Indus Valley Civilization
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The Indus Valley civilization, also called the Harappan civilization, flourished in the north-west of the Indian subcontinent between 2600 and 1900 BCE, contemporary with Egypt and Mesopotamia. It covered more territory than either, from the Makran coast to the upper Ganges, with perhaps five hundred settlements and towns of 40,000 people or more. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were laid out on a grid with baked brick houses, covered drains, public baths and a standardised system of weights and measures, a level of urban planning unmatched in the ancient world. The people built the great bath, traded with Mesopotamia for copper, carnelian and timber, and used an enigmatic script of about 400 signs that remains undeciphered, so their language and political system are unknown. No monumental palace or royal tomb has been found, and archaeologists still argue whether the cities were ruled by priests, merchants or assemblies. From about 1900 BCE the urban culture declined: the rivers shifted, above all the Ghaggar-Hakra, and settlement moved east and south. Later Vedic texts know nothing of the cities, and their rediscovery in the 1920s added a third great civilization to the map of the ancient world. Cotton was spun and woven here centuries before it was common anywhere else.