Dr. Nisar Ahmed Solangi

Part-I

When the great civilizations of the ancient world are discussed, attention is often drawn to the pyramids of Egypt, the royal cities of Mesopotamia, or the maritime traditions of the Minoans and Phoenicians. Yet, centuries before many of these maritime powers reached their peak, the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) had already developed a sophisticated urban society supported by an extensive riverine and maritime trading network.

Archaeological discoveries over the past several decades indicate that the Indus Civilization was among the earliest Bronze Age societies to integrate urban planning, standardized production, inland waterways, seaports, and long-distance maritime commerce into a coherent economic system. Rather than existing in isolation, it participated in an interconnected world that linked South Asia with Mesopotamia, the Arabian Gulf, Oman, and parts of Central Asia.

The Indus Valley Civilization flourished between approximately 3300 and 1300 BCE, reaching its Mature Harappan phase between 2600 and 1900 BCE. During this period, remarkable cities such as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, Rakhigarhi, Ganeriwala, and Lothal emerged as centers of administration, manufacturing, and commerce. Their carefully planned streets, sophisticated drainage systems, standardized brick architecture, and regulated weights and measures reveal a civilization possessing an exceptional degree of social organization.

However, the true strength of the Indus Civilization extended well beyond its cities. Its prosperity rested equally upon agriculture, specialized crafts, industrial production, and an extensive commercial network that connected inland settlements with distant overseas markets.

The Indus River and its numerous tributaries served as natural commercial highways, enabling the movement of people and goods across vast distances. These inland waterways eventually opened into the Arabian Sea, from where Harappan merchants established maritime connections with “Mesopotamia, Oman, Bahrain (ancient Dilmun), the Iranian Plateau”, and regions of Central Asia.

Today, archaeological evidence suggests that these interactions involved not merely the exchange of commodities but also the movement of technologies, artistic traditions, administrative practices, and cultural ideas, making the Indus Civilization one of the principal participants in the international economy of the Bronze Age.

From Rivers to the Sea: Early Sindhu Watercraft

The foundations of Harappan maritime trade lay in an efficient system of river transport. Archaeological evidence—including engraved seals, terracotta models, painted pottery, and iconographic representations—demonstrates that the people of the Indus Valley employed several types of boats suited to different aquatic environments.

Many archaeologists believe that some of the earliest river craft were constructed from tightly bundled reeds and other marsh vegetation. These lightweight vessels were particularly suitable for navigating shallow rivers, floodplains, estuaries, and coastal lagoons. To increase durability and waterproofing, the reed bundles were likely coated with “natural bitumen (asphalt)”, a technique that was also widely employed in ancient Mesopotamia. The use of similar waterproofing technology has prompted some scholars to suggest the possibility of technological exchange between the two regions, although direct evidence remains limited. Because reed boats were made from organic materials, none have survived archaeologically. Nevertheless, their existence is supported indirectly through terracotta models, seal engravings, ceramic depictions, and comparisons with contemporary Bronze Age boat-building traditions elsewhere in Southwest Asia.

These early vessels formed the first link in a transportation network that connected agricultural settlements, manufacturing centers, and emerging ports throughout the Indus basin.

Lothal: One of the World’s Earliest Engineered Harbours

Among the greatest achievements of Sindhu Valley maritime engineering is the port settlement of Lothal, located in present-day Gujarat, India.

Excavations conducted during the twentieth century revealed an impressive brick-lined basin connected to an ancient river channel leading toward the Gulf of Khambhat. Many archaeologists interpret this structure as one of the world’s earliest purpose-built tidal dockyards, although some researchers continue to debate aspects of its precise function.

Regardless of this debate, there is broad scholarly agreement that Lothal served as an important center of maritime commerce and industrial production.

The basin appears to have allowed vessels to enter during high tide, unload cargo safely, and remain protected from strong currents. An elaborate system of spillways and drainage channels helped regulate water levels while reducing the risks posed by floods and tidal fluctuations.

Adjacent to the dock were extensive warehouses, workshops, bead-manufacturing facilities, shell-working industries, and residential quarters. Together, these installations indicate that Lothal functioned not merely as a harbour but as a sophisticated logistics center responsible for the storage, processing, and redistribution of goods.

In modern economic terminology, Lothal may be viewed as an early example of an integrated logistics and supply-chain hub, although such comparisons should be understood as analytical analogies rather than direct historical equivalents.

From River Boats to Ocean-Going Ships

IVC seals frequently depict boats without masts, suggesting that many vessels operating on rivers, lakes, and sheltered coastal waters relied primarily on paddles, poles, or oars for propulsion.

Long-distance maritime trade, however, almost certainly required larger and more robust vessels.

Although no complete IVC seagoing ship has yet been discovered, archaeological evidence and comparative studies suggest that ocean-going craft were probably constructed from wooden planks and equipped with sails suitable for voyages across the Arabian Sea.

These larger vessels would have transported substantial cargoes over hundreds of kilometers, linking Sindhu civilization ports with trading centers in Mesopotamia and the Arabian Gulf.

Taken together, the archaeological evidence indicates that the Indus Civilization operated a dual maritime transportation system: smaller boats served inland waterways and coastal navigation, while larger wooden ships facilitated overseas commerce.

This integrated network enabled raw materials, manufactured goods, merchants, and ideas to move efficiently across one of the largest urban civilizations of the Bronze Age.

References: (APA 7th Edition)

Chakrabarti, D. K. (1990). The External Trade of the Harappan Civilization. Munshiram Manoharlal.

Kenoyer, J. M. (1998). Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Oxford University Press.

Law, R. W. (2011). Inter-Regional Interaction and Urbanism in the Ancient Indus Valley. Palgrave Macmillan.

McIntosh, J. (2008). The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives. ABC-CLIO.

Possehl, G. L. (2002). The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. AltaMira Press.

Ratnagar, S. (2004). Trading Encounters: From the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age. Oxford University Press.

Rao, S. R. (1985). Lothal and the Indus Civilization. Asia Publishing House.

UNESCO. (2021). Nomination Dossier: Lothal – The Harappan Port City. Paris: UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

Wright, R. P. (2010). The Ancient Indus: Urbanism, Economy, and Society. Cambridge University Press.

Read: Lessons from the Indus Valley Civilization

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Dr. Nisar Ahmed Ali Nawaz Solangi is a distinguished Public Health Specialist with over 28 years of experience in primary healthcare, health management, and policy development. Throughout his career, he has served in leadership capacities, He holds MBBS from the University of Sindh and a Master of Public Health from Griffith University, Australia. He is a dedicated polymath committed to the intersection of ancient civilization and emerging technology. He is deeply engaged in the study of the Indus Valley Civilization—focusing on its maritime history, trade networks, and egalitarian governance. Currently based in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Solangi is a tireless advocate for the digital preservation and global dissemination of the Sindhi language and culture. He is actively involved in pioneering initiatives on social media” Our Digital World”. By bridging the gap between historical heritage and digital innovation, he aims to create a new paradigm for cultural representation in the AI era.

The post The Masters of Meluhha’s Seas first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Larkano, Sindh

During a visit to Mohen Jo-daro, Larkano on Wednesday January 4, World Bank Group President Ajay Banga, along with Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah, visited women-led enterprises and craft stalls supported under the People’s Poverty Reduction Program (PPRP), funded by the Government of Sindh and implemented by the Sindh Rural Support Organization (SRSO).

The WB President visited all stalls, interacted with women entrepreneurs and artisans, and received firsthand information about their enterprises and initiatives. CEO SRSO Muhamad Dittal Kalhoro welcomed the dignitaries, facilitated their visit to the stalls, and provided an overview of the PPRP interventions with help of displayed wall of success and outreach map.

He briefed that under the PPRP, more than 1.4 million poor households have been organized & graduated out of poverty across 15 districts of Sindh through PKR 6.14 billion in interest-free enterprise loans and PKR 947 million in grants, along with support in vocational skills development, low-cost housing, kitchen gardening, and physical infrastructure development etc.

On the occasion, women entrepreneurs and artisans showcased their work, including Handmade crafts, live demonstrations of handloom weaving, traditional charpai making, khees weaving, and khadi-based fabric production, traditional relli quilts and other indigenous crafts, soap production and other small-scale enterprises. And organic papaya farming. They shared details of their craft enterprises and highlighted the positive impact on their lives and livelihoods.

President Ajay Banga and wife showed keen interest in the enterprises, appreciated the quality and creativity of women’s crafts, and recommended scaling up and replicating such initiatives in other areas to further promote women’s economic empowerment.

Provincial Minister for Planning & Development, Provincial Minister for Culture, and other senior government officials were also present on the occasion. (Press Release)

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Read: Role of Women in Rural Sindh

The post WB Chief visits Women-Led Enterprises at Mohen Jo-daro first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Aziz Kingrani

The statue or sculpture of a woman was discovered during the 1926 excavation of Mohenjo Daro, a major city of the Indus Valley Civilization. It was named the Dancing Girl by John Marshall. However, many historians and archaeologists have expressed disagreement with this interpretation. The renowned archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler remarked, “We may not be certain that she was a dancer” (Possehl, 2002: 114).

Some experts argue that John Marshall named her the Dancing Girl because “he thought that she had the air of a semi-impudent nautch girl, hand on hip, beating time to the music with her feet. The name has stuck. But the dancing girl may not have been dancing at all, and even if she was, she may not represent a professional dancer” (Singh, 2008: 162). Raising the question of her identity, Balaji writes, “Who is the person represented by the dancing girl—was she a priestess or courtesan?” (Sadasivan, 2011: 6).

Some scholars believe that the figure might represent a fertility goddess, as she holds a bowl in one hand (Vatsyayan, 1982: 18). Meanwhile, “some archaeologists think that the statue could well be of a queen or some other important woman in the life of Mohenjo Daro, judging by the authority the figure commands” (Gupte, 2011). Other historical accounts refer to her as a temple dancer of Mohenjo Daro (Prasad, 2000: xxiii).

There are numerous references, both direct and indirect, that challenge John Marshall’s interpretation. Based on these scholarly opinions, I also believe that this is not the statue of a dancing girl. Most likely, it is the representation of a sacred woman—possibly a high-ranking figure associated with religious, spiritual, or elite circles.

This debate opens another question: how did archaeologists determine that the figure was a teenager? The posture, with one hand on the hip and the other resting on the thigh, does not clearly indicate a dancing gesture. Furthermore, unless remnants of a temple or a dedicated dance space have been unearthed at Mohenjo Daro, labeling her a temple dancer remains speculative. While dance may have played a role in ritual or social settings, this statue does not explicitly represent dance.

In support of this view, I have discovered a figure of a dancing woman engraved on rock in the Kirthar Range, Sindh, Pakistan—approximately 150 km southwest of Mohenjo Daro. This site also features symbols resembling the Indus script etched into stones, suggesting that dance was indeed part of Indus Valley culture. However, the Mohenjo Daro statue seems to reflect a different societal or spiritual role rather than dance.

Refrences

Gregory L. Possehl, 2002, Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective

Singh, Upinder, 2008, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India

Sadasivan, Balaji, 2011, The Dancing Girl: A History of Early India

Vatsyayan, Kapila, 1982, Dance in Indian Painting

Gupte, Sunila, 2011, The Adventure of the Missing Dancing Girls

Prasad, Kali, 2000, Devadāsī: Dancing Damsel

Read: Journey through Time at Tharro Hill

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Aziz Kingrani, hailing from village Haji Manik Kingrani, Johi, Dadu District, Sindh, Pakistan, is poet, short story writer, playwright and a researcher. He has been contributing in the fields of history and literature. He has served as a professor as well. His 17 books are published in English and Sindhi language. 

The post Dancing Girl or Sacred Woman? first appeared on Sindh Courier.

• Today, this significant archaeological site—Pir Lakho, the contemporary counterpart of Mohenjo-daro—remains neglected and abandoned.

By Aziz Kingrani

Pir Lakhio or Pir Lakho, is an archaeological site discovered by N.G. Majumdar during his explorations between 1927 and 1929. The original name of the site remains unknown. Following its discovery, Majumdar named the site Pir Lakhio after a local saint whose shrine is situated nearby. He documented the site extensively under the name “Pir Lakho” in his publication ‘Explorations in Sindh’, where he described it as “the second station of Mohenjo-daro.”

Pir Lakho is located approximately 15 kilometers south of Johi town, near the edge of Manchhar Lake, within the jurisdiction of Johi Taluka in the Dadu District of Sindh. It lies about 4 kilometers northeast of the historical site of Luhori (or Lohri). The site is also near the former Western Nara Canal—later known as the Nara Valley Drain, and currently referred to as the RBOD (Right Bank Outfall Drain)—which drains into Manchhar Lake.

Unlike Mohenjo-daro, Pir Lakho does not take the form of a large mound but is situated on slightly elevated terrain. The site, associated with the Indus Civilization, yielded a range of artifacts similar to those found at Mohenjo-daro, Chanhudaro, and Ali Murad’s Daro. These included a terracotta figurine of a mother goddess adorned with a necklace, terracotta bulls, toys, bullock carts, pottery vessels, and other items typical of the Indus Civilization.

Majumdar noted that significant relics comparable to those of Mohenjo-daro were discovered at Pir Lakho. The terracotta figurine of the mother goddess—characterized by an elaborate headdress, cup-shaped ears, necklaces, and a garment—reflects the religious practices of the time, highlighting the worship of the mother goddess by the inhabitants.

According to Majumdar, several artifacts found at Pir Lakho closely resemble those at Mohenjo-daro more than at any other Indus site, suggesting that Pir Lakho dates to the same historical period. It thus appears to be one of the most prominent Indus Civilization sites in Sindh, second only to Mohenjo-daro.

Regrettably, the site suffered extensive damage during the catastrophic floods of 2010 and 2022. Today, this significant archaeological site—Pir Lakho, the contemporary counterpart of Mohenjo-daro—remains neglected and abandoned.

Read: Exploring The Neroon Fort

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Aziz Kingrani, hailing from village Haji Manik Kingrani, Johi, Dadu District, Sindh, Pakistan, is poet, short story writer, playwright and a researcher. He has been contributing in the fields of history and literature. He has served as a professor as well. His 17 books are published in English and Sindhi language. 

The post Pir Lakhio: A Heritage Site Abandoned first appeared on Sindh Courier.

• Mohenjo-Daro is falling victim to an unqualified and politically favored group whose mishandling is contributing to the site’s degradation
• Tragically, large sections of ancient city Lakhan Jo Daro, located in Sukkur, have also been lost

By Aizaz Peerzado

Every informed individual is well aware of Sindh’s historical significance, and hardly anyone remains unfamiliar with the ancient site of Mohenjo-Daro. But are you aware of the extent of threats this site currently faces? For any living nation, the preservation of its history is a foremost responsibility, and safeguarding archaeological sites is primarily the task of experts in archaeology.

Yet, not a single technical expert is posted at the Mohenjo-Daro site. The absence of qualified personnel inevitably brings damage something that anyone can reasonably infer. Today, even Mohenjo-Daro is falling victim to an unqualified and politically favored group whose mishandling is contributing to the site’s degradation, while the responsible institution remains largely inactive. It appears as though their institutional role is more aligned with facilitating destruction than ensuring preservation.

Throughout Sindh, ancient sites are being systematically encroached upon by local mafias, obscuring their original identity. However, in this write-up, I want to bring to your attention two of the most significant sites of the Indus Valley Civilization Mohenjo-Daro and Lakhan Jo Daro.

Mohenjo-Daro represents not only Sindh’s historical identity but also the existence of a highly developed urban civilization thousands of years ago, one that has no equivalent in the world. Yet today, the site’s archaeological remains await the intervention of true professionals those who not only understand its historical importance but can also devise scientifically sound solutions to its problems.

The so-called conservation currently underway at the site violates the very first principle of archaeological preservation: maintaining authenticity. Mohenjo-Daro, a city of fired bricks, is being patched with mud bricks and clay mortar, drastically altering its original appearance. Worse still, when these newly applied materials erode due to rain and salinity, they are simply replaced with new layers without any scientific consideration.

Even more damaging is the practice of discarding old debris and broken bricks onto unexplored areas of the site. This not only distorts the aesthetic and structural authenticity of the site but also compromises future archaeological investigations. Once such fill material is dumped over undisturbed layers, the archaeological integrity and research value of those layers is severely diminished.

Through unskilled repairs and reckless interventions, the site’s visible remains are being systematically destroyed. No strategic planning has been implemented for rainwater management, despite the damage monsoons cause each year. Instead of forming expert teams from outside or calling in seasoned archaeologists to secure the site’s deteriorating structures, the authorities launched a month-long excavation project to locate the city’s outer wall an effort of questionable necessity, given that past experts had already studied this matter.

Preserving the crumbling structures should have been the priority. Yet, archaeology officials have chosen spectacle over substance. Anyone with a critical eye can see who is responsible for this state of affairs. All that’s required is genuine interest in these sites and a real understanding of our history something only a few individuals truly possess today.

Now consider Lakhan Jo Daro, located in Sukkur, spread over fifty acres. This site, which has been subject to even more excavation campaigns than Mohenjo-Daro, is now referred to as an industrial zone. Tragically, large sections of this ancient city have been lost. Rather than removing the encroachments, the site saw further excavations in 2017, 2020, and most recently in May 2025. Except for a brief 2017 project report uploaded to the institution’s Facebook page, no other reports from these excavations have been published in any journal or archaeological magazine.

The real question is: should limited excavations be carried out on what’s left of the site, or should the focus be on removing encroachments and preserving what’s still intact? That is my question to the responsible department.

Is it more important to carry out questionable excavations and install solar-powered ACs in rest houses or to ensure the preservation of endangered remains? This pattern of action (or inaction) extends across all of Sindh, where archaeological sites face daily encroachment, yet the department seems to have conveniently forgotten its core duties.

What good are excavation projects when they don’t even result in published reports? This isn’t just administrative apathy; it’s historical injustice.

Mohenjo-Daro and Lakhan Jo Daro are not mere ruins. They are living testimonies of Sindh’s intellectual, philosophical, and artistic advancement. When such sites are handed over to unqualified individuals driven by vested interests and crony appointments.

Read: Historical sites of Sindh in a state of disrepair

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Aizaz Peerzado is resident of Village Balhreji near Mohen Jo Daro, District Larkano Sindh. He has graduated in Archaeology and currently is doing M.Phil. on fast vanishing heritage sites in the province

The post Historic Treasures Crumble Amid Apathy first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Exposing the Subjectivity behind the Claim of Deciphering the Indus Script

Dr. J. Ravikumar Stephen G.

In any objective research, a hypothesis must be defended by rigorously disproving previous findings. Let us begin by considering the final episode of Dr. Sabareesh P A’s interview with Dr. Brishti Guha. During the discussion, Dr. Sabareesh asked whether Mr. Bharat Rao would apply to claim the prize money for deciphering the Indus Script. Dr. Brishti Guha’s sardonic laugh in response clearly indicated her awareness that the study in question was a subjective, purposive exercise—one that produced skewed findings to satisfy the agenda of Mr. Rao’s RSS patrons in India.

It is important to remember that Prof. Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan had already claimed, with the aid of computer analysis, to have deciphered the Indus Script. Similarly, Br. Prof. Dr. Sneh Rani Jain asserted that she had decoded the script by interpreting it through Jain symbols. Before making new claims, Mr. Bharat Rao should have first disproved the findings of these earlier scholars, demonstrating where and why they were flawed. However, he has made no such attempt.

Let me illustrate why Mr. Bharat Rao’s findings are inherently subjective:

Subjective Language Selection

Imagine a race where other competitors are barred from entering the field—how valid would it be to declare the sole participant the winner? This analogy aptly describes the situation here. When renowned scholars like Asko Parpola and Kamil Zvelebil , who are not Tamil speakers, have independently affirmed that the language of the Indus Valley Civilization was Dravidian, how could Mr. Bharat Rao justify excluding all agglutinative languages, including Tamil and Telugu?

Walter Ashlin Fairservis Jr., an American archaeologist, proposed a model for deciphering the Harappan script in his book ‘The Harappan Civilization and Its Writing: A Model for the Decipherment of the Indus Script’. Fairservis came close to deciphering the script, connecting its symbols to Tamil meanings.

Despite this, Mr. Bharat Rao not only excluded Tamil—the principal contender—but also disregarded several modern and ancient languages such as Sumerian, Elamite, and Hebrew. Aware that Sumerian, Elamite, Hebrew, Turkish, Finnish, Japanese, and Korean all belong to the agglutinative language family, Mr. Rao avoided including them in his algorithm. He knew that a comprehensive analysis incorporating these languages would undermine his predetermined objective of establishing Sanskrit as the language of the Indus Valley Civilization.

What Mr. Bharat Rao essentially did was load a Sanskrit dictionary into his computer. In computational analysis, outputs are determined by the inputs provided. Notably, the earliest evidence of Sanskrit dates only to the second century AD. Sanskrit is conspicuously absent in Ashokan edicts, which were inscribed in Aramaic, Greek, and Prakrit. Archaeological evidence, literature, and historical records exist in Pali, Tamil, Chinese, and Greek, but Sanskrit is notably missing. When questioned about this absence, proponents of Sanskrit argue that it existed solely as an oral tradition. Yet, if Sanskrit was only oral, how could it have found its way onto Indus seals, which predate these records by millennia?

Furthermore, repetitive words and phrases are not unique to Sanskrit. Dravidian languages, such as Gondi, use expressions like “Jarra Jarra”. When researchers lack familiarity with Dravidian languages, such false claims about Sanskrit’s uniqueness are bound to arise.

Flawed Approach

Claude Elwood Shannon—the “father of information theory”—made ground-breaking contributions to both cryptography and communication science. In his seminal 1949 paper, ‘Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems’, Shannon laid the mathematical foundations for cryptography, offering methods to analyze and break encrypted communications.

However, Shannon never explicitly stated that an undeciphered language, such as the Indus Script, can definitively be deciphered using cryptographic techniques.

What Shannon demonstrated was that encrypted texts—texts intentionally scrambled where the underlying language is known—can, under certain conditions, be decoded through statistical analysis. Techniques such as studying letter frequencies, identifying repetition patterns, and making contextual guesses play a crucial role.

It Is essential to understand that cryptography and undeciphered scripts, though related in methodology, address fundamentally different challenges. Cryptography deals with concealing messages in a known language; the encryption hides the content, not the language itself. In contrast, undeciphered scripts like the Indus Script present a deeper mystery: we do not know the language, the structure of the writing system, or even if it represents linguistic communication at all. It could be symbolic, ritualistic, or even a system of trade notations.

Thus, while cryptographic techniques like frequency analysis may assist in decipherment efforts, Shannon never claimed they would guarantee success—especially when the language is unknown or when the script itself might not be linguistic.

In short, Claude Shannon did not assert that undeciphered languages could certainly be decoded through cryptography. He demonstrated that statistical methods are powerful tools for breaking encrypted messages in known languages, which later inspired some researchers to attempt applying similar methods to undeciphered scripts.

In the case of Vedic literature, where meanings can sometimes appear obscure, cryptographic techniques might hypothetically aid in interpretation. However, what Mr. Bharat Rao attempted is not true reverse engineering. He already knows Sanskrit and is familiar with the content of the Vedas—the “plaintext.” Operating on the assumption that the Indus Script represents a cipher of Sanskrit texts, he subjectively applied a key and an algorithm to force an interpretation aligned with his preconceived expectations.

Cultural Flaws

The Taboo against Sea Voyages

Among the Brahmins, who have traditionally upheld Sanskrit learning, it has long been considered a taboo to cross the ocean and travel abroad. Others outside the Brahmin community were historically prohibited from learning Sanskrit.

However, Dr. Brishti Guha in her slides claimed that the inscription in the Indus Seals to refer to sea voyages, which aligns with the Vedic narrative. This raises a significant question: why would a Sanskrit-speaking individual undertake sea voyages, when such practices were expressly forbidden by their cultural norms?

In the Rig Veda, there is an account where the Ashvins send Bhujyu and others on a sea expedition in the Caspian Sea. This episode appears in Mandala 1, Sukta 116, Richas 3 to 5, and is further narrated in Sukta 117, Richas 14 and 15, as well as in Sukta 182, Richa 6. During this mission, a storm wrecked all the boats, resulting in the deaths of all except Bhujyu, son of Tugra, who survived by clinging to the wreckage for three days. This story highlights that the boats used by the Aryans were not seaworthy, confirming that they were not a seafaring people—unlike the Dravidians, who had a strong maritime tradition. This difference likely contributed to the Brahmanical prohibition against crossing the seas.

Sangam Tamil texts reference seafaring merchants engaged in international trade with Rome and King Solomon of Israel. The seafaring prowess of the Dravidians is further evidenced by the Phoenician Dravidians, who are believed to have reached the American coast using ships with sails. Mark McMenamin’s study of a Phoenician coin suggests that a gold coin minted in Carthage between 350 and 329 BC depicts a map of America. Additionally, the discovery of a Phoenician shipwreck and a rock inscription in Brazil supports this claim. The coin has a horse—an animal the Dravidians only began using after Aryan invasions in the Levant. Even Tamil Sangam literature mentions horses (பரி – Pari), which were imported by Tamil kings from Persia.

Absence of Spoked Wheels and Horses

Horses were first domesticated approximately 5,500 years ago by the Botai culture in Central Asia, initially for their meat and milk. Archaeological and genetic evidence suggests that horse domestication became widespread around 3500 BC, particularly in the Eurasian Steppe, and later in the Volga-Don region of Eastern Europe around 2200 BC.

The Ashvamedha Yajna, or “horse sacrifice,” was a prominent Vedic ritual used by Aryan kings to assert territorial dominance. During this ritual, a horse, accompanied by the king’s army, was released to roam freely; kingdoms that allowed the horse passage were considered subjugated, while those that resisted faced military action. Dravidian rulers, unfamiliar with horses at the time, often lost territory to Aryan invaders who wielded the advantage of cavalry.

The Ashvamedha Yajna is extensively detailed in the Yajur Veda and the Shatapatha Brahmana (Book 13, Kânda 5, 2nd Brâhmana, Verses 1-2) as well as in the Shukla Yajur Veda (23.19–21). In Vedic tradition, gods and kings are often portrayed riding chariots drawn by horses.

In contrast, Indus Valley seals prominently feature bovines and unicorn-like figures but conspicuously lack depictions of horses. Additionally, the carts unearthed at IVC sites like Daimabad , Maharashtra, were built with solid wheels and drawn by oxen, unlike the spoked wheels characteristic of Aryan chariots, such as those mentioned in the Mahabharata.

Differences in Burial Practices

Another cultural distinction lies in funerary practices. Brahmins traditionally cremate their dead, whereas Dravidians practiced burial, as evidenced by the discovery of large burial urns at Adichanallur. Accordingly, the human remains found at Rakhigarhi, Haryana, belong to a Dravidian woman, further supporting the assertion of cultural and ethnic divergence between the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization and the later Aryan settlers.

Questioning Premature Claims: Rulers, Scales, and the Misinterpretation of the Indus Script

Dr Brishti Guha suggested that the Indus Script, as seen on the IVC seals, refers to the use of threads for linear measurements, similar to descriptions found in the Vedas. However, this raises a critical question: why would the people of the Indus Valley rely on threads for measurement when they already possessed standardized tools such as rulers and scales?

Archaeological excavations at Indus Valley sites like Lothal (in Gujarat, India) and Mohenjo-daro (in present-day Pakistan) have uncovered ivory scales, rulers and a bronze rod marked with precise gradations, indicating a sophisticated and standardized system of measurement.

Without a proper understanding of the technological advancements of the Indus Valley Civilization, Mr. Bharat Rao seem to make premature claims—as if they have definitively deciphered the Indus Script—when in fact their interpretations often lack historical and archaeological grounding.

Genetics Do Not Support a Sanskrit-Speaking Brahmin Origin

Genetic research shows that Brahmin and Bhumihar groups—often associated with priestly traditions in North India—possess a notably higher proportion of Steppe ancestry, constituting up to 30% of their genetic profile. This Steppe lineage is even more pronounced when examining the Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a, with over 60% prevalence among various Brahmin communities.

Meanwhile, genetic studies conducted on the mortal remains found at Rakhigarhi reveal a distinct genetic lineage, separate from both Steppe pastoralists and ancient Iranian farmers. These findings establish that the Harappans who lived at Rakhigarhi constitute a significant ancestral source for South Asians. Importantly, Rakhigarhi skeleton genetic profile is more closely related to that of South Indians than North Indians.

If the Harappans of Rakhigarhi were Dravidians, it naturally follows that the inhabitants of Mohenjo-daro would also have been Dravidians. This insight forms a bridge connecting the cultural legacy of Mohenjo-daro to that of Keezhadi in Tamil Nadu.

Therefore, claims that the Indus Script has been definitively deciphered are, at best, speculative—comparable to seeing familiar shapes in drifting clouds. Until a bilingual inscription is discovered, deciphering the Indus Script will remain as subjective and uncertain as the perceptions of the six blind men who each touched a different part of an elephant _(see the sixteenth picture)_ and described it differently.

Read: Uncovering the Secrets of the Indus Valley Civilization and Its Un-deciphered Script

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Dr. J Ravikumar Stephen G., is the Founder, Dravidianism Revival Centre, Peace Coalition of the People of South Asia, and Sages of the New Covenant. He is also the Presiding Bishop of General Convention of the Episcopal Churches in Southern and South Eastern Asia.  The Dravidianism Revival Centre is located in Badlapur, Greater Thane Maharashtra, India.

The post Myth of the Indus Script Decipherment first appeared on Sindh Courier.

• Either in the form of land grabs on Sindh’s soil or by constructing dams and canals on the Indus, silence has not only swallowed you in the past but will continue to erase you completely

Aizaz Pirzado

A couple of days back, through BBC News, we learned that an ancient site connected to the Maya civilization was discovered in an ancient forest in Mexico, based on a LIDAR survey. Now, it raises the question: what exactly is this LIDAR survey?

LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is an advanced method for capturing data about the surface landscape of a particular area of land. With this survey, we can identify previously unrecorded sites, estimate the full extent of known archaeological sites, and even learn about their condition…

Luke Ewald Thomas, a PhD student at Tulane University in the United States, mentioned that during a Google search, he found a laser being used for environmental monitoring by an institution in Mexico. This laser was actually part of a LIDAR survey, which mapped an area using laser technology from an aircraft. The technology and costs involved in LIDAR surveys are certainly high, but the significant aspect is that the world now has a technology that can discover, document, and preserve sites hidden from the naked eye, even those buried deep in the earth.

In 2013, a survey covered an area of 122 square kilometers in a forest. When an archaeologist examined this data, it led to the discovery of a significant site from the Maya civilization. This site has been named Valeriana, and it dates back to approximately 250 AD to 900 AD, with claims suggesting it once housed a city with a population of about 50,000 people.

Responsibility for further investigation of this site has been assigned to the person who discovered it, and another team will conduct additional exploration and research under his supervision.

One noteworthy aspect is that the U.S., particularly the city of Mexico’s administration, has shared the news of this discovery with every citizen as a message of pride. They announced that, once research on the site is complete, it will be opened as a visiting point for those interested in history and archaeology. Dr. Farman Pirzado, who is currently pursuing higher education in Mexico, mentioned in our Bhalheraji Youth WhatsApp group that there’s an atmosphere of great joy among the people. Hearing of the discovery of a site belonging to their ancient civilization, the locals have been congratulating one another. This is what love, interest, and pride in one’s history and identity looks like.

Read: Massive rains cause major damage to Mohen Jo Daro

The only purpose of writing and sharing this with you is to reflect on whether there are traces of history in our region that also show evidence of heritage. They put in so much effort to discover a single site, whereas our Sindh is filled with ancient and historical sites. Forget about laser technology—have we even built a boundary wall around our historical sites? The answer will likely be no. Mohenjo-daro is filling with salt, and during the rainy season, it’s protected by plastic sheets. Lakhian Jo Daro, a site spread over fifty acres, has been encroached upon by factories and commercial societies. Will responsible institutions answer this, or claim that Sindh’s Indus Valley Civilization holds less historical significance than the Maya civilization? When the Maya civilization hadn’t even dreamed of their existence, we were treating mental illnesses with the positive use of uranium in the city of Mohenjo-daro, living in soundproof spaces, navigating both sea and land routes, and it was the people of the Indus Valley who invented zero for easy calculations and the wheel for easier travel. Our land was dignified and talented in every way. So, who is responsible for today’s situation?

Young people of Sindh, elevate the standard of your thinking and question every institution. Are they even doing 10% of their job with honesty and integrity? If not, then how can we expect to see anything other than an administrative crisis, unemployment, hardships, and exploitation everywhere? If looters are everywhere, how will we achieve prosperity?

Read: The Dark Era of Sindh Archaeology

Apart from becoming aware, there’s no other way forward. Preserve your past, present, and future; otherwise, your silence will not only harm your historical significance but your very existence. Either in the form of land grabs on Sindh’s soil or by constructing dams and canals on the Indus, silence has not only swallowed you in the past but will continue to erase you completely.

If we want to change our conditions, the foremost duty is to evaluate our current state and remain aware of the issues at hand.

Read: Historical sites of Sindh in a state of disrepair

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Aizaz Pirzado is resident of Village Balhreji near Mohen Jo Daro, District Larkano Sindh. He has graduated in Archaeology and currently is doing M.Phil. on fast vanishing heritage sites in the province

The post Break the Silence: Preserve your Past, Present and Future first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Hailing from Naudero, Larkana district of Sindh, Prof. Sajida Parveen Sangi, (Pen Name: Saabhiyan Sangi) is a poet, prose-writer and educationist serving as Associate Professor at a Government Degree Girls College in Karachi. She is committed to writing poetry and prose in Sindhi and Urdu languages since 1988, and has authored a book in Sindhi language titled: ‘Anjaan Kaa’inat Jee’ari Aa’ (The Universe is Still Alive) consisting of various genres of poetry, published and well-received in 2007. Her two poetry books in Sindhi and Urdu languages are in the process of compilation. She is a creative and imaginative poet and writer using vivid language that often has an economical or condensed use of words chosen for their sound and meaning. She provokes thought with texture and tone of her poems.

Let’s Part Ways

Let’s be separated

In the spring seasons

Let’s be entangled into pronunciations

Of names we entitled

 Each other,

With longing, with love

 We called each other,

Let you be the body of

People of the world,

I’ll be the soul of love only,

Live in the existence

Of Oneness only,

Yes never!

But can call you

The part of my existence

The tears from eyes,

O, from breathing the sobs,

 From my body I shall pull out

 My life and soul,

As the skin is cut off

 The bones,

Same way I’ll cut you

Away from my body,

From my each and every vein,

 I’ll rill you out from my blood,

O take out my life..!

Then, if I yet remain alive

To extent,

I shall never utter

Your name ever

Shall never utter

Your name ever!

_________________

Translated from Sindhi language by Professor Muhammad Hashim Solangi

The post Let’s Part Ways – A Poem of Separation first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd  

The archaeological evidence shows that the first ever city—Harappa– was built in the Indus Valley around 2850-2900 Before Christ in the world. The name Harappa sounds like a South Indian divine man’s name among agrarian and cattle herding communities. For example, Mallappa, Beerappa, Veerappa are very famous names in South India. In Kannada and Telugu regions the names that end up with “Appa” are very popular among the Shudra and Dalit communities. Names like Mallappa and Beerappa are now divine names of God-Heads that have cattle rearing and agrarian community life.

The Harappa city was built on the bank of the Indus River, which is in present Pakistan after the partition of India. But it represents the whole human history of building civilization and culture. It represents the civilization of advancing animal economy, constructing technology of building houses, streets, tanks, canals, and forts almost 1500 years before the first Indian spiritual book Rig-Veda was composed or written.

The village economy was very wide spread in the Sindhu region

The Indological and archeological studies also established that this civilization was built by Indo-Africans before the Aryan race had shown its traces in the Indian Sub-continent. The contemporary Indian village and cultural transformation shows that without there being villages, urbanization of the society does not take place. All kinds of local experiments take place in the realms of cattle economy, agriculture and technology building and management. This has seen happening during my life time too and that could be the course of history of emergence of the city of Harappa also. No city emerges without villages all around.

There is a civilizational culture in Indian sub-continent to build villages and cities in the name of persons. For example, my village name is Papaiah Pet. Older generations than that of mine told us that one fisher man called Papaiah with a family name Uppari and my grandmother Lingamma with a family name Kancha (who was a shepherd widow) built their first round of thatched houses and gradually that village of fishermen/women, shepherds, toddy tappers came into being. Gradually by my mother and father’s generation along with shepherds and fishermen/women, toddy tappers (as the surroundings of the village had hundreds of palm trees), tillers of land by using buffalo and bullocks settled down and expanded the village. Over a period of time along with the main village population the Lambada tribes, whose main occupation was cattle rearing settled down. By now the village has a population of 4500 people. It is a major Panchayat. For the last 10-15 years reverse migration from the village to urban areas is taking place.

Similarly, the city of Harappa could have been built by the early villagers that got transformed into urban dwelling with a man’s name called Harappa. Building the city of Harappa would have been impossible without several villages surrounding that city. In the Indus valley region several villages would have emerged much before the city of Harappa was built. Unless there was some sort of agrarian economic development, building a city is impossible.

Quite interestingly we do not see any signs of such civilization developing in the Ganga region

For example, in my childhood building a house in my village was done without the use of any carpenter tools. The natural wood logs were used for building a thatched house and I could see over a period of time carpenters emerging from the same village population with a skill of crafting wood in a sophisticated manner. Most of the walls of the houses would be of mud prepared by the family labor and skill. Gradually, there emerged brick makers for building brick wall houses. Though pot making was already there, before my eyes more sophisticated pot makers emerged with diversified skills. When I was a child, tilling the land with buffalo or bull drawing plough was common. The technology of plough was very underdeveloped, therefore, the animals and the human beings who were handling the plough would suffer a lot. But I have seen the village carpenters becoming more and more skilled and improving the plough in shape and size. Meanwhile, similar changes also occurred in the skill domain of ironsmiths, and so on. For example, in my childhood I used to cry a lot when the barber was shaving my head, as the knife which was very hard and the skills of the barber used to be very underdeveloped.  Gradually, that situation changed quite fast. The knife became sharper because of the advanced iron-smith skills of the smith and also improvement in the shaving skills of the barber. I saw such changes in every sphere of life within the village economy. I also saw how these technological advancements and skill improvements shifted to nearby towns and the process of urbanization taking place in a gradual manner.

The studies on Harappa show that urban civilization was far more developed than the one I saw in my childhood in the town where I studied for my high school graduation called Narsampet. It also has shown the signs of class formation, which was of course a common phenomenon, both in the villages and urban areas. Class formation is an advanced stage of an economy. The Harappan city could have been built in socioeconomic conditions that existed in my life time.

We do not even know that if there were villages in Ganga region by the time city of Harappa was built

The city civilization did not confine to one small place. It was wide spread. That was the reason why cities like Mohenjodaro and Dholavira came into existence in faraway places. That also indicates that the village economy was very wide spread in the Sindhu region. Quite interestingly we do not see any signs of such civilization developing in the Ganga region. We do not even know that if there were villages in Ganga region by the time city of Harappa was built. Why? The answer to this question needs to be searched in what is known as Vedic economy in subsequent years. The Vedic economy is known as pastoral economy where cattle grazing and surviving on the animal products became the main stay. That in essence means the Vedic economy and social life became more backward than the Harappan economy. The urbanization disappeared. Even bigger villages do not seem to have existed.

The archeological studies mapped up on genome studies have shown that the Harappan urban civilization was built by Indo-Africans, whose physical characteristics match more with physical characteristics of South Indians who are Dravidians (The Dravidians are nothing but Indianized mixture of Indo-Africans). The Vedic civilization, culture and linguistic society was built by Indo-Aryans, whose migration seems to have taken place from Middle East (mainly from the present day Iran). This civilization is said to have survived during 1500 to 1100 BC.

Historically this civilization is also known as the one which followed the Harappan civilization. As there is not much archeological evidence on this civilization the earliest and most authentic evidence for this civilization comes from the Rig-Veda, the first Brahminic scripture of India. The roots for the Indian caste system are seen in this text. It was composed in the Indo-Aryan language, Sanskrit, which is even today the main property of the Indian Brahmins, as the priests in Hindu temples. They alone read, recite and interpret even in the 21 century all the Sanskrit texts. No Shudra (who constitute about 60 per cent of the so called Hindu population) have the basic right to read or study in the Hindu religious schools, colleges. No Shudra has a right to become the priest in any Hindu temple. No Shudra philosopher emerged from the Hindu Brahminist society from the days of writing of Rig-Veda to present. Only Brahmin or Kayasth writers are treated as Hindu philosophers. The Buddhist tradition has a different genealogy of thought and philosophy.

After the Hindu fundamentalist party, Bharatiya Janatha Party (BJP) came to power in 1999 and 2014, with complete involvement of the Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Shudras have become the main drivers of this fundamentalist ideology. The anti- minority campaign was carried with support of Shudra muscle power. But no Shudra is allowed to become the priest and philosopher in India. Most rich temples like Thirupathi (Andhra Pradesh) Jagnnada (Orissa) and Vishna Devi (Jammu) Ayodhya Srirama temple (Uttar Pradesh) Srikrishna temple Madhura (Uttar Pradesh) and Guruvayyur (Kerala) will not allow a Shudra to become a priest. The monopoly to read, recite and interpret all Vedas still remains with one small caste, Brahmin. The RSS is also headed mostly by Brahmins with the authority that they are Veda pundits. The RSS which uses the Shudra (OBC) votes and muscle power for the advantage of Brahmanism but never fought for their equal rights in the spiritual system. The Shudras have their historical roots in Harappan civilization as most Shudras have their genetic heritage from the Harappan Indo-Africans. In other words the Harappan civilization and productive and artisanal culture was theirs. It is quite obvious that there were no Brahmins, Brahmanism and Sanskrit culture during Harappan times.

It is not known how the Harappa civilization, including its cities disappeared and how the whole civilization was taken back to pastoralism after the Aryan Brahmanism became hegemonic. As I said earlier in the Vedic pastoralist economy, well developed villages are not mentioned—leave alone Harappa type cities.

Vedic Brahmanism tells that its pastoralism slowly transformed into agrarian economy in a period of 1000 years. However, a careful reading of the Rig Vedic hymens shows that the scripture quite surprisingly does not invoke God but it invokes Agni (Fire) as the most worship-able force. The first hymn reads as follows:

1 I Laud Agni, the chosen Priest, God, minister of sacrifice, the hotar, lavishest of wealth.

2 Worthy is Agni to be praised by living as by ancient seers. He shall bring hitherward the Gods.

3 Through Agni man obtaineth wealth, yea, plenty waxing day by day, and most rich in heroes, glorious.

4 Agni, the perfect sacrifice which thou encompassest about Verily goeth to the Gods.

5 May Agni, sapient-minded Priest, truthful, most gloriously great, The God, come hither with the Gods.

6 Whatever blessing, Agni, thou wilt grant unto thy worshipper, That, Angiras, is indeed thy truth.

7 To thee, dispeller of the night, O Agni, day by day with prayer bringing thee reverence, we come

8 Ruler of sacrifices, guard of Law eternal, radiant One, Increasing in thine own abode.

9 Be to us easy of approach, even as a father to his son: Agni, be with us for our weal.

In those times Agni could not have been seen as an agent of cooking but could have been seen as the most powerful agent of burning the enemy’s resources—houses, cattle, crops, grain  and other resources of livelihood. The next major worshipping agent in Rig-Veda was Vayu (Air). The Air (or Wind) was an aid of Agni in the process of destruction.

When I was just 3-4 years old child my entire village—Papaiah Pet Chenna rao Pet Mandal, Warangal District– got burnt down. In the revenue records of the village this was a land mark event.  The terrifying stories of how Agni destroyed the village and the blowing Vayu was helping it carry the fire from one end of the village to the other end were told and retold as a terror narrative by the eyewitnesses. Those houses that were not on the wind’s way were safe. But most of them got burnt down to ashes, including my house. The villagers used to abuse the Agni Devudu (God Fire) and Vayu Devudu (The God wind) for burning and for spreading that destruction from house to house, for several decades. That Agni destroyed our houses, some of the cattle, grain and few people who got trapped were burnt to ashes. Not even their bones could be seen.

The fire started in the Westward of the village in a small hut with cooking hearth accident, as the thatched house had very low roof. For all those village masses the Agni and Vayu were never positive and helpful Gods but destructive Gods who came to destroy their village. No doubt both those elements are useful and they know that. They were called Devudu (God) no doubt as the Rig-Veda writers did.  In the village discourses Fire god not referred to creation but only referred to destruction.

Imagine for a moment, if an enemy had planned that destruction, for that person Agni and Vayu which gutted the whole village and turned it into ashes become the positive Gods who caused his/her victory.

One established historical fact is that the cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and Dholavira are great cities of life and civilization. There was lot of science and technology, involved, in building those cities

In the Rig-Veda Agni and Vayu find more place than Brahma or Indra. In fact Agni, Vayu, Indra and Horse (as a worship animal) find more place than God in any descriptive sense in Rig-Veda. Why this? No ancient spiritual text in the world places Agni and Vayu in the place of God or above God? The notion of God is highly philosophical where the Agni and Vayu are tangible materials. There is hardly any scope for philosophizing the tangible materials like Agni and Vayu as with the notion of God.

The notion of God is more than anything else deals with creation. Destruction is not central to God. Of course, God could be imagined as force of punishment for wrong doing with a view of reform or rectification. Agni has no such nature and character.

One established historical fact is that the cities of Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and Dholavira are great cities of life and civilization. There was lot of science and technology, involved, in building those cities. There is no indication in Rig Vedic texts which worshipped a burning materialist agency like Agni but not God of creative nature that it were those forces which destroyed that civilization.

Does it not indicate that the writers of Rig-Veda themselves believed in destruction but not in construction of civilizations? Does it not lead to the conclusion that it were these forces that constructed caste theory in the same text that Shudras who do agrarian tasks, cattle grazing, carpenting, smithing of bronze and iron, pot and brick making should be treated less than human beings and priests (Brahmins) who perform rituals should be treated as Bhoodevtas (Gods on earth).

(An abridged version of this article was published in Daily O on 19/08/2018 with a title “Shudras, Not Aryans, built the Indus Valley Civilization)     

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Prof. Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is Director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University

Courtesy: Counter Currents (Posted on 23/08/2018)

The post Shudras Built The Indus Valley Civilization! first appeared on Sindh Courier.

By Adam S Green

Little more than a century ago, British and Indian archaeologists began excavating the remains of what they soon realized was a previously unknown civilization in the Indus Valley. Straddling parts of Pakistan and India and reaching into Afghanistan, the culture these explorers unearthed had existed at the same time as those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and covered a much larger area. It was also astonishingly advanced: sophisticated and complex, boasting large, carefully laid out cities, a relatively affluent population, writing, plumbing and baths, wide trade connections, and even standardized weights and measures.

What kind of a society was the Indus Valley Civilization, as it came to be known? Who lived there and how did they organize themselves? Archaeologists and other experts ask these questions to this day, but the first explorers were already noticing some unique features.

In Mesopotamia and Egypt, “much money and thought were lavished on the building of magnificent temples for the gods and on palaces and tombs of kings,” observed Sir John Marshall, who supervised the excavation of two of the five main cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, “but the rest of the people seemingly had to content themselves with insignificant dwellings of mud.” In the Indus Valley, “the picture is reversed and the finest structures were those erected for the convenience of the citizens. Temples, palaces, and tombs there may of course have been, but if so, they are either still undiscovered or so like other edifices as not to be readily distinguishable from them.”

The most tantalizing feature of the ancient Indus Valley remains is what they appear to lack: any trace of a ruling class or managerial elite

In its heyday, from about BC 2600 to BC 1900, the Indus Valley Civilization created what may have been the world’s most egalitarian early complex society, defying long-held presumptions about the relationship between urbanization and inequality in the past. Its large cities were expansive, planned, and boasted large-scale architecture, including roomy residential houses, and smaller settlements in the surrounding areas appeared to support a similar culture with a similar standard of living.

The most tantalizing feature of the ancient Indus Valley remains is what they appear to lack: any trace of a ruling class or managerial elite. This defies the longtime theoretical assumption that any complex society must have stratified social relations: that collective action, urbanization, and economic specialization only develop in a very unequal culture that takes direction from the top, and that all social trajectories evolve toward a common and universal outcome, the state. Yet, here was a stable, prosperous civilization that appeared to remain that way for centuries without a state, without priest-kings or merchant oligarchs, and without a rigid caste system or warrior class. How did they manage it?

Unfortunately, in the early decades of exploration and research, archaeologists tended to assume that lack of evidence of a top-down, hierarchical society in the Indus Valley remains meant only that they had not yet been found. Some have argued that lack of evidence of inequality only indicates that the region’s ruling class was very clever at disguising the boundaries between itself and other social strata. Pointing to the fact that Indus Valley burial sites contain no monumental tombs, some researchers suggest that the rulers may have been cremated or deposited in rivers, as was the practice in other imperial cultures. But cremation is not archaeologically invisible; the remains of other cultures often include evidence of it.

More recently, archaeologists have been willing to go back to the original explorers’ observations and use the evidence directly in front of them to develop theories about ancient life in the Indus Valley Civilization. Archaeological data from South Asia has improved greatly: and there is much more of it. Numerous Indus sites are now known to archaeologists that decades ago were not, and the environmental contexts that enabled urbanization in the region—climate, natural resources—are now much clearer. Archaeologists have also honed a strong set of tools for identifying inequality and class divisions: from mortuary data, palace assemblages, aggrandizing monuments, written records, and soon, possibly, from household data. Yet, in a century of research, archaeologists have found no evidence of a ruling class in the Indus Valley that is comparable to those recovered in other early complex societies.

In the late 1990s, Indus archaeologists started to consider a new concept that seemed to better fit the facts. Heterarchy asserts that complex political organization, including cities, can emerge through the interaction of many different, unranked social groups, rather than from top-down decisions by an elite: that cooperation, not domination, can produce collective action. It’s now widely argued that multiple social groups contributed to the construction of Indus cities and the economic activities that took place in them, and that none seemed to dominate the others.

At both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, the large nonresidential structures suggest that they were “public,” as opposed to palaces or administrative centers restricted to a privileged class

Bolstering this argument, no evidence exists that any group of Indus producers was excluded from the use of scarce materials that craftspeople had to obtain from long distances away, or that particular groups limited access to those materials to seize a higher position for themselves in Indus society. One of the most distinctive and technically dazzling products of the Indus culture are stamped seals engraved with imagery and text; over 2,500 have been found at Mohenjo-daro alone. But the seals were produced by many different groups of artisans in many locations, and there is no evidence that a ruling class controlled production. Technological styles tended to cross-cut different groups of artisans, indicating a great deal of openness and knowledge sharing.

Indus city-dwellers built large- and small-scale public buildings; the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro is a massive structure that contained a large paved bath assembled from tightly fitted baked bricks, waterproofed with bitumen and supplied with pipes and drains that would have allowed control over water flow and temperature. At Mohenjo-daro, nonresidential structures were built atop brick platforms that were as substantial as the structures erected on top of them, and would have required a great deal of coordinated action. It’s been calculated that just one of the foundation platforms would have required 4 million days of labor, or 10,000 builders working for more than a year.

Yet, at both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, these large nonresidential structures were relatively accessible, suggesting that they were “public,” as opposed to palaces or administrative centers restricted to a privileged class. Some of these may have served as specialized spaces for exchange, negotiation, and interaction between different groups clustered in neighborhoods or along important streets and roads. These spaces may have helped the city-dwellers maintain a high degree of consensus on planning and policy and ensured that no one group was able to accumulate wealth at the expense of the rest.

Urbanization, collective action, and technological innovation are not driven by the agendas of an exclusionary ruling class, the evidence suggests, and can occur in their total absence

The Indus Valley remains have yet to yield all of their riches. The Indus script has yet to be deciphered, and we still don’t know why the civilization started to decline in the second millennium BC. One of the most positive recent developments has been a dramatic increase in data and interest in the civilization’s small-scale settlements, which may shed light on the question whether these settlements were qualitatively different from one another or from the cities—and how far Indus egalitarianism extended across its broader landscape.

What we have already found, however, suggests that egalitarianism may have been a boon to collective action: that distinct social groups may have been more willing to invest in collective action if the benefits were not restricted to a subset of elites. That suggests that heterarchy may act as a kind of brake on coercive power amongst social groups, and across society as a whole.

If this is the case, and after a century of research on the Indus civilization, archaeologists have not found evidence for a ruling class comparable what’s been recovered in other early complex societies, then it’s time to address the Indus Valley’s egalitarianism.

Urbanization, collective action, and technological innovation are not driven by the agendas of an exclusionary ruling class, the evidence suggests, and can occur in their total absence. The Indus Valley was egalitarian not because it lacked complexity, but rather because a ruling class is not a prerequisite for social complexity. It challenges us to rethink the fundamental connections between collective action and inequality.

The priest-king is dead: or, in this case, most likely never existed.

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Adam S. Green is a lecturer in sustainability at the University of York. He is an archaeological anthropologist focused on South Asia, specializing in the comparative study of early states through the lenses of technology, the environment, and political economy.

This article was produced by Human Bridges, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Courtesy: Counter Currents (Posted on 23/06/2023)  

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