Architecture

Keith Louden
 * Civil Architecture: The Indus Pyramid **

//“All architecture begins with world view, that is, it begins with a culture’s view of how objects are organized in the world. The language of architecture is permeated with a culture’s sense of what humans should do, where they should do it, when they should do it, how important it is, and how it relates to the rest of the community, material and spiritual world.” ~Richard Hooker//

Sophisticated, complex, and technologically innovative are just a few words to describe the Indus Valley civilization. Located around the Indus river basin, primarily in modern day Pakistan and a small portion of India, the Harappan culture encompassed an area twice the size of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian empires. However, despite its expansive size, very little is known about the Indus people. With an undeciphered script and an unfamiliar language, most of the interpretations for Harappan culture seem to be derived more from a lack of evidence. Fortunately, the Indus voice is not completely lost. The stamp of the Indus Valley’s existence lies within the architectural remains that may provide further clues to the lives of these people.

In all the highly developed societies of the past, the world had never seen such architectural feats as those achieved by the Indus Valley during the Mature Harappan period. Recent excavations have discovered advance civil engineering, large urban areas, and thousands of settlements that make up the Harappan civilization. Even with all these archaeological finds, however, we are still unsure of what to make of this culture. Unlike Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley has no monumental structures to bestow insight on their political and social organization. The reason for this is because the Indus had no need for large monuments. In contrast with its Western contemporaries, the Indus people were not coerced into erecting gigantic structures to honor tyrants or deities. What I am arguing is that the Indus cities were not designed to suit the needs of royal or religious ideologies but rather planned to accommodate the needs of its inhabitants. In other words, in the Indus cities, the people came first. media type="youtube" key="ItfJYQZoyCk" height="344" width="425" ** Our first evidence shows that a Harappan citadel/acropolis, the closest resemblance in the Indus Valley to other Old World monuments, functioned much differently than the administrative centers during their time. Most of the Indus cities consisted of two main divisions: the citadel/acropolis and the lower town. It is also important to note that while this holds true for the most part, urban Indus cities did have their regional variations such as the citadel and lower town in closer proximities at Lothal and the exceptional middle town at Dholavira. The citadel usually stood upon a higher mound and featured larger buildings that are presumed to have performed religious and civil affairs. Famous examples of these Indus public buildings include the “Granary”/ “Great Hall” and “Buddhist Stupa” commonly seen at Harappan cities. What we do know about these structures is that they are of some importance as signified by the elevation of the mounds they are placed on in relation to the mounds of the lower town. However, these features are not of monumental size nor seem to be centers of mass public gathering. For example, while the most well known Harappan structure, the Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro, is believed to hold a religious or ceremonial function by most archaeologists, its size may indicate that it was only accessible to a certain few in terms of the total population. Other edifices such as the “Assembly Hall” in Mohenjo-Daro may also demonstrate a collective concern for the welfare of the Indus people. The lack of such elaborate palaces and temples further suggest that the focus and energy of these buildings were spent on municipal services, redistribution, and even possible minuscule religious operations opposed to being giant displays of authority and severe social stratification.
 * Note: Although this PBS video cuts off early, it gives a great introduction to the Indus Valley cities Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.
 * The Citadel/Acropolis and its Structures
 * Grid-iron Pattern **

The next evidence that supports this thesis can be found in the well designed grid-like street layout of the lower town. Houses were separated by a network of roads that crossed each other in a chessboard-like fashion. Most cities were planned in junction with the cardinal directions where the primary streets were oriented towards the north and south while the secondary streets stretched from east to west. The primary streets were the widest streets of the town and generally ran through the city diverting the movement of traffic. Corners of the primary streets were rounded which suggests that city planners acknowledged the difficulty of turning carts. Secondary streets were about half the size of primary streets and separated the houses from the bustling main streets. Small alleyways and avenues, measuring to about a third or fourth of the primary roads further divided these secondary streets. Specific measurements were used that seem to follow a mathematical progression. For example, Kalibangan’s streets measure in multiples of 1.8m (1.8m, 3.6m, 5.4m, and 7.2m) (Danino 2008:15). House entrances never faced the main road but instead opened up towards the secondary roads or smaller alleyways. Relating back to my argument, this type of evidence suggests that the city planners had a deep consideration for the flow of people and heavy traffic. By having the house entrances accessible on the secondary or other roads, the inhabitants did not have to worry about walking into oncoming carts or vice versa. The network of roads allowed for easy navigation for the populous that was unreciprocated by Mesopotamia and Egypt until later periods. At the same time, disjoining the entrances from the main street also added privacy to the Indus houses.

 More evidence in this area can provide further insight that went into town planning. The lower town of Harappan cities generally served as a commercial and residential area. Unlike Mesopotamian urban areas, houses were well organized and were considerately spaced apart by several lanes (Stein 2007:360). As one would assume, the market area was littered with shops and factories. From an aerial perspective, one could see that Harappan cities had specific designated areas that executed specific civil functions implying that Indus city planners made a clear separation of residential and communal space.

** Sewage and Drainage System **

One could not simply discuss a city that reflected the demands of the civilization without mentioning the complex drain and sewer system of the Indus Valley cities. Never before in ancient times had archaeologists seen a culture that emphasized proper hygiene through intricate sanitation engineering. Each house had its own bathroom which suggests the importance of cleanliness for both the inhabitants and the city. Most lavatories had bathing platforms while all included their own toilet. M. Jansen gives us a detailed description of such: “//A typical bathing platform was installed inside the private house, either as a reserved area inside a larger room or as a separate, custom-built ‘bathroom’, and consisted of a slightly raised platform floor, sloping to allow the used water to drain off, and built of several layers of brick laid either with the points staffered or in cross bond. This platform was edged in by a row of standing bricks, forming a shallow basin. In order to keep the clay-filled joints as tight as possible, the floor bricks were precisely formed with sharp edges.//” (1989:187) Latrines directed waste waters from the houses into the main sewer which lined the streets. Sewer drains were usually covered by brick slaps and either flowed into large cesspools or outside the city. Drains varied in different gradient levels and size, some being large enough for people to walk through. Inspection points for these drains have been found in the form of movable stone slabs. This type of evidence implies that these facilities were highly maintained and further stresses a civic service beneficial to Indus society. ** Water Supply ** An astounding feature of Indus cities that served the populous was its abundance of water supply. Harappan people were well distinguished by their management of water. Sites such as Harappa provide the remains of finely constructed wells, usually by wedge shaped bricks, that are dispersed throughout the city. It has been estimated that Mohenjo-Daro contains approximately 600 to 700 wells, about one every third house (Jansen 1989:180). In the case of Mohenjo-Daro, larger houses had their own private wells while other houses depended on nearby communal ones.

Another exceptional example of water distribution is found at the Indus metropolis Dhalovira. Dhalovira had a sophisticated network of dams, channels, and reservoirs that made up nearly a third of the area of this urban area. Up to eleven water tanks have been found, six to the east and south of the “caste” and “bailey” and five at the western and northern parts of the city. The channels diverted water from the surrounding Manhar and Mansar rivulets into the reservoirs. The reservoirs themselves had staircases and together are estimated to contain up to 325,000 cubic yards of water. The placement of these water tanks was accessible from any part of the town, including outside the city walls (Archaeological Survey of India). Similar to Mohenjo-Daro and other urban Harappan cities, we see a well-designed characteristic of redistribution that seems to be intended for easy access to an important resource for the cities’ citizen. media type="youtube" key="Bj1yUD7dnKs" height="344" width="425"
 * Note: Despite being a video promoting tourism in Gujarat and having debatable interpretations, this clip does well in showing the capabilities of Indus civil engineering.


 * Conclusion **

The rise of urban cities and its archaeological remains during the Mature Harappan period has provided us with key insights into the political and social organization of the Indus Valley civilization. One coherent aspect that can be found within Harappan architecture is the importance placed upon the needs of the citizens. We have seen that the citadel/acropolis functioned differently than Mesopotamian and Egyptian centers of attractions that ostentatiously demonstrated the power and superiority of the elites. Archaeological records and excavation reports have provided us a deeper look into the sophisticated organizations of Indus cities that allowed for easy navigation through its streets. They have also supplied us with further knowledge and detailed descriptions of some of the world’s first drains and sewers that maintained immaculate roads and houses. Lastly, evidence has indicated the amount of consideration that went in to the convenient accessibility of water supply for the population. Although there is much more to be said, the voices of the Harappan people are still silent. Until the Indus script is deciphered, archaeologists will have to rely on future excavation data in order to further understand this Old World complex society.

[|Walk the streets of Mohenjo-Daro yourself!]

Archaeological Survey of India 2008 Excavations-Dhalovira. Electronic Document. [], accessed March 23, 2009. Blumenfeld, Hans 1942 On a Peculiar Feature of the City Plan of Mohenjo-Daro. The Journal of the American Society of Architectural Historians 2(1):23-26. Danino, Michel 2008 New Insights into Harappan Town-Planning, Proportions and Units, with Special Reference to Dhalovira. Man and Environment 33(1):66-79. Fitzsimons, Matthew A. 1970 The Indus Valley Civilization. The History Teacher 4(1):9-22. Gates, Charles 2003 Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. //In// Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome. Routledge. Pp 67-75.
 * References Cited **

Hooker, Richard 1999 Architecture. In World Cultrues General Glossary, Electronic Document, [], accessed April 7, 2009.

Jansen, M. 1989 Water Supply and Sewage Disposal at Mohenjo-Daro. World Archaeology 21(2): 177-189. Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark 2008 Mohenjo-Daro: An Ancient Indus Valley Metropolis, Electronic Document, [], accessed March 28, 2009. Leshnik, Lawrence S. 1968 The Harappan “Port” at Lothal: Another View. American Anthropologist, New Series 70(5):911-922. McIntosh, Jane 2007 The Mature Indus Civilization (2600-1900/1800 B.C.E.). //In// The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives. ABC-CLIO. Pp. 83-90. Possehl, Gregory L.   1990 Revolution in the Urban Revolution: The Emergence of Indus Urbanization. Annual Review of Anthropology 19:261-282. Possehl, Gregory L. 2002 The Architecture of the Indus Age. //In// The Indus Civilization. Rowman Altamira. Pp 99-106. Stanislawski, Dan 1946 The Origin and Spread of the Grid-Pattern Town. Geology 36(1):105-120. Stein, Gh. J. 2007 Understanding Ancient State Societies in the Old World. //In// Archaeology at the Millennium. Springer. Pp. 353-360.

Teeter, Emily 2007 Cities, Towns, and Villages. //In// Egypt and the Egyptians. Cambridge University Press. Pp. 60-73.

Thapar, B.K.  1975 Kalibangan: A Harappan Metropolis Beyond the Indus Valley. Expedition 17(2):13-19

The Story of India 2008 Michael Wood, dir. 2:26. PBS. USA.