Facts about Harrapan

1) IVC is the largest of the 4 ancient river valley civilizations.

The Indus Valley Civilization was spread out over an area of 1,260,000 km over modern
day Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. The geographical spread is appreciable particularly
when we consider the fact that all across this immense expanse, Indus Valley settlements
exhibit the same hallmark features of their civilization. At its peak the area must have
been inhabited by well over 5 million people.
2) They had the world's first planned cities with downtowns and residential
areas (and perhaps, some of the best planned cities in the sub-continent to
date).
A typical city would be divided into two sections, each fortified separately. One section,
known as the acropolis, was located on an artificially raised mound while the other level
was on level ground.
The acropolis contained the important buildings of the city, like the assembly halls,
religious structures, granaries and in the case of Mohenjo-Daro the famous Great Bath.
The lower section of the city was where the housing for the inhabitants was located. It
was here where some truly amazing features have been discovered. The city was well
connected with broad roads about 30 meters long which met at right angles. The houses
were located in the rectangular squares thus formed. Houses were built with
standardized baked bricks (which had a ratio of length to width to thickness at 4:2:1) and
many had spacious courtyards. Some of the bigger houses even had multiple stories
(levels) and paved floors.
3) They built urban sanitation systems non-pareil in the Ancient World till
much later.
The most unique aspect of the Indus Valley municipal systems was the attention given to
and the sophistication involved in urban sanitation systems. Every house had an
individual well, a separate drain connecting to the drains in the alleyways which
connected to the main street drains: all of which were covered. The street drains had
descending levels so as to enable filtering out of waste. They were completely leak-proof
due to the masonry expertise and even employed wooden nets at corbelled openings to
filter out solid wastes! No other civilization enjoyed such luxuries! Half of India to this
day doesn't have access to such sanitation.
4) The IVC developed the most precise measurements humanity had at the
time.
The measurements were uniquely standard across the entire region, and followed a
decimal system. Their smallest length division, which is marked on an ivory scale found

in Lothal, was approximately 1.604 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of
the Bronze Age.
Rulers made of Ivory were in use by the Indus Valley Civilization period prior to 1500
BC. Excavations at Lothal (2400 BC) have yielded one such ruler calibrated to about 116
inches (1.6 millimetres). Ian Whitelaw holds that the "Mohenjo-Daro ruler is divided
into units corresponding to 1.32 inches (33.5 millimetres) and these" are marked out in
decimal subdivisions with amazing accuracy, to within 0.005 inches (0.13 millimetres).
Ancient bricks found throughout the region have dimensions that correspond to these
units. (1)
5) The IVC people were the world's first dentists!
In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan,
made the discovery that the people of the Indus Valley Civilization, from the early
Harappan periods, had knowledge of proto-dentistry. Later, in April 2006, it was
announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic)
evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e., in a living person) was found in
Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a Neolithic
graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates from 7,500-9,000 years ago. According to the authors,
their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming cultures of
that region.
6) IVC people had the world's first buttons!
The button, in fact, was originally used more as an ornament than as a fastening, the
earliest known being found at Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley. It was made of a curved
shell and about 5000 years old.
There are many more mysteries waiting to be solved to shed more light on this
civilization: its sudden emergence, its language, its equally sudden collapse, its enemies/
trading partners and so on.
7) The world's first dockyard: Lothal
Apropos to Amar Prabhu's valuable guidance, Lothal had the world's first ever artificial
dockyard specifically for the purpose of loading and unloading cargo. While there are
other contenders for the status of the world's oldest port, Lothal is the oldest artificially
engineered dockyard.
It is speculated that Lothal engineers studied tidal movements, and their effects on
brick-built structures, since the walls are of kiln-burnt bricks. This knowledge also
enabled them to select Lothal's location in the first place, as the Gulf of Khambhat has
the highest tidal amplitude and ships can be sluiced through flow tides in the river
estuary.The dock also possessed a lock-gate systema wooden door could be lowered at

the mouth of the outlet to retain a minimum column of water in the basin so as to ensure
floatation at low tides.

Facts about Meso

1. They were the first people, that we know of, to assign symbols to groups of objects in
an attempt to make the description of larger numbers easier.
2. Sumerian and Babylonian mathematics was based on a sexagesimal, or base-60,
number system, which could be counted using twelve knuckles on one hand and five
fingers on the other hand.
3. Sumerian astronomy was primitive compared to later Babylonian standards.
Babylonian clay tablets that have survived since the dawn of civilization in the
Mesopotamian region - record the earliest total solar eclipse seen in Ugarit on May 3,
1375 BCE.
4. The Sumerians of Babylon were the first people, that we know of, to make a calendar.
5. A Sumerian medical tablet, one of the oldest found, dated 2400 BCE, excavated at the
site of the ancient city of Nippur in Mesopotamia - The sumerian physician went to
botanical, zoological an mineralogical sources for his ingredients. His favorite mineral
were sodium chloride (salt), river bitumen (tar), and vegetable oil. Animal sources were
wool, mild, turtle shell, and water snake. like their modern counterparts, most of the
medicinal ingredients came from the botanical world. The plant sources included thyme,
mustard, plum tree, pears, figs, willow, fir pine and products such as beer, wine, and
vegetable oil.
6. There were three types of Sumerian boats, 1) made of animal skin and reeds
(skinboats), 2) clinker-built sailboats made of hair and bitumen waterproofing, and 3)
wooden-oared ships.
7. They invented the potter's wheel, the milled wheel and the first wheeled vehicles.
8. They developed the first codified legal system and military ranking system in the
world.
9. They created the first schools.
10. Sumerians also invented the concept of siege warfare and the `scorched earth tactic
used in military engagements ever since.
11. Prior to deciphering cuneiform script, we understood the origins of certain aspects of
life in a very different fashion. Writing was thought to have originated in Phoenicia,
time-telling in China, schools in Greece, and the first love song in the biblical book of
The Song of Solomon. The Sumerians have taught us that Sumerians had written stories
concerning a fall of man and a great flood before the narratives much like the deluge in
book of Genesis.