Indus Valley Civilization: Art and Crafts

Indus Valley Civilisation: Art and Crafts

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Arts and Crafts

• In pre-modern societies, it is difficult to separate arts and crafts cleanly from one another. Groups of potters, copper and bronze workers, stone workers, builders of houses, brick makers, and seal-cutters must have lived in Harappan towns.
• Earlier writings tended to contrast the plainness of Harappan artefacts with the opulence of their Egyptian and Mesopotamian counterparts. Nowadays, the technological sophistication and beauty of many Harappan artefacts is more widely recognised.
• There is a great variety of standardised, mass-produced craft items at Harappan sites.
  • While some sites specialised in the production of a single item, or a few items, others — such as Harappa — manufactured a wide range of goods.
  • Craft activity was often localised in a certain part of the settlement.
• Various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewellery, and anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites.
• What is striking about the wide distribution of craft production is that, in a number of cases, manufacture depended on raw materials that were not locally available:
  • At Mohenjodaro, shell artefacts were manufactured from the marine mollusc found along the Sind and Baluchistan coast.
  • Similarly, there is evidence of the manufacture of copper-based craft items at Harappa — ranging from furnaces to slag and unfinished objects — even though the city itself was located in a minerally poor area.
• Another striking feature of the Indus craft traditions is that they are not region-specific:
  • Shell objects were manufactured at Nagwada and Nageshwar in Gujarat, and at Chanhudaro and Mohenjodaro in Sind.
  • Similarly, metal artefacts were produced at Lothal in Gujarat, at Harappa in the Bari doab of Punjab, and at Allahdino and Mohenjodaro in Sind.
• Some crafted objects are quintessentially Indus, in the sense that they are found neither prior to the advent of the urban civilisation, nor after its collapse. Indus seals, for example, are rarely found in the late Harappan or post-Harappan contexts.

The Puzzle of Standardisation

• While craft objects were manufactured at many places, the manufacturing technology could be surprisingly standardised.
  • In the case of shell bangles, at practically all sites, they had a uniform width, and they were almost everywhere sawn using a saw with a blade thickness of between 0.4 mm and 0.6 mm.
• The Harappan crafts display an impressive level of standardisation.
  • Kenoyer has suggested that state control may have been responsible for the high level of standardisation in crafts considered to have value in maintaining the socio-economic or ritual order, and which used non-local raw materials and highly complex technologies (e.g., the making of seals, stoneware bangles, and stone weights).
  • Leaving aside pottery and bricks, crafts using local materials and simple technologies tend to show greater variation.
• What, then, explains the high level of standardisation in crafts such as pottery-making and brick-making? Does it imply centralised control by merchants or rulers?
  • Some element of central direction is suggested, but its nature and degree are far from certain. If not direct, it may have taken the indirect form of facilitating or controlling the flow of at least some raw materials and finished goods.
  • On the other hand, the level of standardisation could also indicate the fanning out of hereditary craft specialists over large areas, or a well-developed network of internal trade.
  • It is possible that craftsmen and traders may have been organised into corporate groups, similar to guilds, though there is no proof of this.

Tools and Implements

• The tools and implements used by the Harappans also show uniformity in design and technique of production. They used tools made of copper, bronze, and stone.
  • The basic tool types for copper and bronze implements were flat axes, chisels, knives, spearheads, and arrowheads.
  • In the later stages of the civilisation, they also used daggers, knives, and flat tangs.
  • They were familiar with the techniques of casting bronze and copper.
• Stone tools were also in common use.
  • They were produced on a large scale in factory sites like Sukkur in Sind, and then sent to various urban centres — this alone could explain the observed uniformity in tool types.
  • Unlike the “Early Harappan” period, when various tool-making traditions existed, the “Mature Harappans” concentrated on making long, regular blades. This indicates a high level of competence and specialisation, with little or no concern for beauty and innovation.

Pottery

• Harappan pottery reflects efficient mass production.
  • Pottery kilns were found at Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Nausharo, and Chanhudaro. Pots were fired in funnel-shaped, up-draft, closed kilns, although open-firing kilns may also have been used.
• Pottery represents the blending of the ceramic traditions of Baluchistan and the cultures east of the Indus system.
  • There is a great variety of pottery, including black-on-red, grey, buff, and black-and-red wares. Most pots were wheel-turned, and both fine and coarse fabrics occur, with varying thickness.
  • At the earliest levels of Mohenjodaro, a burnished grey ware with a dark purplish slip and vitreous glaze may represent one of the earliest examples of glazing in the world.
• Most Harappan pottery is plain, but a substantial part is also painted — treated with a bright red slip and black painted decoration.
  • The red colour for the slip was made from red ochre (iron oxide, known as geru), while black was made by combining dark reddish-brown iron oxide with black manganese.

Polychrome Pottery

• Polychrome pottery is rare, and mainly comprises small vases decorated with geometric patterns, mostly in red, black, and green, and less frequently in white and yellow.
  • Examples of multicoloured pottery have been found at Mehrgarh.
  • The pottery is decorated with geometric patterns, and depictions of fish, birds, cows, antelopes, scorpions, fantastic beasts, and griffins, among others.
  • However, instead of a whole pipal tree, only single pipal leaves are typically depicted.

Decorations

• The painted decorations consist of horizontal lines of varied thickness, leaf patterns, scales, chequers, lattice work, and palm and pipal trees.
  • The decorative patterns range from simple horizontal lines to geometric patterns and pictorial motifs.
  • Geometrical patterns — circles, squares, and triangles — and figures of animals, birds, snakes, or fish are frequent motifs found in Harappan pottery.
• Animals depicted include humped bulls, pumas, and birds. Bulls and pumas symbolised abundance, fecundity, and power.
  • Sometimes they are also depicted facing a tree, in a scene that may be interpreted as the animal receiving life from a sacred tree of life.
• Another favourite motif was the tree pattern — plants, trees, and pipal leaves are found on pottery.
  • A jar found at Lothal depicts a scene in which two birds are perched on a tree, each holding a fish in its beak.
• Human figures are rare and crudely rendered.
• Some designs, such as fish scales, palm and pipal leaves, and intersecting circles, have their roots in the early Harappan phase.
• In areas like Gujarat and Rajasthan, a variety of other kinds of pottery continued to be produced alongside Harappan pottery. Some pottery bears stamp marks, which might indicate that certain varieties of vessels were also traded.

Distinctive Shapes

• Dish-on-stand.
• Vase with an S-profile.
• Small vessel with knobbed decoration.
• Large, slender-footed bowl.
• Cylindrical perforated jar.
• Goblet with a pointed foot.
• Incised ware is rare, and incised decoration was largely confined to the bases of pans.
• Although there is a certain level of uniformity in pottery styles and techniques across the Harappan culture zone, there are also differences between regions.

The Functions of Harappan Pots

• Large jars may have been used to store grain or water.
• More elaborately painted pots may have had a ceremonial use, or may have belonged to rich people.
• Small vessels may have been used as glasses, to drink water or other beverages.
• The function of perforated jars: one suggestion is that they may have been wrapped in cloth and used for brewing fermented alcoholic beverages; another possibility is that they had a ceremonial or ritualistic use.
• Shallow bowls probably held cooked food, while flattish dishes were used as plates.
• Cooking pots of various sizes have been found — most have a red- or black-slipped rim and a rounded bottom.
  • The rims of the cooking pots are strong, and project outwards, to help pick them up or move them around.
• Some of the forms and features of Harappan pots can still be seen in traditional kitchens today.
• Apart from ceramic vessels, the Harappans also made and used metal ones.

Terracotta

• Harappan sites have yielded a profusion of terracottas.
  • There are toy carts with solid wheels.
  • Harappan craftspersons also made terracotta bangles, including hard, high-fired bangles known as stoneware bangles, which were highly burnished red or grey-black, and usually had tiny letters written on them.
• Terracotta masks have been found at Mohenjodaro and Harappa.
• Terracotta figurines have been found in large numbers across Harappan settlements, used either as toys or cult figures.
  • A variety of birds and monkeys, dogs, sheep, and cattle are represented in these forms, along with humped and humpless bulls.
  • Human figurines include male figurines, and the more numerous female figurines, of various types.

Faience

• Faience is a paste made out of crushed quartz, coloured with various minerals.
• The Harappans made faience bangles, rings, pendants, miniature vessels, and figurines, including those of monkeys and squirrels.

Stone Work

• Stone work was another important craft.
  • Stone masonry and fine polished pillars were found at Dholavira.
• More visible at all Harappan sites were the mass-produced chert blades, made using the crested guided ridge technique.
  • Some of these may have been used as knives for domestic use, others as sickles.
  • Harappan stone quarries have been identified in the Rohri hills of Sindh, though some stone blades may also have been obtained from contemporary hunter-gatherer communities.
• The fact that stone flakes and cores occur in many houses at Mohenjodaro suggests that at least some tools were made by people in their own homes.

Copper and Bronze Objects

• The Harappans evolved new techniques in metallurgy, and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin.
  • The Harappan civilisation is marked by a large number of copper objects.
  • Apart from making artefacts of pure copper, Harappan craftspersons alloyed copper with arsenic, tin, or nickel.
• Copper and bronze artefacts included vessels, spears, knives, short swords, arrowheads, axes, fishhooks, needles, mirrors, rings, and bangles.
  • The number of pure copper artefacts was far greater than alloyed bronze ones. Usually, tools like knives, axes, and chisels — which needed hardened edges — were the ones alloyed.
  • Alloys increased over time — for instance, at Mohenjodaro, bronze tools increased in frequency from the lower to the higher levels.
  • The small proportion of alloyed objects, compared to those of pure copper, may suggest a cultural preference, rather than technological backwardness.
• Sixteen copper furnaces were found at Harappa, and copper workshops were found at Lothal.
  • A large amount of copper oxide was discovered in a brick-lined pit at Mohenjodaro.
• That metal objects were considered precious is clear from the fact that they were buried in hoards for safekeeping by their owners.
  • One hoard found at Harappa consisted of a large cooking pot with a bronze cover, containing several types of copper tools and weapons — various axes, daggers, spearheads, arrowheads, chisels, and a bowl. Some of the objects were unused, others used and worn.

Jewellery

• Beautifully worked gold and silver jewellery, including necklaces, bracelets, brooches, pendants, and earrings, has been found at Harappan sites.
  • A hoard of jewellery made of gold, silver, and semi-precious stones was found at the small village site of Allahdino.
  • At Mohenjodaro, a hoard of jewellery was also discovered, consisting of gold beads, fillets, and other ornaments; small dishes of silver have been found as well.
  • A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found at Banawali, probably used for testing the purity of gold.

Other Metal Objects

• The Harappans used silver to emboss conch shells and to make vessels.
• Lead was used to make plumb bobs, and in copper casting.
• Two metal objects found at Lothal contain 39.1 per cent and 66.1 per cent iron respectively — the latter can properly be called an iron object, suggesting that the Harappans, at least those of Gujarat, may have had some familiarity with iron smelting.

Sculpture in Stone and Metal

• Apart from utilitarian items made of stone and metal, a few pieces of stone and metal sculpture have also been found at Harappan sites. Most are small, but display fine artistic skills and sensibilities.
• The stone bust (17.78 cm high) of a male figure, found at Mohenjodaro, has been labelled the “priest-king.”
  • The face is bearded, with the upper lip shaved; the half-closed eyes might indicate a state of meditation.
  • Across the left shoulder is a cloak, carved in relief with a trefoil pattern. Some scholars believe it to be the bust of a priest.
• Two fine stone torsos of a male figure (about 10 cm high) were found at Harappa — the refined and wonderfully realistic modelling of the fleshy parts is extraordinary.
• A seated stone ibex or ram (49 × 27 × 21 cm) at Mohenjodaro, and a stone lizard at Dholavira.
• The only large piece of sculpture is that of a broken, seated male figure from Dholavira.
• Two bronze female figurines were found at Mohenjodaro.
  • One of them has become famous as the “dancing girl.”
    • The figure is 10.8 cm high, and was made using the lost-wax method, still used in certain parts of India today.
    • With her head drawn backwards, drooping eyes, right arm on the hip, and left arm hanging down, the figure is caught in a dancing stance.
    • She is wearing a large number of bangles, and her hair is plaited in an elaborate fashion. It is considered a masterpiece of Harappan art.
• The bronze figurines of a buffalo and a ram beautifully capture the stance of the animals.
• The two little toy carts of bronze are also fairly well-known objects — although one was discovered at Harappa and the other at Chanhudaro, they are identical in design.
• However, the Harappans do not seem to have used stone or bronze for artistic creations on a large scale; findings of such works remain rare.

Seals

• Seal making was another important Harappan craft. More than 2,000 seals have been found at Harappan settlements.
  • Most seals are square or rectangular. The average size of the square seals is about 2.54 cm, though larger ones — a little over 6.35 cm — also exist.
  • Some have a perforated boss at the back, for handling and suspension. A few cylindrical and round seals have also been found.
  • Most seals are made of steatite, but there are also a few of silver, faience, and calcite.
    • Two fine silver seals with a unicorn motif were discovered at Mohenjodaro, and some copper and soapstone ones were found at Lothal.
• Manufacture: to make the stone seals, the stone was sawed and shaped with knives, and then carved using fine chisels and drills. The seal was then coated with an alkali and heated, giving it a white, lustrous surface.
• The designs on the seals include a wide range of animals, associated with groups of signs in a semi-pictographic script.
  • Motifs include the elephant, tiger, antelope, crocodile, hare, humped bull, buffalo, rhinoceros, and the one-horned mythical animal referred to as a “unicorn.”
  • There is often a small feeding trough or stand in front of the animal.
  • There are also composite animals and plants. One recurrent composite-animal representation is that of a face of a man with the trunk and tusks of an elephant, the horns of a bull, the fore-part of a ram, and the hind-quarters of a tiger. These kinds of seals might have been used for religious purposes.
• Some seals bear only script, carved without any accompanying motif, while others bear human and semi-human forms.
  • The seal of a horned deity, sitting in a yoga posture and surrounded by animals, has been identified by some scholars with the god Pashupati.
  • Some seals show the use of various kinds of geometric patterns.
• Most seals have a short inscription; some rectangular seals bear writing but no motif.
• Seals could also have been used for the exchange of goods between distant cities.

Bead Making

• The Harappans used remarkably beautiful beads, made of precious and semi-precious stones such as agate, turquoise, carnelian, and steatite.
  • In settlements like Mohenjodaro, Chanhudaro, and Lothal, a fairly large number of Harappans were engaged in this craft.
  • Bead-making factories, with tools, furnaces, and beads in various stages of preparation, have been found at Chanhudaro and Lothal.
  • At Bagasra in Gujarat, there is evidence of the production of artefacts of shell, faience, and beads of semi-precious stones — clay-lined silos were used to store the semi-precious stones.
  • The bead-making tradition of Gujarat today gives us clues on how Harappan craftspeople may have made their beads.
• The Harappan craftspeople made beads out of steatite, agate, carnelian, lapis lazuli, shell, terracotta, gold, silver, and copper.
  • The commonest material used was steatite; carnelian beads are also quite common. It is likely that there were specialised bead makers for each type of stone.
• Bead making was a craft already known in earlier cultures, but in the Harappan civilisation, new materials, styles, and techniques came into vogue.
  • A new type of cylindrical stone drill was devised, and used to perforate beads of semi-precious stones. Such drills have been found at sites such as Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Chanhudaro, and Dholavira.
  • The Harappan long barrel cylinder beads, made of carnelian, were so beautiful and highly valued that they found their way into royal burials in Mesopotamia.
  • The barrel-shaped beads with a trefoil pattern are typically associated with the Harappan culture.
  • Tiny micro-beads were made of steatite paste and hardened by heating; beads were also made of faience.

Shell Work

• Beads, bracelets, and decorative inlay work of shell show the existence of craftspersons skilled in shell working.
  • Bangles were often made from conch shell.
• Chanhudaro and Balakot were important centres of shell work.
• Further evidence of site specialisation comes from Gujarat — excavations at Nageshwar (in Jamnagar district) have shown that this site was exclusively devoted to shell-working, specialising in making bangles.
  • Evidence of shell working also comes from Kuntasi, Dholavira, Rangpur, Lothal, Nagwada, and Bagasra.
  • This craft was clearly very important in the Gujarat region of the Harappan culture zone.

Bone Working

• Bone working was another specialised craft. Beads, awls, and pins were made out of bone.
• There are a few examples of ivory carving, in the form of combs, carved cylinders, small sticks, pins, gamesmen, and a carved plaque.

Textile

• The Harappans made cotton and woollen textiles.
  • Terracotta figurines wearing clothes (shawls, skirts, etc.) reflect the kinds of clothes people wore.
  • Mesopotamian texts mention cotton as one of the imports from Meluhha — an area which included the Indus valley.
• Traces of cotton cloth were found at Mohenjodaro, preserved over the centuries owing to their contact with a corroding silver jar.
  • Several examples of cotton thread and cloth were identified on copper tools.
  • At Harappa, cotton threads were found wrapped around the handle of a small copper mirror in a burial, and also around the handle of a curved copper razor.
  • Recent excavations at Harappa have given evidence of woven textile impressions on the inside of faience vessels.
• The uniform thickness and uniformity of the weave suggest the use of spinning wheels. Various kinds of spindle whorls, for spinning thread, have also been found at Harappan sites.
• Weaving may have been a cottage industry, practised in villages, and to some extent also in the cities.

Weights and Measures

• Standardisation extended to units of weights and measures.
  • The people of the Indus civilisation achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and time, and were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures.
  • Harappans used weights and measures for both commercial and building purposes.
• Numerous articles used as weights have been discovered, including cubical weights made of chert, chalcedony, black stone, and the like, found at all excavated sites.
  • The system was binary in the smaller weights (in the ratio 1:2:8:16:32:64), and decimal in the higher weights (in the ratio of 160, 200, 320, and 640).
  • The largest weight found at Mohenjodaro weighs 10.865 g.
• Several sticks inscribed with measure marks have been discovered.
  • A shell scale was found at Mohenjodaro, and an ivory scale at Lothal; a shell object found in Saurashtra was probably used to measure angles.
  • The smallest division, marked on the ivory scale found at Lothal, was approximately 1.704 mm.
• These chert weights were in a ratio of 5:2:1, with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams; smaller objects were weighed in similar ratios, with units of 0.871.

Others

• Impressions on clay floors, and fired clay lumps, suggest traditions of making baskets and mats out of reeds and grasses.
• A number of gold, terracotta, and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses reveal the presence of some form of dance.
• Some make-up and toiletry items — a special kind of comb, the use of collyrium, and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget — found in Harappan contexts still have similar counterparts in modern India.
• A harp-like instrument, depicted on an Indus seal, and two shell objects found at Lothal, indicate the use of stringed musical instruments.
• The Harappans also made various toys and games, including cubical dice (with one to six holes on the faces), found at sites like Mohenjo-daro.
• The people of the Indus Valley Civilisation, from the early Harappan periods, had knowledge of proto-dentistry. Evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (that is, in a living person) was found at Mehrgarh.

Criticism of Harappan Artworks

The artworks of the Harappans leave us a little disappointed on two counts:

• The finds are very limited in number.
• They do not seem to have the variety of expression seen in the contemporary civilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Conclusion

The arts and crafts of the Indus Valley Civilisation reveal a society of remarkable technical accomplishment — one capable of mass-producing standardised pottery, seals, beads, and metal tools across a huge geographical area, using raw materials often sourced from far beyond the boundaries of individual settlements. From the famous “dancing girl” and “priest-king” sculptures, to the semi-pictographic seals with their animal motifs, to the humble but ubiquitous terracotta toys and beads that found their way into royal burials as far away as Mesopotamia, Harappan material culture reflects both a sophisticated aesthetic sensibility and an impressively organised economy of craft production, standardisation, and long-distance exchange. Yet, as the criticism of Harappan artworks reminds us, this was fundamentally a civilisation of superb craftsmanship rather than expansive artistic ambition — its sculptors and painters, unlike their counterparts in Egypt and Mesopotamia, left behind a comparatively small and restrained body of purely artistic work, even as their everyday crafts achieved a level of standardisation still not fully explained by historians today.