Indus Valley Civilization: Architecture

[A1Kaid]

The Indus Valley civilization is not well as known as the ancient Mesopotamian civilizations as Sumeria, Babylon, Assyrians, or ancient Egypt, and ancient Greece. Archaeologist and Architectural historians have had a much longer time to study the aforementioned civilizations as their sites have been well excavated and studied by scholars. The Indus Valley civilization has been known by modern scholars for roughly 140 years, it is a field that has growing scholarly activity and more is being learned.


One of the great hallmarks of the Indus Valley civilization (known to be at least a 5,000 year old civilization) is their architectural achievements and urban planning. Though unlike other ancient civilizations like the Egyptians and the Sumerians no Pyramids or Ziggurats have been found in the Indus Valley civilization sites such as Mohenjo-Daro or Harappa, and Taxila. However, other great engineering achievements such as irrigation, urban planning, streets, and public facilities are argued to have been more advance than other ancient civilizations.

Perhaps, the Indus Valley Civilization did build large megalithic structures remaining to be seen, that is the work of archaeologist.


This thread is for the sake of learning Indus Valley civilization's architecture, a keystone of their civilization and how they lived.

 

[Sugarcane]

An interested video, maybe you have seen it already

Meluhha: the Indus Civilization and Its Contacts with Mesopotamia

Meluhha -- the name for the Indus civilization found in Mesopotamian texts -- was an important source of exotic goods, many of which are preserved in the archaeological record of Mesopotamia. The movement of people and goods between these two regions established a pattern of interaction that continued in later periods and is still seen today. This lecture presents an overview of the Indus civilization and its contact with the

 

[A1Kaid]

The Indus Valley civilization mainly used mudbricks to construct their structures, reason being mudbrick was the most available, abundant, and inexpensive material in the Indus Valley region and lends itself as a useful building material.


Mudbrick used to construct a water well, the well stands very tall in comparison to surrounding structures due to removal of past structures which surrounded it.

Image Source: Harappa.com


Aerial view of a public bathhouse in Mohenjo-Daro.

Image Source; UCLA, John Steinberg

The aerial view shows us what appears to be a 6 x 10 column structure, interesting to note the ancient Greeks in the Doric order style Temples used a 6 x 13 column structure for their temples.

 

[A1Kaid]

Plan view of Mohenjo-Daro, Mohenjo-Daro demonstrates the Indus valley civilization understood the importance of a grid plan and uses of straight major axis for city planning, archaeology indicates the Indus Valley civilization made the the first ever city using the grid plan. Other sites in Egypt show grid plan being used in labor camp houses, however not on a city scale such as what we see in Mohenjo-Daro.

Ancient grid plans

The grid plan dates from antiquity and originated in multiple cultures; some of the earliest planned cities were built using grid plans.

By 2600 BC, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, were built with blocks divided by a grid of straight streets, running north-south and east-west. Each block was subdivided by small lanes.

Source: Grid plan



With more archaeological research more will be known about the early architects and engineers of the Indus valley civilization, we already know of Imhotep the ancient Egyptian architect who designed the Step Pyramid in Sakkara in Upper Egypt and many other public and private projects he designed. However, little is known about the IVC architects.

 

[ThunderCat]

 

[runa moosani]

Nobody in my family is interested in historical places,but i have decided to go there in december Inshallah.

 

[Rig Vedic]

There is a view that Meluhha is a corruption of the Sanskrit word "Mlechha".

The units used in Indus Valley town planning ("Dhanush" and "anguli") are the same as those used in many temples and old buildings all across India and Nepal. These units have been mentioned in Chanakya's classic book, the "Arthashastra". Interestingly, even the architecture of the Taj Mahal is based on the same units.

I favour the view that the Indus valley people were originally similar to the proto-Elamite people of Iran, but were absorbed into the Indic sphere by around 2500 BC. The narrative in the Rig Veda, of conflict between Indic and Iranic people, also suggests the same thing.