Art is the mirror of culture. Art unfolds the unsaid and unwritten words about the human activities of centuries and even millenia, through the art works created by the graceful hands of unknown artists.Indus valley civilization, was a highly developed bronze age civilization, which rose and declined between 2500 BC and 1500 BC. In ancient times, art was just not a creative activity but had a mundane purpose too, ie.
Depicting the everyday life. When we observe the art objects created by Indus artists, we find they were very close to life of people.The most peculiar art object of Indus valley is the Seal. The total number of seals and seals impressions found in Indus sites exceeds 3200. These are small, flat and mostly square objects with human/animal motifs on them. Mostly the engravings on seals and sealings represented animals. Representation of animals suggest that harappans held them in great reverence. Seals provide us the evidence of animal worship.
Among the animal engravings, the unicorn, the hump less bull and composite animal forms occupy special place.The seals even have an inscription of a sort of pictorial writing. Ever since Indus seals are found, scholars have been working hard to decipher the inscriptions on them in an unknown language and unknown script. An interesting feature of late harappans seals is that the writing on the seals is in simple cursive script, evolved over centuries from partly pictographic and partly cursive writing.Most of the seals have a knob at the back through which runs a hole. It is said that these seals were used by different associations or merchants for stamping purposes.
They were also worn round the neck or the arm and was considered spiritual and protective.Soft steatite (soapstone) of light grey colour was used for producing seal. Then they were neatly cut, engraved and polished. Steatite vessels have been in use in India since Neolithic times to the present day. Agate, ivory and copper was also used to make seals.Trade amongst the civilizations is also suggested by the finding of hundreds of small seals, supposedly produced by the Indus peoples, at the excavation sites of ancient Mesopotamian cities that were existent around the same time. The Harappans had built up a vast network of land and overseas trade with Mesopotamia, Iran and Arabian countries, which resulted in great cultural interactions. These seals emerge from a period of vital stage in history of art and reveal the great harappan culture.In the second half of 20th century, after the emergence of India and Pakistan as independent states, the archaeological department of both countries in order to know more about the history of their land, encouraged new diggings. The combined efforts resulted in uncovering some 1500 settlements, more than 1000 along the dried up saraswati river, now identified as “Rann of Kutch”. The corpus of these 1500 archaeological sites, today, covers the portion of present day India, Pakistan and AfghanistanMore information about the India’s archaeological past can be gathered from the Archeological Survey of India (ASI).
In Gujarat, at Lothal and Rangpur, charred rice husks and impressions of rice husks and leaves in Harappan pottery have been found. According to a study, Naomi Miller established that they are unlikely to reflect rice cultivation. As they grew wild, it is probable that rice was one of the items that were consumed by their cattle while grazing. This resulted in rice husks being present in their excreta which was used for fuel and a tempering agent in pottery. This caused their impressions in the pottery. Seeds of another indigenous millet – Job’s Tears - have been found at Harappa and at the contemporary Ahar-Banas settlement of Balathal.
It was used as beads which were common for such seeds. Broomcorn millet was probably brought under cultivation in southern Central Asia. It is believed that it might have reached Indus Valley via trading outpost at Shortugai. But, one of its wild ancestors exists in South Asia, so there are also chances that broomcorn millet was domesticated. Its first evidence was found at Pirak in the early 2000 BCE. For all agricultural activities, an ample supply of water is very necessary. You might be thinking that the Indus River is a perennial river, which carries water from the Himalayas, so there might not be any kind of problems when it comes to irrigation.
But, some parts of the civilization were located in the regions of the desert, where the availability of water is scarce. One of the examples of this condition is Baluchistan where there was sparse winter rainfall, so farmers couldn’t depend on rainwater. Cross Section of QanatPeople living in Baluchistan also built qanats or kariz which are underground channels created to connect an underground source of water, say aquifer, and brought it up to an agricultural land lower in the valley.If the history of qanats is to be considered then this technology was developed in ancient Iran by the Persian people in the early 1000 BCE.The main plus-point of this technology was that it is not only economical but also a sustainable method for irrigational purposes. A series of well-like vertical shafts are built which are interconnected by gently sloping tunnels.
Due to this slope, water moves inside the tunnel by the virtue of gravity. These qanats allowed water to flow over long distances in hot dry climates without any significant water loss due to evaporation. In some of the cases, dams were constructed to impound water which could be released onto the fields whenever required. While in other cases, dams and channels led flood water into embanked fields. The benefit of this was that the flood water brought silt with it which provided enough soil moisture for growing crops. Another type of dam consisted of small walls built to extend out into the bed of the river so that some of the water was diverted onto the ground behind the wall, which also deposited fertile silt that formed a small field. In the Kulli area, located in southern Baluchistan, were found to be associated with dams, as this area received some unreliable amount of summer rainfall.
In case of the Kachi plain which is a hot and arid region, agriculture in some way relied on the winter rainfall which was usually limited and unreliable monsoons. In addition to this, water from the Bolan, Mula and Nari rivers was also utilized for agricultural purposes. Due to this, it was necessary to build dams and channels to utilize all the available water resources. Small dams and channels were created on the edges of Kachi plain and along the western piedmont of Sindh to retain and then distribute this water. This water was collected in the form of runoff from mountain streams and rivers.Shortugai. As said earlier, the valley rarely required any provision or need of dams or irrigational works. As groundwater, rivers, lakes etc.
And floods waters almost provided them with sufficient amount of water. Floods generally came in the months of July and August which provided water for Kharif crops (sown in June and harvested in October) throughout the summer. While in winter, Rabi crops were assisted by the water from the water retained in streams, channels, lakes and water from the nais which carried water flowing off the mountains of Baluchistan. Even though the productivity of the Indus in Sindh is very high, but it was highly unreliable as well. The floods occurred unevenly and flood water also changed its course of flow. So, it somehow became obvious and necessary to develop storage facilities.In Sindh, dams and channels were dug to bring water or to carry away excess water from swampy or marshy areas.
Indus Valley Civilization Art
However, neither channels nor drainage channels have been found yet, but this doesn't rule out the possibility of their existence.Annual deposition of alluvium filled in many irregularities of the surface of plain which might have included artificial channels and unpredictable distribution of inundation waters suggest that the location of the fields would have changed. This also hints at digging of new channels every year, so it is quite possible that many of these channels are deeply buried and could be found out any time!Saurashtra and Gujarat - Water supply: Most Harappa farming settlements in Gujarat were located in Saurashtra.
In the Mature Harappan period, all these settlements confined themselves in specific regions where rivers, lakes were available and along with the Nal depression, that had floodwater in winter.During the Late Harappan period, Kharif crops were grown in moisture-retentive black cotton soils in other parts of Saurashtra. These were watered by summer monsoon rainfall.In Kutch which was then an island, groundwater available was sweet and used for irrigation. Quite a big post. To conclude, here in this post, we discovered various crops grown, the water supply systems and irrigational arrangements and ground preparation tools and techniques. The main focus and highlights of this post were - Qanats, dying techniques and tools used.Hope you enjoyed this post and were fascinated as much as I was when I was researching and writing it.The most important thing is the archaeological survey is still going on as we read this, and many new findings are found every now and then.
And we may find new conclusions and theories as well. Introduction I believe that each and every one of us has visited one or the other temple in his or her life. You might have seen various sculptures and art on the walls of the temples and I am damn sure that it might have fascinated you and attracted you. But have you ever noticed that there are some elements which are common in most of the temples? Also, have you wondered how people at that time (during fifth century AD) had such knowledge to create such magical monuments which are today famous as UNESCO World Heritage sites?So, today in this post, we will discover and try to find answers to some of these questions. Are you ready to begin?The most fascinating fact of any Hindu Temple and architecture of it, is that it attempts to represent almost everything this universe is made of.
The Universe means including Prithvi, Akash, Swarga and Patala. So, one can easily recognize that the walls of temples include representation of birds, elephants, reptiles, trees, rivers, mountains, house. IntroductionAncient India was very advanced in almost each and every field, let it be – science, maths, literature, astronomy, music, art and craft or fighting or self-defence techniques (Yudhakala or Yudhashastra).Here, let us focus on the fighting techniques or Yudhshastra or Yudhakala. Whenever we listen about or watch movies or TV series, and we come across martial arts or more popularly KungFu or Karate etc.
We start thinking about Japan or China and Shaolin Temple in China etc.But do you know what is India’s contribution and the history of Martial Arts in India?It all begins with the martial art named as Kalaripayattu. Kalaripayattu has great historical importance as a martial art. And it is believed that all the martial arts were derived from this.So, let’s discover and dig into the pages of History to find out about Kalaripayattu and why one can attribute it to be the 'Mother of all Martial Arts'. Are you ready?History of Martial Arts in India It is believed that Lo.