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What is the Indus civilization?

The Indus is one of the longest rivers in the world. But before the 18th century, people never thought that this river, hidden in the desert and rarely visited by human beings, had a splendid yesterday comparable to that of ancient Egypt. And compared to other ancient civilizations, it is completely unprecedented.

The Indus Civilization first came to attention in the 18th century with the excavations of the ruins of Harappa. In the middle of the 19th century, when the chief of Indian archaeology, Cunningham, came to Habala for the second time, he unearthed a strange seal, but he thought it was just a foreign object, and only wrote a simple report. After 50 years, no one noticed This ruins.

Later, archaeologists found a large number of ruins belonging to the same civilization in the area of ​​1,600 kilometers from east to west and 1,400 kilometers from north to south, centering on the Punjab area including Harappa.

This discovery shook the archaeological community because the ancient civilization covering such a large area can be said to be unique in the world.

In 1922, an accidental opportunity led to the discovery of the ruins of Mohenjo Daro, 600 kilometers south of Xalapa. Items unearthed here are similar to those unearthed in Harappa, which reminded people of the seals unearthed in Harappa 50 years ago, and archaeologists began to pay attention to the vast area between the two sites.

These sites are located in the Indus Valley, so they are called the Indus civilization. According to research, the site was built 5,000 years ago or even earlier. However, what is exciting is not only its area and age. Soon, it was discovered that although these sites belonged to the same civilization, the living standards were different. What is the reason?

The results of a study of Indian seals unearthed in Harappa were disappointing, with no one able to decipher the text on the seals. Writing is the level of a country’s civilization, and a stamp with writing may play an important role in political and economic activities.

And seals were only unearthed in Mohenjo Darrow and Harappa, so experts infer that Mohenjo Darrow and Harappa are both cities, which can explain why people in the same civilization have different living standards. Of course this is just speculation.

To further confirm the urban nature of Mohenjo Darrow and Harappa, archaeologists have carried out the most extensive excavations of Mohenjo Darrow. Mohenjo Daro covers an area of ​​about 100 square kilometers and is divided into the castle on the west side and the vast city block on the east side. The castle on the west side is built on a foundation as high as 10 meters. There is a large brick barn in the castle and a building for purification called “big bath”. The most surprising thing is the hugeness of the barn, which seems to It shows the wealth of the city at that time. But how was the grain that filled the big barn collected?

There are streets extending in all directions in the urban area, each of which is more than 10 meters wide in the east-west direction and the north-south direction. The citizens’ houses have wells and courtyards, and the building materials of the houses are fired bricks. It would be unbelievable if you hadn’t seen it with your own eyes, because in other ancient civilizations, bricks were only used in the construction of palaces and temples. What amazes archaeologists most is its complete drainage system.

Its level of perfection may not even be able to reach one of the best modern cities in the world today. The water from the flush toilet on the second floor can be discharged to the sewer through the earth pipe in the wall, and some people have garbage pipes for dumping garbage through high-rise buildings.

The sewage flowing out from each house is deposited in the outdoor water tank and then flows into the underground water channel like an underdrain. The underground water channel is criss-crossed and spread throughout the city. Faced with such a dense underground waterway, people can not help but stunned. There are guard posts throughout the residential complex.

Judging from the excavation results, this is a city that pays great attention to public facilities for citizens’ life. What kind of society is this? Why does it have no palaces, and all the housing standards are the same, completely different from the ancient Inca with palaces and temples, Mesopotamia and Egypt, where the tombs of kings and pharaohs are densely distributed between the rich and the poor?

In addition to perfect public facilities, there are many ports leading to the Indus River and even the Arabian Sea, which is a manifestation of extensive and active economic activities at home and abroad. Whoever planned all this? This designer can be said to have a modern mind. In addition, the entire Mohenjo-Daro has no defense systems, no attacking weapons, and no beautiful and eye-catching works of art, the only precedent in known ancient civilizations.

Who are the rulers of these cities? Archaeologists routinely first searched for palaces and shrines at Mohenjo Daro, but found nothing.

This brings up another question: who is it and what method does it use to rule this vast country? And Mohenjo Darrow and Xalapa have the exact same city building, are they both capitals? Since there is no temple, can we use examples from other ancient civilizations – ancient Inca, Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, where the kings were also pharaohs or priest-kings to infer the ruler?

It is true that no traces of priest-king rule have been found in all the ruins. Could it be that the Indus River civilization more than 5,000 years ago has abandoned the monarchy? It is impossible for such a large country to have no rulers. Archaeologists have carefully studied the first and subsequent seals, but after a century of hard work, the words on the seals are still indecipherable.

So, is it a symbol of power, and if so, why don’t these two cities have temples and palaces?

Because a small number of seals have deities engraved on them, it has been speculated that they may be religious relics. But some people retorted that this is entirely a family or personal preservation, and it cannot explain the religious nature of the entire country. Moreover, only a small part of the nearly 30,000 seals unearthed have statues of gods.

Mysteries keep growing. Some people think that as long as they can interpret the words on the seal, they can explain the ins and outs of this civilization. In fact, although writing can make people understand the origin and decline of an entire civilization, most archaeologists believe that it must be studied from many aspects in order to draw parallels.

Who exactly created this civilization? At first, people mistakenly thought that it was developed under the influence of other civilizations, but further archaeological discoveries revealed that neither text nor seals could be seen elsewhere, and the identification of unearthed human skeletons also showed that the people here were mixed. Many racial elements are not a particular nation as it is now known.

Who were the people who built such highly civilized cities back then in places that are no longer inhabitable today, if not the ancestors of the Indians? How was the Indus civilization abandoned? The latter can find some clues in the human bones unearthed by Mohenjo Darrow.

The human bones unearthed here all died in a very strange state. In other words, the people who died were not buried in tombs. Archaeologists found that these people died suddenly. In the usual ancient civilization sites, unless there have been earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, there will be no sudden deaths.

The above two incidents did not happen to Mohenjo Darrow. The human bones were all found in the living room, and there were many dead bodies lying in piles in the living room, which was horrible to see.

The most striking thing is that some of the corpses covered their faces with their hands and appeared to protect themselves. If not volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, what made these people die instantly?

This has been a mystery for a long time, and archaeologists have put forward hypotheses of epidemics, attacks, mass suicides, etc., but have all been disproved. Neither an epidemic nor mass suicide can explain this “instant” death.

To solve this mystery, Indian archaeologist Kaha conducted a detailed chemical analysis of the unearthed human bones. Dr Kaha’s report said: “I found traces of high temperature heating in nine of the bones… Needless to say it was certainly not cremation and there was no sign of fire.

“What was the unusually high temperature that caused the sudden death of the residents of Mohenjo Daro? People are reminded of the nuclear wars that some scientists deduced to have occurred in many parts of the world in ancient times. The ruins of Mohenjo Daro and the ancient imaginary Does nuclear war matter?

In fact, the Indo-Asia continent was the battlefield of ancient nuclear warfare that is often told in epic mythology. The war scene described in the great epic poem “Maha Barad” in 3000 BC is like the tragic scene after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and the weapons mentioned are not comparable to modern weapons.

Another epic poem, Ramayana, describes the instant and complete destruction of hundreds of thousands of troops. There is one thing worth noting in the poem: the venue of the great battle is the city called “Lanka”, and “Lanka” is the local name for Mohenjo Daro.

According to local people: Mohenjo Daro, who was banned from excavation in Pakistan after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, has a lot of “glass buildings” left after the Hiroshima nuclear explosion – torinite matter (ie After the world’s first atomic bomb was tested in the Torinite Desert in the United States, the glass-like substance solidified by the high temperature of Shain).

The answer seems to be out. But inferences are inferences after all, and while scientists are increasingly convinced that several civilizations arose and were destroyed on Earth, it is too early to convince people that Mohenjo Darrow’s abandonment was related to nuclear war.

Some people believe that the Indus civilization and other civilizations coexisted at the same time. Can it be said that at the beginning of the development of the Indus River civilization, it was influenced by foreign civilizations, but it gave birth to a unique high civilization in the long history.

It has also been suggested that the Indus River civilization was the result of the fusion of various cultures, and there are different opinions.

One thing is certain, the particularity and magic of the Indus River civilization have contributed to the development of human history in the past and present irreplaceable wealth. It is not only the source of Indian culture, but also an important part of the history of human civilization. It is the task of today’s people to unravel the mystery of it, and it will be finally revealed.