The Indus/Ghaggar-Hakra Civilization

2500 BCE- Central Asia

The Indus/Ghaggar-Hakra region was the first urban civilization in a true sense with over a thousand cities spread over a quarter of a million square miles (equivalent to modern day France). Each city shared a common language and standardized system of weights although distance was shared also.

The alphabet of the Ghaggar-Hakra civilization consisted of an arrangement of human, animal, and mythical forms similar to the alphabet and storytelling of ancient Egypt. The common ships of the Ghagger-Hakra civilization carried bricks, bread, lumber, metals, and lapis lazuli which were traded in the cities of Mesopotamia.

The civilization of Ghaggar-Hakra constructed a substantial amount of unique protective systems that required a higher level of thinking. The citizens in the large city of Harappa would create protective walls to keep out the flood. This same city decided to try and create an interconnected drainage system designed to disperse storm waters. The evidence of this piece of history can still be found in the now dry city of Harappa.

The architectural structure of the larger cities of the Ghaggar-Hakra is similar in both placement of palaces, exclusive walls, and ceremonial places located in the upper town or lower town of this society. Even though the cities clearly had a social hierarchy there is no solid evidence of kingship. There were no centralized religious structures, only the terra-cotta seals show the belief in a plethora of supernatural beings.

Early in the second millennium BCE, the Ghaggar-Hakra began to dry up, the reasons for this drastic change in environment is still debated today.