According to Giosan et al. (2012), the slow southward migration of the monsoons across Asia initially allowed the Indus Valley villages to develop by taming the floods of the Indus and its tributaries. Flood-supported farming led to large agricultural surpluses, which in turn supported the development of cities. The IVC residents did not develop irrigation capabilities, relying mainly on the seasonal monsoons leading to summer floods. Brooke further notes that the development of advanced cities coincides with a reduction in rainfall, which may have triggered a reorganisation into larger urban centres. the Mature Harappan civilisation was "a fusion of the Bagor, Hakra, and Kot Diji traditions or 'ethnic groups' in the Ghaggar-Hakra valley on the borders of India and Pakistan". By the Early Harappan communities turned into large urban centres. Such urban centres include
Harappa,
Ganeriwala,
Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan, and
Dholavira,
Kalibangan,
Rakhigarhi,
Rupar, and
Lothal in modern-day India. In total, more than 1,000 settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and their tributaries.
Cities A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the Indus Valley Civilisation, making them the first urban centre in the region. The high degree of forward-looking
urban planning demonstrates the existence of well-organised local governments capable of formulating and executing a large-scale forward-looking development program, and which placed a high value on
public health and
hygiene, or, alternatively, accessibility to the means of religious ritual. As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-daro and the recently partially excavated
Rakhigarhi, this urban plan included the world's first known
city sanitation systems. Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from
wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing,
waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner
courtyards and smaller lanes. The housebuilding in some villages in the region still resembles in some respects the housebuilding of the Harappans. The Indus Valley cities developed elaborate drainage and sewerage systems, described by archaeologists as well-planned and advanced compared with many contemporary societies. Their urban architecture included dockyards,
granaries, warehouses, brick platforms, and massive protective walls, which were likely intended both as
flood defenses and as fortifications. The purpose of the citadel remains debated. In sharp contrast to this civilisation's contemporaries,
Mesopotamia and
ancient Egypt, no large monumental structures were built. There is no conclusive evidence of palaces or temples. Some structures are thought to have been granaries. Found at one city is an enormous well-built bath (the "
Great Bath"), which may have been a public bath. Although the citadels were walled, it is far from clear that these structures were defensive; many may have been
flood defenses. Most city dwellers appear to have been traders or artisans, who lived with others pursuing the same occupation in well-defined neighbourhoods. Materials from distant regions were used in the cities for constructing seals, beads and other objects. Among the
artefacts discovered were beautiful glazed
faïence beads.
Steatite seals have images of animals, people (perhaps gods), and other types of inscriptions, including the yet un-deciphered
writing system of the Indus Valley Civilisation. Some of the seals were used to stamp clay on trade goods. Although some houses were larger than others, Indus Valley Civilisation cities were remarkable for their apparent, if relative,
egalitarianism. All the houses had access to water and drainage facilities. This gives the impression of a society with relatively low
wealth concentration.
Authority and governance Archaeological records provide no immediate answers for the question of who ruled Harappan cities and how. Nonetheless, there are indications of complex decisions being taken and large-scale mobilisation of resources. For instance, the majority of the cities were constructed in a highly uniform and well-planned grid pattern, divided into two levels from ground making one part slightly higher than the other; such complex
urban planning, combined with the construction of large
public works projects, demonstrates the existence of some sort of planning authority. The remarkable consistency of Harappan weights and measures, as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks, also indicates the existence of a central authority able to make definitive regulations. These are some major theories: • There was a single state or
federation ruling all or most of the Indus Valley. Proponents of this theory believe that the presence of standardised weights and measures demonstrates the presence of a central authority. • There was no single ruler, with each city being a self-governing
city state.
Metallurgy Copper was abundant at Indus sites, as revealed by archaeology. In his 2019 study of Harappan and Indus copper industry, Brett Hoffman analyzed extensive copper/bronze assemblages from Harappa. He used advanced techniques such as
Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), to understand production, consumption, and trade in copper ore. The study revealed regional patterns and detailed technological aspects of bronze production in Harappa and in Indus Valley Civilisation more generally. Indus bronze was alloyed with
tin,
arsenic and
lead. Hoffman examined a large collections of copper/bronze artifacts from Harappa, covering the timeline from 3300 to 1700 BCE, and challenged some older broad interpretations of bronze production. He studied how copper was acquired, processed, and used for diverse items, such as tools and prestige goods. The production increased especially starting with the
Kot Diji Phase, but the Early Harappan groups were already well acquainted with copper metallurgy. Major copper and copper ore sources used by Indus Valley Civilisation included
Rajasthan (Khetri mines) and as far as
Oman, and
Bahrain. The
Aravalli Range in northwestern India was particularly important. A
touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in
Banawali, which was probably used for testing the purity of gold (such a technique is still used in some parts of India). Contrary to the older ideas of elite control over metal production, recent research indicates that access to copper and bronze was relatively widespread throughout the Indus society.
Metrology ) The people of the Indus Valley Civilisation achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures. A comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation across the Indus territories. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found in
Lothal in Gujarat, was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the
Bronze Age. Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by their
hexahedron weights. 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, similar to the English
Imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were weighed in similar ratios with the units of 0.871. However, as in other cultures, actual weights were not uniform throughout the area. The weights and measures later used in
Kautilya's
Arthashastra (4th century BCE) are the same as those used in
Lothal.
Arts and crafts Many
Indus Valley seals and items in
pottery and
terracotta have been found, along with a very few stone sculptures and some gold jewellery and bronze vessels. Some anatomically detailed figurines in
terracotta, bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites, the former probably mostly toys. The Harappans also made various toys and games, among them cubical
dice (with one to six holes on the faces), which were found in sites like Mohenjo-daro. The terracotta figurines included cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs. The animal depicted on a majority of seals at sites of the mature period has not been clearly identified. Part bull, part zebra, with a majestic horn, it has been a source of speculation. As yet, there is insufficient evidence to substantiate claims that the image had religious or cultic significance, but the prevalence of the image raises the question of whether or not the animals in images of the IVC are religious symbols. Many crafts including, "shell working, ceramics, and agate and glazed steatite bead making" were practised and the pieces were used in the making of necklaces, bangles, and other ornaments from all phases of Harappan culture. Some of these crafts are still practised in the subcontinent today. Some make-up and toiletry items (a special kind of combs (kakai), the use of
collyrium and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget) that were found in Harappan contexts still have similar counterparts in modern India. Terracotta female figurines were found (–2600 BCE) which had red colour applied to the "manga" (line of partition of the hair). Archeological remains from 2000 to 3000 BC have been found from the city of
Lothal of pieces on a board that resemble chess. The finds from Mohenjo-daro were initially deposited in the
Lahore Museum, but later moved to the ASI headquarters at New Delhi, where a new "Central Imperial Museum" was being planned for the new capital of the British Raj, in which at least a selection would be displayed. It became apparent that Indian independence was approaching, but the
Partition of India was not anticipated until late in the process. The new Pakistani authorities requested the return of the Mohenjo-daro pieces excavated on their territory, but the Indian authorities refused. Eventually an agreement was reached, whereby the finds, totalling some 12,000 objects (most
sherds of pottery), were split equally between the countries; in some cases this was taken very literally, with some necklaces and girdles having their beads separated into two piles. In the case of the "two most celebrated sculpted figures", Pakistan asked for and received the
so-called Priest-King figure, while India retained the much smaller
Dancing Girl. Though written considerably later, the arts treatise
Natya Shastra () classifies musical instruments into four groups based on their means of acoustical production—strings, membranes, solid materials and air—and it is probable that such instruments had existed since the IVC. Archeological evidence indicates the use of simple
rattles and
vessel flutes, while iconographical evidence suggests early harps and drums were also used. An
ideogram in the IVC contains the earliest known depiction of an
arched harp, dated sometime before 1800 BCE. File:Ceremonial Vessel LACMA AC1997.93.1.jpg|Ceremonial vessel; 2600–2450 BC; terracotta with black paint; 49.53 × 25.4 cm;
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (US) Poids cubiques harappéens - BM.jpg|Cubical weights, standardised throughout the Indus cultural zone; 2600–1900 BC; chert;
British Museum (London) Harappan carnelian and terracotta beads - Mohenjo-daro.jpg|
Mohenjo-daro beads; 2600–1900 BC;
carnelian and
terracotta; British Museum Oiseau a tete de belier monte sur roues Indus Guimet.jpg|Ram-headed bird mounted on wheels, probably a toy; 2600–1900 BC; terracotta;
Guimet Museum (Paris)
Human statuettes A handful of realistic statuettes have been found at IVC sites, of which much the most famous is the
lost-wax casting bronze statuette of a slender-limbed
Dancing Girl adorned with bangles, found in Mohenjo-daro. Two other realistic incomplete statuettes have been found in Harappa in proper stratified excavations, which display near-
Classical treatment of the human shape: the
statuette of a dancer who seems to be male, and the
Harappa Torso, a
red jasper male torso, both now in the Delhi National Museum.
Sir John Marshall reacted with surprise when he saw these two statuettes from Harappa: These statuettes remain controversial, due to their advanced style in representing the human body. Regarding the red jasper torso, the discoverer,
Vats, claims a Harappan date, but Marshall considered this statuette is probably historical, dating to the
Gupta period, comparing it to the much later
Lohanipur torso. A second rather similar grey stone torso of a dancing male was also found about 150 meters away in a secure Mature Harappan stratum. Overall, anthropologist
Gregory Possehl tends to consider that these statuettes probably form the pinnacle of Indus art during the Mature Harappan period. Reclining mouflon MET DT252770.jpg|Reclining mouflon; 2600–1900 BC; marble; length: 28 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City) File:Mohenjo-daro Priesterkönig.jpeg|The
Priest-King; 2400–1900 BC; low fired steatite; height: 17.5 cm;
National Museum of Pakistan (
Karachi) File:Harappa 13 grey stone male dancer statuette.jpg|Male dancing torso; 2400–1900 BC; limestone; height: 9.9 cm;
National Museum (
New Delhi) Dancing girl of Mohenjo-daro.jpg|The
Dancing Girl; 2400–1900 BC; bronze; height: 10.8 cm; National Museum (New Delhi)
Seals ; probably made of steatite;
British Museum (London) Thousands of
steatite seals have been recovered, and their physical character is fairly consistent. In size they range from squares of side . In most cases they have a pierced boss at the back to accommodate a cord for handling or for use as personal adornment. In addition a large number of sealings have survived, of which only a few can be matched to the seals. The great majority of examples of the
Indus script are short groups of signs on seals. Seals have been found at
Mohenjo-daro depicting a figure standing on its head, and another, on the
Pashupati seal, sitting cross-legged in what some call a
yoga-like pose (see image, the so-called
Pashupati, below). This figure has been variously identified. Sir John Marshall identified a resemblance to the Hindu god, Shiva. A
human deity with the horns, hooves and tail of a bull also appears in the seals, in particular in a fighting scene with a horned tiger-like beast. This deity has been compared to the Mesopotamian bull-man
Enkidu. Several seals also show a man fighting two lions or tigers, a "
Master of Animals" motif common to civilisations in Western and South Asia. MET 1984 482 237872.jpg|Seal; 3000–1500 BC; baked
steatite; 2 × 2 cm;
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City) File:Stamp seal and modern impression- unicorn and incense burner (?) MET DP23101 (cropped).jpg|Stamp seal and modern impression: unicorn and incense burner (?); 2600–1900 BC; burnt steatite; 3.8 × 3.8 × 1 cm; Metropolitan Museum of Art Clevelandart 1973.160.jpg|Seal with two-horned bull and inscription; 2010 BC; steatite; overall: 3.2 x 3.2 cm;
Cleveland Museum of Art (
Cleveland, Ohio, US) File:Clevelandart 1973.161.jpg|Seal with unicorn and inscription; 2010 BC; steatite; overall: 3.5 x 3.6 cm; Cleveland Museum of Art File:Constitution Page1 Rammanohar.jpg|Seal painted on the first page of Constitution of India
Trade and transportation and the Indus were active during the 3rd millennium BCE, leading to the development of
Indus–Mesopotamia relations. tablet, 2500–1750 BCE.(
National Museum, New Delhi). Flat-bottomed river row-boats appear in two Indus seals, but their seaworthiness is debatable. The Indus Valley Civilisation may have had
bullock carts identical to those seen throughout South Asia today, as well as boats. Most of these boats were probably small, flat-bottomed craft, perhaps driven by sail, similar to those one can see on the Indus River today. An extensive canal network, used for irrigation, has however also been discovered by H.-P. Francfort. During 4300–3200 BCE of the
chalcolithic period (copper age), the Indus Valley Civilisation area shows ceramic similarities with southern
Turkmenistan and northern Iran which suggest considerable mobility and trade. During the Early Harappan period (about 3200–2600 BCE), similarities in pottery, seals, figurines, ornaments, etc. document intensive caravan trade with
Central Asia and the
Iranian plateau. Judging from the dispersal of Indus Valley Civilisation artefacts, the trade networks economically integrated a huge area, including portions of
Afghanistan, the coastal regions of
Persia connected by the
Gulf of Oman from the
Arabian Sea, northern and
western India, and
Mesopotamia, leading to the development of
Indus-Mesopotamia relations. Studies of tooth enamel from individuals buried at Harappa suggest that some residents had migrated to the city from beyond the Indus Valley. Ancient DNA studies of graves at Bronze Age sites at
Gonur Depe, Turkmenistan, and
Shahr-e Sukhteh, Iran, have identified 11 individuals of South Asian descent, who are presumed to be of mature Indus Valley origin. There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan and Mesopotamian civilisations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with much commerce being handled by "middlemen merchants from
Dilmun" (modern
Bahrain,
Eastern Arabia and
Failaka located in the
Persian Gulf). Such long-distance sea trade became feasible with the development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth. However, the evidence of sea-borne trade involving the Harappan civilisation is not firm. In their book
Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan archaeologists
Bridget Allchin and
Raymond Allchin write: ... (p. 173) the settlement at Lothal ... along the east side was a brick basin. It is claimed by its excavator to have been a dockyard, connected by channels to a neighbouring estuary. ... On its edge the excavator discovered several heavily-pierced stones, similar to modern anchor stones employed by traditional seafaring communities of Western India. This interpretation, however, has been challenged, and indeed the published levels of the basin and its entrance relative to the modern sea level seem to argue against it. Leshnik has cogently suggested that it was a tank for the reception of sweet water, channelled from higher ground inland to an area where the local water supplies were anciently, as still today, saline. We regard either interpretation as still unproven, but favour the latter. ... (p. 188–189) The discussion of trade focuses attention upon methods of transport. Several representations of ships are found on seals and graffiti at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro (Figs. 7.15–7.16], etc, and a terracotta model of a ship, with a stick impressed socket for the mast and eyeholes for fixing rigging comes from Lothal. We have already seen above that the great brick tank, interpreted by Rao as a dock at Lothal, cannot yet be certainly identified. The evidence of sea trade and contact during the Harappan period is largely circumstantial, or derived from inferences from the Mesopotamian texts, as detailed above. (Figure 7. 15 had caption: Mohenjo-daro: representation of ship on a stone seal (length 4.3 cm) (after Mackay). Figure 7.16 Mohenjo-daro: representation of ship on terracotta amulet (length 4.5 cm) after Dales) Daniel T. Potts writes: It is generally assumed that most trade between the Indus Valley (ancient Meluhha?) and western neighbors proceeded up the Persian Gulf rather than overland. Although there is no incontrovertible proof that this was indeed the case, the distribution of Indus-type artifacts on the Oman peninsula, on Bahrain and in southern Mesopotamia makes it plausible that a series of maritime stages linked the Indus Valley and the Gulf region. If this is accepted, then the presence of
etched carnelian beads, a Harappan-style cubical stone weight, and a Harappan-style cylinder seal at Susa (Amiet 1986a, Figs. 92-94) may be evidence of maritime trade between Susa and the Indus Valley in the late 3rd millennium BCE. On the other hand, given that similar finds, particularly etched carnelian beads, are attested at landlocked sites including Tepe Hissar (Tappe Heṣār), Shah Tepe (Šāh-Tappe), Kalleh Nisar (Kalla Nisār), Jalalabad (Jalālābād), Marlik (Mārlik) and Tepe Yahya (Tappe Yaḥyā) (Possehl 1996, pp. 153-54), other mechanisms, including overland traffic by peddlers or caravans, may account for their presence at Susa. In the 1980s, important archaeological discoveries were made at
Ras al-Jinz (
Oman), demonstrating maritime Indus Valley connections with the
Arabian Peninsula. Dennys Frenez recently regards that: Indus-type and Indus-related artifacts were found over a large and differentiated
ecumene, encompassing Central Asia, the Iranian Plateau, Mesopotamia and the northern Levant, the Persian Gulf, and the Oman Peninsula. The discovery of Indus trade tools (seals, weights, and containers) across the entire Middle Asia, complemented by information from Mesopotamian cuneiform texts, shows that entrepreneurs from the Indus Valley regularly ventured into these regions to transact with the local socioeconomic and political entities. However, Indus artifacts were also exchanged beyond this core region, eventually reaching as far [as] the Nile River valley, Anatolia, and the Caucasus. On the contrary, only a handful of exotic trade tools and commodities have been found at sites in the Greater Indus Valley. The success of Indus trade in Central and Western Asia did not only rely on the dynamic entrepreneurialism of Indus merchants and the exotic commodities they offered. Specific products were proactively designed and manufactured in the Indus Valley to fulfill the particular needs of foreign markets, and Indus craftspeople moved beyond their native cultural sphere adapting their distinctive productions to the taste of foreign elites or reworking indigenous models. The adoption of specific seals and iconographies to regulate external trade activities suggests a conscious attempt at implementing a coordinated supraregional marketing strategy[...]
Agriculture According to Gangal et al. (2014), there is strong archeological and geographical evidence that neolithic farming spread from the Near East into north-west India, but there is also "good evidence for the local domestication of barley and the
zebu cattle at Mehrgarh." According to Jean-Francois Jarrige, farming had an independent local origin at Mehrgarh, which he argues is not merely a "'backwater' of the Neolithic culture of the Near East", despite similarities between Neolithic sites from eastern Mesopotamia and the western Indus valley which are evidence of a "cultural continuum" between those sites. Archaeologist
Jim G. Shaffer writes that the Mehrgarh site "demonstrates that food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon" and that the data support interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanisation and complex social organisation in South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments". Jarrige notes that the people of
Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and
barley, while Shaffer and Liechtenstein note that the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop derived from two-row barley. Gangal agrees that "Neolithic domesticated crops in Mehrgarh include more than 90% barley," noting that "there is good evidence for the local domestication of barley." Yet, Gangal also notes that the crop also included "a small amount of wheat," which "are suggested to be of Near-Eastern origin, as the modern distribution of wild varieties of wheat is limited to Northern Levant and Southern Turkey." The cattle that are often portrayed on Indus seals are humped
Indian aurochs (
Bos primigenius namadicus), which are similar to
Zebu cattle. Zebu cattle are still common in India, and in Africa. They are different from European cattle (
Bos primigenius taurus), and are believed to have been independently domesticated on the Indian subcontinent, probably in the
Baluchistan region of Pakistan. Research by J. Bates et al. (2016) confirms that Indus populations were the earliest people to use complex multi-cropping strategies across both seasons, growing foods during summer (rice, millets and beans) and winter (wheat, barley and pulses), which required different watering regimes. Bates et al. (2016) also found evidence for an entirely separate domestication process of rice in ancient South Asia, based around the wild species
Oryza nivara. This led to the local development of a mix of "wetland" and "dryland" agriculture of local
Oryza sativa indica rice agriculture, before the truly "wetland" rice
Oryza sativa japonica arrived around 2000 BCE.
Food According to archeological finds, the Indus Valley Civilisation had a diet dominated by meats of animals such as cattle, buffalo, goat, pig and chicken. Remnants of dairy products were also discovered. According to Akshyeta Suryanarayan et al., available evidence indicates culinary practices to be common over the region; food-constituents were dairy products (in low proportion), ruminant carcass meat, and either non-ruminant adipose fats, plants, or mixtures of these products. The dietary pattern remained the same throughout the decline. The authors speculated the food-balls to be of a ritualistic significance, given the finds of bull figurines,
adze and a seal in immediate vicinity.
Language The
Harappan language is the unknown language (or languages) of the Indus Valley Civilization. The
Harappan script is yet undeciphered, indeed it has not even been demonstrated to be a writing system, and therefore the language remains unknown. The language being yet unattested in readable contemporary sources, hypotheses regarding its nature are based on possible
loanwords, the
substratum in Vedic Sanskrit, and some terms recorded in
Sumerian cuneiform (such as
Meluhha), in conjunction with analyses of the
Harappan script. There are some possible loanwords from the language of the Indus Valley Civilization. '
or ' ( ) is the
Sumerian name of a prominent trading partner of
Sumer during the
Middle Bronze Age. Its identification remains an open question, but most scholars associate it with the Indus Valley Civilisation. Of the
substratum in Vedic Sanskrit, the bulk have no proven basis in any of the known families, suggesting a source in one or more lost languages. One of these lost languages could have been the Harappan language, which Witzel labelled as the Kubhā-Vipāś
substrate. One hypothesis has been suggested that the bearers of the IVC corresponded to
proto-Dravidians linguistically, the break-up of proto-Dravidian corresponding to the break-up of the
Late Harappan culture. Finnish Indologist
Asko Parpola concludes that the uniformity of the Indus inscriptions precludes any possibility of widely different languages being used, and that an early form of Dravidian language must have been the language of the Indus people. Today, the
Dravidian language family is concentrated mostly in
southern India and northern and eastern
Sri Lanka, but pockets of it still remain throughout the rest of India and Pakistan (the
Brahui language), which lends credence to the theory.
Possible writing system from the northern gate of
Dholavira, dubbed the
Dholavira signboard Between 400 and as many as 600 distinct Indus symbols have been found on
stamp seals, small tablets, ceramic pots and more than a dozen other materials, including a "signboard" that apparently once hung over the gate of the inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira. Typical
Indus inscriptions are around five characters in length, most of which (aside from the Dholavira "signboard") are tiny; the longest on any single object (inscribed on a
copper plate) has a length of 34 symbols. While the Indus Valley Civilisation is generally characterised as a literate society on the evidence of these inscriptions, this description has been challenged by Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel (2004) who argue that the Indus system did not encode language, but was instead similar to a variety of non-linguistic sign systems used extensively in the Near East and other societies, to symbolise families, clans, gods, and religious concepts. Others have claimed on occasion that the symbols were exclusively used for economic transactions, but this claim leaves unexplained the appearance of Indus symbols on many ritual objects, many of which were mass-produced in
moulds. No parallels to these mass-produced inscriptions are known in any other early ancient civilisations. In a 2009 study by P.N. Rao et al. published in
Science, computer scientists, comparing the pattern of symbols to various linguistic scripts and non-linguistic systems, including DNA and a computer programming language, found that the Indus script's pattern is closer to that of spoken words, supporting the hypothesis that it codes for an as-yet-unknown language. Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel have disputed this finding, pointing out that Rao et al. did not actually compare the Indus signs with "real-world non-linguistic systems" but rather with "two wholly artificial systems invented by the authors, one consisting of 200,000 randomly ordered signs and another of 200,000 fully ordered signs, that they spuriously claim represent the structures of all real-world non-linguistic sign systems". Farmer et al. have also demonstrated that a comparison of a non-linguistic system like
medieval heraldic signs with
natural languages yields results similar to those that Rao et al. obtained with Indus signs. They conclude that the method used by Rao et al. cannot distinguish linguistic systems from non-linguistic ones. The messages on the seals have proved to be too short to be decoded by a computer. Each seal has a distinctive combination of symbols and there are too few examples of each sequence to provide a sufficient context. The symbols that accompany the images vary from seal to seal, making it impossible to derive a meaning for the symbols from the images. There have, nonetheless, been a number of interpretations offered for the meaning of the seals. These interpretations have been marked by ambiguity and subjectivity. Historians such as
Heinrich Zimmer and
Thomas McEvilley believe that there is a connection between first Jain Tirthankara Rishabhanatha and the Indus Valley Civilisation. Marshall hypothesised the existence of a cult of Mother Goddess worship based upon excavation of several female figurines and thought that this was a precursor of the Hindu sect of
Shaktism. However the function of the female figurines in the life of Indus Valley people remains unclear, and Possehl does not regard the evidence for Marshall's hypothesis to be "terribly robust". Some of the
baetyls interpreted by Marshall to be sacred phallic representations are now thought to have been used as pestles or game counters instead, while the ring stones that were thought to symbolise
yoni were determined to be architectural features used to stand pillars, although the possibility of their religious symbolism cannot be eliminated. Many Indus Valley seals show animals, with some depicting them being carried in processions, while others show
chimeric creations. One seal from Mohenjo-daro shows a half-human, a half-buffalo monster attacking a tiger, which may be a reference to the
Sumerian myth of such a monster created by goddess
Aruru to fight
Gilgamesh. In contrast to contemporary
Egyptian and
Mesopotamian civilisations, Indus Valley lacks any monumental palaces, even though excavated cities indicate that the society possessed the requisite engineering knowledge. This may suggest that religious ceremonies if any, may have been largely confined to individual homes, small temples, or the open air. Several sites have been proposed by Marshall and later scholars as possibly devoted to religious purposes, but at present only the
Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro is widely thought to have been so used, as a place for ritual purification. The funerary practices of the Harappan civilisation are marked by fractional burial (in which the body is reduced to skeletal remains by exposure to the elements before final interment), and even cremation. == Late Harappan ==