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The Indus valley: 5000 - 1800 BC
Towns of some sophistication are built from the fifth millennium BC by people practising agriculture on the banks of the Indus. They shelter within protective walls; they have drainage systems, and an oven within each mud-brick house. By 3200 BC there are settlements of this kind along the length of the river.
In about 2500 BC the river becomes the lifeline of a much more highly developed civilization, based on two places which are unmistakably cities - Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. These cities, and their civilization, vanish without trace from history until discovered in the 1920s.
Life in the Indus valley cities seems to have been highly regulated. Streets are laid out on a rectangular grid pattern, and there is a sewage system with household drains leading into main sewers of baked brick. These even have inspection holes for maintenance.
The larger houses, of two or occasionally three storeys, show blank walls to the outer world but have an inner courtyard - possibly with wooden balconies giving onto it. |
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