100 years of Indus Valley Civilisation: This ancient culture remains mysterious

The most captivating piece of art from an Indus Valley civilisation site, the Dancing Girl, is a 4.1-inch bronze figurine of a slender young woman, with her head held high. Her unusually long left arm, adorned with 24-25 bangles, rests gracefully on her bent knee, while her right arm, with four bangles, is placed on her hip. Her hair is styled into a bun, and a simple bead pendant adorns her neck. The Dancing Girl, without any clothing, conveys a compelling narrative of grace and strength.

This diminutive statue, now housed in Delhi’s National Museum, has elicited countless interpretations by archaeologists, historians, artists and even poets, since her discovery at Mohenjo-daro by archaeologists Daya Ram Sahni and Ernest Mackay in 1926. Their superior, John Marshall, director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India, called her the Dancing Girl, a name that has endured. Some have suggested she might even be a warrior, as her left hand is coiled as though to hold something, perhaps a spear or a baton. Her broad nose and large lips led some to speculate that she may have been of Dravidian or even Baluchi descent.

Wrote Mortimer Wheeler, who served as director-general of the ASI between 1944 and 1948, "A girl perfectly of the moment, perfectly confident in herself and the world. There's nothing like her, I think, in ancient art. We may not be certain that she was a dancer, but she was good at what she did and she knew it." The author Mulk Raj Anand referred to her as Maya in his children's novel, and a clothed version of the statue was chosen as the mascot for the International Museum Expo 2023, held in Delhi.

The unknown girl sparked a frenzy when she was discovered. Nearly a century later, another woman―almost twice her age―was found 800km to the east of Mohenjo-daro, and she, too, took the archaeological world by storm. The DNA study of the skeletal remains of this woman, likely contemporaneous with the Dancing Girl and found in Rakhigarhi, Haryana, marked a momentous occasion in the 100 years since the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

“She could be 35, attractive with sharp features, and well-built like the present-day women of Haryana, certainly from an affluent background, as 40 burial urns were found beside her,” said archaeologist Vasant Shinde, lead author of the 2019 DNA study. “She had indigenous DNA, the same as that found across South Asia today,” he said, suggesting that there has been genetic continuity up to the present, with some mixing at later stages.

This interpretation of the DNA analysis is contested by some scholars, who argue that the genetic study of a single skeleton cannot settle the historical questions, especially as the earlier Harappan script was yet to be deciphered.

Between these two Indus women―from Mohenjo-daro and Rakhigarhi―lies the story of 100 years since the discovery of a civilisation that pushed India’s history back by 3,000 years. Before the Indus Valley Civilisation was unearthed, the earliest recorded date in Indian history was 326 BCE, when Alexander reached the northwestern corner of India. The new explorations have been a cause of pride, but little is known about the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

Since the excavations at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro over a century ago, artefacts and skeletons have been emerging from the subcontinent. In Harappan iconography, while the depictions of women have been varied, the male figurines unearthed have not been as diverse. Some terracotta figurines are shown wearing turbans or headbands, but most are bare-headed.

Along with the Dancing Girl, the most famous figure is that of the Priest King, a 7.1-inch steatite bust featuring a shawl draped over the left shoulder and under the right arm, with a headband. If the Dancing Girl and the Priest King were representations of real people and indeed inhabitants of the same city, did they interact, or was their status defined by hierarchy? The Indus cities were well-planned, with clear architecture and technologies for seals, ornaments, toys, metallurgy and weights and measures. However, they did not have palaces or monumental structures like those in Egypt or Mesopotamia, suggesting a more egalitarian society. Could this have been the earliest sign of proto-democracy?

How men and women were represented and even interacted has been an important area of study. "Terracotta figurines of women predominate at most sites, and powerful female deities are depicted on the seals alongside male deities. These indirect indicators suggest that some women in the cities may have held important social and ritual positions, and that female deities played a significant role in the legitimation of beliefs and political power," said archaeologist J.M. Keyoner.

Clues about their interaction also emerge from the burials. Scholars who used genetic trait analysis have suggested that while women who were blood relatives were buried together, this was not the case for men. "A woman was buried near her mother and grandmother, while a man was buried near his wife's ancestors rather than with his own," said Keyoner.

The Harappan society had a spiritual connection, as evidenced by the numerous seals representing their beliefs in rituals. They also took care to build cities and ensure the well-being of their residents. "The large number of children's toys and requisites, such as feeding cups, discovered in various materials like pottery, shell, and ivory, indicate the existence of a widespread toy industry and the people's care to provide their children with these amenities," said former ASI chief K.N. Dikshit in one of his famous lectures. K. Krishnan, former professor at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, argues that the ceramics―a major advancement of the Indus people―found at the Indus sites showed many similarities, sophistication and regional traditions. As factories were unearthed at Lothal and Dholavira, they signalled not only higher craftsmanship but also the presence of some form of able administrative system, which ensured specialists could work on them.

Technological advancements were also seen in hydraulic engineering, as seen in the ‘Great Bath’ of Mohenjo-daro and the dock at Lothal, illustrating their sophisticated understanding of water dynamics, according to archaeologist R.S. Bisht.

The Priest King figurine is distinct from the others found at Indus sites. Was he a cultural export from outside? Archaeologist Massimo Vidale speculated that the Priest King, wearing a ribbon headband with a circular inlay ornament on his forehead, could be part of a broken statue with a missing head found in Shahr-i Sokhta, Iran. He conjectured that the Priest King should be redefined as Bactrian. In fact, a DNA study revealed that the Rakhigarhi woman shared genes with a minority in Shahr-i Sokhta and Gonur, which did not match those of the neighbouring communities. This genetic connection led Indian scientists to propose the ‘Out of India’ theory, suggesting that the Harappans, rather than those from Central Asia (the Aryans), migrated to farther lands.

While it is a matter of speculation whether the Dancing Girl and the Priest King interacted, it is certain that they were separated in 1972. The partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 meant that the main sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro went to Pakistan, and they claimed ownership of the artefacts unearthed there. As most of these artefacts were in India at the time, Wheeler presided over the painful division, where even the beads of a necklace were equally divided. However, the Dancing Girl and Priest King remained in India’s possession until the Simla Accord between Indira Gandhi and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1972. The Priest King was handed over to Pakistan under the peace agreement. A replica is now on display at the Karachi Museum. Another, less exquisite Dancing Girl, called the "ugly sister" by some historians, is also at the Karachi Museum. A petition was filed in a Pakistan court in 2016 seeking custody of the Dancing Girl, claiming it as their own.

FINDING THE LOST CIVILISATION

The year 2024 marks the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation; Marshall dramatically announced to the world the existence of a new civilisation, describing Harappa and Mohenjo-daro as being similar to Tiryns and Mycenae in Greece. “The comparison was made to excite the interest of scholars all over the world and to concentrate their attention on the fact that the ruined cities of an unknown civilisation had been found,” noted Dikshit.

The discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation could have been the perfect plot for an Indiana Jones mystery movie. It was a chance discovery, where archaeologists and adventurers were searching for one thing and stumbled upon something completely different. The story can be traced back to nearly 200 years. In the spring of 1829, Charles Masson, a deserter from the British army, recorded some evidence during a visit to the area. He mistakenly identified Harappa as the capital of king Porus, whom Alexander had defeated in 326 BCE. Two years later, in 1831, Lieutenant Alexander Burnes visited Amri (now in Sindh, Pakistan) and termed it an archaeological site. Then came Alexander Cunningham, the first director general of the ASI, who saw merit in studying these sites for clues to Buddhist history as recorded by Chinese travellers Faxian and Xuanzang. His visits took place in 1853 and 1856, by which time the site had largely disappeared, as bricks from Harappa were removed to build the 100km Lahore-Multan railway. He did, however, find seals that were documented as evidence.

The most fascinating period came in 1920 when Marshall asked Sahni to excavate Harappa and, a year later, another ASI official, R.D. Banerji, to excavate Mohenjo-daro. Both filed reports of their discoveries, but the results were delayed as Marshall had travelled abroad. In 1924, when he finally correlated the findings of the two sites, he called a meeting of his archaeologists at Gorton Castle, the ASI’s headquarters in Shimla. Excited by the findings, he rushed to London to publish the results even before visiting the sites. It was only a week later that the civilisation's age was pushed back by another 3,000 years, as British Assyriologist and linguist A.H. Sayce wrote about the close resemblance between Indus Valley artifacts and Sumerian antiquities from southern Mesopotamia.

Marshall employed over a thousand local labourers at Mohenjo-daro for the excavation. What Marshall found is celebrated even in Tamil Nadu, where the state government announced installation of his statue, as he linked the civilisation with Dravidian stock. The story of the Indus Valley Civilisation is a fascinating work of Indian archaeologists such as Sahni, Banerji, Dikshit, and M.R. Vats, who excavated the sites and expanded our knowledge.

Today, nearly 2,000 settlements of the Indus Valley Civilisation have been discovered, spread over 6.8 lakh square kilometres―twice the size of ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia. Five urban centres are particularly significant: Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, and Ghaneriwala, all in Pakistan, and Rakhigarhi and Dholavira in India.

THE BIG MYSTERY

The Indus Valley Civilisation is like a great mystery novel. Unlike its contemporaries, such as Mesopotamia and Egypt, which left behind records of their rulers once their scripts were deciphered, the Harappan Civilisation remains shrouded in mystery, despite renewed efforts to decode its script. What is particularly fascinating about the Indus Valley is the new research that continues to add to the existing body of literature on the subject.

A 2023 study by software engineer Bahata Ansumali Mukhopadhyay, published in Nature, argued that the signs inscribed on the seals were primarily used to enforce rules related to taxation, trade, and access control within the mercantile society of the Indus Civilisation. She suggests that the seals may have functioned as trade or commodity-specific licences issued to tax collectors, traders, and artisans. "The seal iconographies might have represented the emblems of the guilds, rulers, or governing bodies."

Many scholars argue that the Harappan script should be read from right to left, and the absence of bilingual texts raises the possibility that the Indus inscriptions were intended for a small group within the mercantile community. Earlier analyses by Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan suggested a linguistic affinity between the Harappan inscriptions and Dravidian languages. The ubiquitous unicorn seal may have functioned as a form of certificate or passport within the Indus Valley Civilisation.

THE ARYAN QUESTION

One of the most contentious theories surrounding the Indus Valley Civilisation is the idea of an Aryan invasion―where pastoralists from Central Asia supposedly imposed their 'superior' Aryan culture on the subcontinent. The first person to propose such a theory was Ramprasad Chanda, an aide to Marshall, who suggested that there was a struggle between outsiders and the inhabitants of Harappa. Australian archaeologist Gordon Childe later offered a similar thesis. In 1850, German philologist and Orientalist Max Müller first introduced the idea of the Aryan race moving into India.

Wheeler, the flamboyant British archaeologist, interpreted the discovery of several skeletons at Mohenjo-daro as evidence of a massacre by invaders. He blamed the Vedic god Indra (who represented the Aryans), stating, “On circumstantial evidence, Indra stands accused.” Wheeler, like Chanda, relied on the Rig Veda, which describes Indra as a fort-destroyer. However, Wheeler and Chanda later modified the theory about the invasion.

Archaeologists have debunked the invasion theory, pointing out that there was no evidence to support it, and suggesting that it was a colonial construct meant to imply that, like the British, superior culture had come from outside in the past as well. No signs of invasion or violent upheaval have been found in the archaeological record. The arrival of Indo-European languages in India, coinciding with the decline of the Harappan Civilisation, suggests a migration rather than an invasion, as these languages show a strong affinity with Sanskrit.

This remains a contentious issue, particularly for nationalists who argue that Vedic culture originated from the Harappans. They refer to various seals and connections between the Rig Vedic texts and excavated artefacts and sites. Many of these sites are located along the dried-up Saraswati River, which is mentioned in the Vedas, leading some to refer to the civilisation as the Indus-Saraswati Civilisation. Social media has become a battleground for nationalists, who criticise "leftist" historians for discussing the invasion theory or the later mass migration of Aryans into the subcontinent.

FINDING THE ROOTS

There is, however, one point on which viewpoints from all sides converge: the major migration that occurred from Africa over two million years ago. Around 12,000 years ago, two groups of people separated―one moving towards India and the other towards Central Asia. Demographic changes took place after the decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation, which are now being analysed through technological advancements, particularly DNA testing.

The discovery of the Rakhigarhi woman has been key to understanding our ancestry. This finding excited scientists, geneticists, archaeologists and nationalists alike. The woman's genome matched those of 11 others from Iran (Shahr-i Sokhta) and Turkmenistan (Gonur) sites that had trade connections with the Harappans. Shinde’s study found that these 12 individuals shared a unique ancestry, with ties to Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers and an Iranian-related lineage specific to South Asia. Crucially, the study showed no evidence of ancestry from steppe pastoralists (Aryans), supporting the idea that this group had not yet reached South Asia.

According to genetic studies, steppe-related ancestry only entered India around 1500 BCE. This has led to the argument that Indo-European languages must be indigenous to the subcontinent. This remains a point of contention that divides historians and archaeologists. However, the data is based on a limited number of samples, and there are concerns about potential contamination. The study concluded that present-day South Asians share the same genetic heritage as the Harappans, further complicating the debate.

THE MYSTERIOUS DECLINE

By 1900 BCE, the Indus Civilisation began to decline. The reasons for this are varied, ranging from climate change and shifting river courses to dry weather, tectonic shifts and a decline in trade. The decline was gradual. A dark period followed, lasting until more refined forms of Indian culture began to emerge, marked by the rise of the Mauryan empire. The first signs of a script appeared with the Ashokan pillars scattered across the subcontinent.

This "dark period" has been explained by some archaeologists in light of the discovery of a chariot in Sanauli, Uttar Pradesh. Archaeologist Sanjay Kumar Manjul has argued that the chariots, made of wood and copper, suggest that chariots were present in India along the Indus Valley Civilisation. These chariots, pulled by horses―a feature absent in the Harappan period―became more prominent in the Ganga plains during the decline of the Indus Civilisation. There may be more such sites waiting to be discovered, which could shed light on this enigmatic period and help explain how the Indus Civilisation gradually faded.

Ongoing DNA studies are expected to shed light on many elusive aspects of this historical era, while the findings may spark even more intense debate.

Gregory Possehl, the late American expert on the Indus Valley Civilization, described its people's “ideology” as “nihilistic”. He noted that the Mature Harappan period marked a deliberate break from the Early Harappan past, with a shift to a new symbolic system and way of life. A key aspect of this shift was the preference for founding settlements on virgin soil. For instance, Mohenjo-daro was likely a “founder's city”, built from scratch, unlike Harappa, which retained an Early Harappan presence. Possehl highlighted that 755 of 1,058 Indus sites were built on fresh ground, while 324 of 523 Early Harappan sites were abandoned before the Mature Harappan period. This pattern underscores the Indus people's tendency to break from their ancestral past by creating new settlements. This, too, could be a reason for the decline of the civilisation.

The Indus Civilisation holds clues to our past, where the final word is yet to be spoken.