka, for gold
(d) Sri Lanka, for iron
Mains:
Discuss the features of town planning in the Harappan civilisation. What do they tell us, and what do they not tell us, about how these cities were governed? (GS1, 10 marks)
"No single explanation accounts for the end of the Harappan cities." Discuss. (GS1, 10 marks)
📦 Revision Capsule
Hard Facts
- Cities developed about 4,700 years ago (NCERT VI); Mature Harappan 2600–1900 BCE (NCERT XII)
- Citadel (west, higher) + lower town (east, larger); baked bricks; covered drains; most houses had a bathing area
- Great Bath (Mohenjodaro); fire altars (Kalibangan, Lothal); store houses (Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Lothal)
- Carnelian beads, chert weights, stone blades, seals; faience; cloth at Mohenjodaro
- Copper: Rajasthan, Oman; tin: Afghanistan, Iran; gold: Karnataka; stones: Gujarat, Iran, Afghanistan
- Dholavira (three parts, stone walls, large signs); Lothal (bead workshop, storehouse, possible dockyard)
- End began about 3,900 years ago; no single cause
Core Concepts
- Planning before building
- Specialists and long-distance raw materials
- Seals and sealings as trade security
- Caution about religion and decline
Confused Pairs
- Sahni (Harappa, 1921) vs Banerji (Mohenjodaro seals) vs Marshall (announced 1924)
- Bisht (Dholavira) vs Rao (Lothal)
- Rakhigarhi (biggest, 550 ha) vs Mohenjodaro (125 ha)
- Seal (the object) vs sealing (its impression in clay)
PYQ Pattern
- Mains GS1 2014 asked about Harappan urban planning; Prelims 2026 asked about Harappan finds (see the PYQ box).
Sources
Sources
- NCERT, Our Pasts – I (Class VI), ch. 4, 2018-19 reprint: 2019 copy; Rationalised 2023-24 edition, ch. 3: 2023-24 copy.
- NCERT, Themes in Indian History, Part I (Class XII), ch. 1 "Bricks, Beads and Bones", Reprint 2026-27: book archive.
- UNESCO World Heritage Centre, "Dholavira: a Harappan City" (property 1645): whc.unesco.org; ICOMOS evaluation: whc.unesco.org/document/189324.
- V. Shinde et al., "An Ancient Harappan Genome Lacks Ancestry from Steppe Pastoralists or Iranian Farmers", Cell 179(3) (2019), 729–735: PMC6800651.
- PIB backgrounder, "Cabinet Greenlights National Maritime Heritage Complex at Lothal", Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways, 10-Oct-2024: static.pib.gov.in.
- Maritime Gateway, "Lothal maritime heritage project 82% complete", 12-Sep-2026 (trade press): maritimegateway.com.
- E. Gupta, V.N. Prabhakar and V. Jain, "Sabarmati and its connection with the Harappan port Lothal and the Nal corridor", Journal of Archaeological Science 170 (2024), 106046.
