Harappan Civilization Map Indus Valley Civilization Art and Craft

Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro
(c.2500 BCE) Bronze figurine.
Harappan Culture. Run across also:
Bharat: Painting and Sculpture.

Indus Valley Civilization & Culture
Harappan Arts, Crafts, Architecture ( three,300-1300 BCE)

Contents

• Characteristics
• Location and Discovery
• History
• Compages
• Metalwork
• Sculpture
• Harappan Craft
• Written Symbols
• More Articles most Asian Art

For the evolution of Eastern arts and crafts,
please meet: Chinese Art Timeline (from 18,000 BCE).

For the chronology and development of more ancient works, come across:
Prehistoric Art Timeline (2.5 Million - 500 BCE).

Characteristics

Dating to the era of belatedly Neolithic art, the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) - as well known every bit the Harappan Civilization - lasted from 3300 to 1300 BCE and included parts of Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, about of Pakistan and north-west India as far south as Rajkot. The about significant early civilization of the Indian sub-continent, the IVC ranks alongside Ancient Arab republic of egypt and Mesopotamia, as source of ancient art, notably sculpture, seal carving and ancient pottery, equally well as decorative crafts. It is also noted for its urban planning, baked brick buildings and water supply systems, although archeologists accept withal to find evidence of any monumental architecture, such equally palaces or temples. IVC flourished in particular along the Indus River and its tributaries, extending to more than than one,056 cities and settlements with a total population of over five million. Amid the central centres of Indus Valley culture were the settlements of Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Kot Diji and Mehrgarh. Excavations accept revealed an extensive caravan trade with Fundamental Asia to the north and Persia to the westward, as well as links with both Egyptian art and Mesopotamian art, and possibly even with Minoan culture on Crete.

Annotation: India is home to the earliest fine art of the Stone Age, in the form of ancient cupules - dating dorsum to between 290,000-700,000 BCE - which were found in the Madhya Pradesh region of central Bharat. For details, please see: Bhimbetka Petroglyphs at the Auditorium Cave and Daraki-Chattan Rock Shelter.

More About Art on the Indian Subcontinent
- Indian Sculpture (3300 BCE - 1850)
- Classical Indian Painting (Upwardly to 1150 CE)
- Post-Classical Indian Painting (14th-16th Century)
- Mughal Painting (16th-19th Century)
- Rajput Painting (16th-19th Century)

Location and Discovery

One of the earliest sources of Asian art, the Indus Valley Civilization extended from Jalalabad (Afghanistan) in the north, to Maharashtra to the south; from Pakistani Balochistan in the westward, to Uttar Pradesh in the due east. Far flung IVC colonies have been discovered on the Oxus River at Shortughai, and beyond the Hindu Kush as far north as Dushanbe. Information technology flourished most significantly along the Indus River and its tributaries including the Jhelum, Chenhab, Ravi, Sutlej and Ghaggar Hakra rivers.

Post-obit early on efforts by General Alexander Cunningham, manager general of the Archeological Survey of Northern India, the first major archeological discoveries of Indus Valley civilisation were made at Harappa, in the present-day Punjab province of Pakistan, followed past Mohenjo-Daro in the Pakistani province of Sindh. Archeologists involved included Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni, Madho Sarup Vats, Rakhal Das Banerjee, East. J. H. MacKay, Ahmad Hasan Dani, Brij Basi Lal, Nani Gopal Majumdar, Sir Marc Aurel Stein, and Sir Mortimer Wheeler. The most recent excavations have been fabricated at Mehrgarh - a site discovered in 1974 by French archeologists Jean-Francois Jarrige and Catherine Jarrige - on the Kacchi Plain of Balochistan, Pakistan, where some 32,000 artifacts have been collected. According to Ahmad Hasan Dani, Professor of Archeology at Quaid-e-Azam Academy, Islamabad, the discoveries at Mehrgarh have proved invaluable to our understanding of the Indus Valley culture.

History

In unproblematic terms, Indus Valley Civilization can be divided into iii main periods: (one) Early on Harappan: 3300–2600 BCE; (ii) Mature Harappan: 2600–1900 BCE; and (3) Late Harappan: 1900–1300 BCE.

The Early Harappan Menses included the Ravi Phase (iii,300-2,800 BCE), the Hakra Phase (ii,800-ii,600 BCE), and the Kot Diji Phase (2800–2600 BCE). It is characterized past intensive agronomics, animal husbandry and the emergence of big urban centres, every bit well every bit extensive trading practices with the surrounding regions. The Mature Harappan Menstruation featured urban settlements such as Harappa, Ganeriwala and Mohenjo-Daro in today's Pakistan, and Kalibangan, Dholavira, Rakhigarhi, Rupar and Lothal in present-day India. Still, some time effectually 1800 BCE, the civilization began to pass up, and by about 1700 BCE, the majority of the cities were abandoned. Scholars believe that the collapse of the IVC was triggered by a major drought, or some combination of climatic atmospheric condition. But Harappan civilisation did not disappear completely, and many of its elements tin can be found in later cultures. Indeed, recent archeological data collected at the Harappan settlement of Pirak, suggests that Late Harappan culture may accept endured until at least 900 BCE, to the era of Painted Greyness Ware culture, if non later.

Compages

Archeological investigations accept revealed a technologically advanced urban culture in many Indus Valley centres, with clear signs of sophisticated municipal town planning, including the world'south first known urban sanitation systems (Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and Rakhigarhi). Other features of its advanced architecture include an array of impressive dockyards, warehouses, granaries, public baths, and defensive walls. These huge walls - constitute in virtually Indus Valley cities acted every bit flood-barriers as well as military fortifications. However, no large palaces or temples announced to have been synthetic.

Metalwork

Harappan craftsmen developed numerous techniques in metalwork (copper, bronze) and jewellery. These are nigh evident in their goldsmithing and their bronze sculpture (meet below).

Sculpture

Indus Valley Civilisation is probably best-known in the Westward for its statuary figurative sculpture - notably the famous slender-limbed statue known as the "Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro" (2500 BCE) - the boggling quality of which is comparable with Tardily Classical Greek Sculpture (c.400-323 BCE) and Hellenistic Greek Sculpture (c.323-27 BCE). No i has however established how Indus sculptors managed to anticipate forms associated with Greek sculpture of classical artifact.

In addition to bronzes, Indus culture produced a diversity of rock sculpture and besides cerise coloured terracotta sculpture, featuring images of dancing girls as well every bit animals like cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs, plus a number of unidentified hybrid animals and anthropomorphic figures, seen mostly on Harappan steatite seals.

Harappan Arts and Crafts

Indus Valley culture is also known for its decorative crafts, especially its jewellery art, featuring a range of beautiful glazed faience beads, necklaces, bangles, combs (kakai), and other ornaments and toiletry items.

Written Symbols

Non dissimilar the early writing of Egyptian and Sumerian culture (c.4500-2270 BCE), Indus Valley culture as well produced its ain writing system, with a range of about 600 distinct symbols (typically no more than than four or 5 characters in length), which have been plant on seals, small stone or clay tablets and ceramic pots. However, debate all the same continues as to whether these symbols are testify of literacy, or whether they vest to the tradition of non-linguistic sign systems used extensively in the Middle East. Unfortunately the messages on the seals are too short and at that place are too few examples to permit figurer analysis of their meaning.

More than Articles about Asian Art

For more information about arts and crafts on the continent of Asia, delight encounter the following articles:

• Xianrendong Cave Pottery (c.eighteen,000 BCE)
World's oldest known ceramic pots.

• Japanese Art (fourteen,500 BCE - 1900)
Guide to the arts & crafts of Japan.

• Korean Art (c.3,000 BCE onwards)
Characteristics, history, development of arts and crafts in Korea.

• Chinese Buddhist Sculpture (c.100-present)
Characteristics, history, statues.

• Angkor Wat (c.1115-1145)
Architecture and sculpture of Khmer Temple in Cambodia.

• Traditional Chinese Fine art
Jade carvings, pottery, sculpture, painting, calligraphy.

• Kandariya Mahadeva Temple
Hindu architecture and sculpture at Khajuraho, India.

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Source: http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/east-asian-art/indus-valley.htm

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