Corporate Strategy as an Art (VIII): The Bronze Age – Indus Valley Civilization
Gruezi. Good Afternoon mittenand!
Today it is the turn of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Indus Sarasvati Region- Bronze Age. Source: https://www.humanjourney.us/ideas-that-shaped-our-modern-world-section/early-civilizations-harappa/
In general, the information sources I visited, agree that the Indus Valley Civilization was located on a fertile flood plain of the Indus Sarasvati river and its Vicinity. This region matches to the countries where Pakistan and Northwest India are situated. The major cities discovered by historians and archaeologists are Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. A few years ago, a new archaeological site called Rakhigarhi was found.
For such an extensive region as India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, etc, 100 years of archaeological studies are just the beginning. I only found information about the following archaeological sites: Harappa, Mohenjo Daro, Rakhigarhi, Lothal, and a few others. “Though much has been written and debated about the art and culture of the Harappans or the citizens from Mohenjo Daro, this archaeological picture is still a “work in progress”.
The undeciphered language is the Harappan, named after the major Indus Valley city of Harappa. According to the sources listed below: “Unlike the cuneiform (wedge-like) script adopted for Sumerian and Akkadian, which was largely written on clay, the Harappan, or the Indus writing script is composed of many signs and/from short inscriptions above animal representations”. What was the meaning of Harappan scripts and seals and tablets found? Can someone tell us with precision? Without understanding the Indus Valley Civilization language, little we can do to interpret their entire portrait of that time. Nevertheless, we can rely on certain objects. “Some of the iconic art pieces discovered at Harappan sites include seals, jewelry, painted pottery, metal and terracotta figurines, toys, bronze tools, etc”. These objects highlight how was a general culture. Various types of household articles and utensils have been discovered from the ruins of Mahenjo Daro and Harappa. These articles and utensils are made of clay, stone and of metals like bronze and copper. Let´s take a view to some of the art pieces I have found over the internet about the Indus Valley Civilizations:
In relation to the architecture, let´s observe the architecture from the Mohenjo Daro site; it resembles “a grid pattern” and had provisions for a drainage system. The residential buildings were mainly from clay brick and consisted of an open patio flanked by rooms. It is perceived that the most important monument was a structure with a “sacred” tank (thought to be for rituals). I would like to share with you the following video produced by National Geographic:
“By observing the art found at the Indus Valley Bronze Age archaeological sites, it is possible that their citizens were skilled in the use of metals such as copper, bronze, lead, and tin (as evidenced). Some seals suggest that they cultivated barley, wheat, peas, sesame, and cotton”. It is possible that Trade was an important source of commerce. Mesopotamian texts from the same period have linked historians to the idea that there were traders and merchants of this valley establishing their commercial relations with Iran, Sumer, Egypt, and Crete.
My conclusion: There is no doubt that the northern part of India and Pakistan, have evidence (vestiges and ruins) about their bronze age cultures. Nevertheless, since the Harappan language has not been yet understood, there is work for the archaeologists to do. Investment in deciphering their ancient reading-writing language will help to appropriately understand them. Here is a new lesson for you: Written language is important for precision, art tends to be subjective by the one who creates it, and by the one who interprets it. Mohenjo Daro and Harappa have given us possible sketchings of their social, government and family lifestyle through their art vestiges. But still, there is a long way to understand why the Indus Valley Society disappeared and more specific details about it.
Indus Valley King Priest. c.a. 2,000 BCE
When the Aryans conquered the region (1,500 BCE), the Indus Valley Civilizations were already declining. The reason (for me) seems to be that trade or commerce with the rest of the cultures was interrupted. Some historians believe that the Saraswati River was drying up, meanwhile, others think of a great flood in the area that destroyed the cities. “Any of those events would have had catastrophic effects on the agricultural activity, making the economy no longer sustainable and breaking the civic order of the cities”. We will visit the Aryans intrusion to this region in our Iron Age publications. The Aryans were Vedic Indic people who took this territory. Some believe the Aryans were a tribe from Iran, and again the term “Aryan has had a history filled with controversy”.
This is all for today. Please if you wish to stimulate your mind about the Indus Valley Civilizations of the Bronze Age, visit this link website The Human Journey. On my next publication, we will sail directly to visit the China Bronze Age art. I hope my adorable and handsome boyfriend Alejandro Guillermo Lozano Artolachipi can help me to guess better about the Chinese Bronze Age with immeasurable accuracy.
Thank you. Stay tuned.
Sources utilized to write this article:
https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/keywords/indus-valley-art/
https://toranas.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/art-and-architecture-of-harappa-civilization/
https://www.thoughtco.com/indus-civilization-timeline-and-description-171389
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Indus_Valley_Civilization
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Indus-civilization
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/east-asian-art/indian-sculpture.htm
http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/east-asian-art/indus-valley.htm
https://www.timemaps.com/civilizations/Indus-Valley-civilization/
https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-bronze-age-in-india-history-culture-technology.html
https://www.humanjourney.us/ideas-that-shaped-our-modern-world-section/early-civilizations-harappa/
Disclaimer: All the presentation slides shown on this blog are prepared by Eleonora Escalante MBA-MEng. Nevertheless, all the pictures or videos shown on this blog are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.
Eleonora Escalante Strategy 