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The history of India is one of profound and continuous change. It has been shaped by the dynamics of migration, conflict, mixing, coexistence and cooperation. In this ten-part web series, Namit Arora tells the story of Indians and our civilization by exploring some of our greatest historical sites, most of which have been lost to memory and have been excavated by archaeologists. It will also focus on ancient and medieval foreign travelers whose idiosyncratic tales hide surprising insights about us Indians. Throughout, Arora examines India's long and fascinating whirlwind of ideas, beliefs, and cultural values, some that still shape us today, and others that have been lost forever. The series primarily reflects – and often expands on – the content of his book, Indians: A Brief History of a Civilization. The bibliography appears below.
Episode 1: The Harappans
The ruins of the Harappan Civilization (aka Indus Valley) were discovered just a hundred years ago. And what a discovery it was! This greatly expanded India's civilizational past. The Harappans built the Indian subcontinent's first cities and a material culture that included advanced urban design, city-wide sanitation, and the world's first indoor toilets. In this episode, Namit Arora explores its mature period, between 2600 and 1900 BCE, at sites in western India and Pakistan. He compares it with other Bronze Age civilizations, in Mesopotamia and Egypt, and considers what sets the Harappans apart from others, such as a much flatter social class hierarchy and the absence of clear evidence of temples, of priests, great statues, palaces, weapons of war, or standing armies.
It examines Harappan lifestyles and the stories that emerge from surviving artifacts: pottery, seals, figurines, toys, jewelry, modes of dress, social organization, dietary standards and discusses their metallurgy, tools, textiles, vessels, trade and burial customs . Their monumental work was the city itself, an engineering marvel. In the excavated city of Dholavira in Gujarat, the narrator walks through its streets and houses arranged on a grid-like plan and examines their achievements in water collection, storage and drainage systems, as well as this which could be the first stadium in the country. the world! Arora also examines the languages the Harappans likely spoke, their undeciphered script, theories about their disappearance, and how their legacy still shapes us today.
PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY / FURTHER READING
Abraham S., et al (editors), Connections and Complexity, New Approaches to the Archeology of South Asia, Left Coast Press, 2012
Bisht, RS, Excavations at Dholavira 1989-2005, ASI, 2015
Bisht, RS, “How Harappans Honored Death at Dholavira”, Proceedings of the Conference Held at LMU, LA, USA, 2011
Farmer, Steve et al, The collapse of the Indus-Script thesis: the myth of a literate Harappan civilization, Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS), Vol. 11, issue 2, 2004
Green, AS Killing the Priest-King: Addressing Egalitarianism in the Indus Civilization, J Archaeol Res 29, 153-202 (2021)
Green, AS, Why are archaeologists unable to find evidence of an Indus Civilization ruling class?, Eurasia Review, June 23, 2023
Habib, Irfan, The Indus Civilization, Tulika Books, 2002
Joseph, Tony, First Indians, Juggernaut, 2018
Kenoyer, JM, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, OUP, 1998
McIntosh, Jane R., The ancient Indus Valley: new perspectives, ABC-CLIO, 2007
Parpola, Asko, The Roots of Hinduism, OUP, Kindle Edition, 2015
Petrie, Cameron A. et al. “Adaptation to variable environments, resilience to climate change: survey of land, water and human settlements in northwest Indus India”, Current Anthropology, 2017
Possehl, Gregory L., The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective, AltaMira, 2002
Robinson, Andrew, The Indus: Lost Civilizations, Reaktion Books, Kindle edition, 2015
Shinde, Vasant S., et al., Archaeological and anthropological studies on the Harappan cemetery of Rakhigarhi, India, Plos One, February 21, 2018
Thapar, Romila et al, Which of Us Are Aryans?, Aleph Book Company, 2019
Wright, Rita P. The Ancient Indus: Urban Planning, Economy and Society, Cambridge, 2010
Several articles and scientific notes on Harappa.com
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