Until the beginning of the 20th century, historians believed that the Aryan tribes brought civilization to the Indian subcontinent. who invaded there in the 2nd millennium BC. Most historians believed that the indigenous, pre-Aryan population of India was a tribe of savages who were easily enslaved by the much more developed Indo-Aryans. But in 1922, the expedition of the English archaeologist John Marshall discovered the Indus Valley civilization to the world, which was named Harappan after its largest city. On the territory of modern Pakistan and northwestern India, megacities of an ancient, very developed culture were found, which existed long before the arrival of the Aryan tribes in India. Today this civilization is actively studied, but it still remains a mystery for historians and archaeologists.
According to scientists, the population of the state (or states) that this civilization united was about 5 million citizens, which is a lot for the Ancient world. It was a complex, developed society that existed at the same time as the ancient civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, but surpassed them in numbers and territorial coverage - objects related to this culture are found from the south of the central Indian state of Gujarat to the northern territories of Afghanistan. Some scientists suggest that the Harappan civilization generally arose earlier than all others - the most ancient finds date back to the 4th millennium BC, but some scientists argue that the existence of this culture should be counted in general from the 8th millennium BC.
In many ways, the Harappan civilization has surpassed its contemporaries. For example, the oldest sewage systems and public toilets have been discovered in Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. The Harappan civilization was based on cities, which were built according to very strict, geometrically verified plans. A total of 1056 cities were discovered. Each city had a fortified citadel, public barns for storing bread, wells, sewerage and irrigation systems. But still, there are a lot of dark spots and questions in the study of the Harappan civilization. Here are just a few of them.
Origin of the Indus Valley inhabitants
Until now, it has not been precisely established what race the representatives of this civilization belonged to, what language they spoke. Some scholars suggest that the inhabitants of the Indus Valley were a Semitic people, akin to the Sumerians. Others believe that the Harappan civilization was ethnically close to the Indo-Aryans, who settled in the territories of India much earlier - not about 2000 BC, but about 3600. But most historians hold the point of view that the Harappan people were Dravidians, that is, representatives the Veddo-Australoid race. Today the Dravidians live only in the south of India. Before the discovery of Harappa, it was believed that when the Aryans invaded Hindustan, the Dravidian peoples, greatly lagging behind them in development, were pushed out to the south of India, and in the north they submitted to the invaders. The Dravids became farmers and servants, and the Aryans became the elite of society. However, if the Harappan civilization was indeed created by the Dravidians, then this refutes all theories that claim they were semi-savage inhabitants of the jungle. Perhaps the history of the Aryan invasion of India was more similar not to the Conquest, but to the destruction of the Roman Empire by the barbarians.
Harappan writing
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The writing of the Harappan civilization has not yet been deciphered. A huge number of written texts was discovered, the structure of which indicates a high degree of development of written culture. In the Harappan writing, about 400 signs were used, some of which denoted sounds and syllables, some - words, like Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is impossible to decipher this writing, if only because it is completely incomprehensible what kind of language it was, to which language group it belonged. Even assuming that the Harappians were Dravidians, the huge problem is that the Dravidian languages did not have a written language until the Middle Ages. Therefore, it is difficult for scientists today to imagine the Dravidian languages even 1000 years ago. The problem can be solved by finding a bilingual - a bilingual inscription. But so far this has not happened.
Political structure of the Harappan society
This civilization had 2 centers: the cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. It is unclear whether they were the capitals of two different states, or two large cities of one country. The question of how exactly these states were organized remains open. On the one hand, archaeological finds show great wealth inequality in these cities. The rich neighborhoods where the elite lived and the poor shacks are rigidly divided. There was clearly a class structure of society. But the question of who lived in these shacks - the free poor, serfs or slaves, remains open. In addition, there is no evidence that power was concentrated in the hands of a single ruler. There is a theory that the cities had a republican system.
The death of the Harappan civilization
Archaeological finds indicate that from the XIX - XVIII centuries. BC. The Harappan civilization began to degrade. Pottery fades, new buildings in cities are smaller than old ones, construction is no longer proceeding according to the same strictest plans, but chaotically. There are several points of view here: some archaeologists associate this with climate changes in the 2nd millennium BC. The Indus became deeper and began to flood more and more areas vital for the Harappans. However, there is also an internal crisis, the degeneration of social institutions. As a result, the Harappans either degraded so much that they lost all their cultural heritage and mixed with other peoples, or, under the pressure of the Indo-Aryan invasion, migrated to the south of India. The second hypothesis is quite logical if it is argued that the Harappians were Dravidians. But then it is not clear why they came to new lands,completely losing all the remnants of the former high culture.
Alexander Artamonov