Drainage system of Indus Valley Towns

• Even smaller towns and villages of IVC had impressive drainage systems, this indicates that people had a great civic sense of sanitation and care for health and hygiene.
• Small drains made of burnt bricks were connected with bathing platforms and latrines of private houses joined the medium sized drains in the side streets.
• These drains ran into larger sewers in the main streets which were covered with bricks or dressed stone blocks.
• Corbelled-arch drains have also been found, one of them is almost 6 ft. deep which functioned as main drain taking all the waste water out of the town.
• At regular intervals along the main sewage drains were rectangular sump pits for collecting waste and these were regularly cleaned.

Harappan Seals

• The Harappan people used steatite extensively for making beads, seals and several other artifacts.
• Harappan culture may therefore be referred to as “steatite civilization”.
• Steatite is also known as Soapstone, it is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock.
• It is very soft and has been a medium for carving.
• More than 2500 seals have been found, these are made of steatite.
• They mostly depict a single animal-unicorn bull, elephant, rhinoceros etc.-but some also depict trees, semi-human and human figurines, in some cases participating in a ceremony.

Indus Valley Sites

• Harappa was discovered in 1826 and first excavated in 1920 and 1921.
• Mohenjo-daro was excavated in 1924–25 and 1925–26.
• Chanhudaro was first excavated in March 1930.
• Banwali was excavated in 1973.

Indus Valley Civilization Sites

• Chanhudaro was an important centre of a craft activity, some of the houses yielded raw material such as carnelian, agate, amethyst, and crystal as well as finished and unfinished beads and drills.
• More striking was the discovery of a bead factory, with lots of finished and unfinished beads, mostly made of steatite.
• Lothal is located between the Sabarmati river and its tributary, the Bhogava , in Saurashtra in Gujarat.
• The most distinctive feature of Lothal is the dockyard, which lies on the eastern edge of the site.
• Dholavira is located on Kadir island in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, The city had an impressive and unique water harvesting and management system.
• It can be noted that this area receives less than 160 cm of rain every year and is very prone to droughts.

Indus valley Burial Practices

• A dog buried with human oval pit burials was discovered in Ropar, Punjab.
• In Kashmir’s Burzahom site, separate burial pits for dogs were discovered.