30 articles
Ahar-Banas culture
The Ahar-Banas culture, also called the Ahar culture, was a Chalcolithic culture of Mewar in Rajasthan, India, known for copper metallurgy and dated about 3700 to 1800 BCE.
Amri-Nal culture
The Amri-Nal culture, also called the Amri or Nal culture, is an Early Harappan Chalcolithic culture of Sindh and Balochistan, Pakistan, known for its painted pottery.
Copper Hoard culture
The Copper Hoard culture is an archaeological horizon of northern India, defined by hoards of cast copper tools, weapons, and anthropomorphic figures, dating roughly 2600 to 1200 BC.
Daimabad bronzes
The Daimabad bronzes are a hoard of four cast copper figures, including a bull chariot, found in 1974 at Daimabad, the southernmost known Harappan site.
Etched carnelian beads
Etched carnelian beads are carnelian beads decorated with white designs drawn in alkaline paste and fixed by heating, first produced in the Indus Valley in the third millennium BC.
Hakra Ware culture
Hakra Ware culture is a pre-Harappan material culture of the Ghaggar-Hakra valley, dated to the fourth millennium BCE and identified by its distinctive handmade pottery, first recognized at Jalilpur.
Harappan burial practices
Harappan burial practices are the funerary customs of the Indus civilization, attested in cemeteries of the Mature Harappan period, roughly 2600–1900 BC, with modest graves and no seals.
Harappan drainage
Harappan drainage is the urban sanitation and water-management system of Indus civilization cities from about 2600 to 1900 BC, using covered baked-brick street drains, private bathrooms, soakage pits, and wells.
Helmand culture
The Helmand culture, also called the Helmand civilization, was a Bronze Age culture of the Helmand valley in Iran and Afghanistan, centered on Shahr-i Sokhta and Mundigak.
Indus seals in Mesopotamia
Indus seals in Mesopotamia are square Harappan stamp seals found at sites like Ur and Kish, carried west by Indus traders in the later third millennium BC.
Indus sign corpus
The Indus sign corpus, or Concordance of Indus inscriptions, indexes all known inscriptions in the undeciphered Indus script of the Indus civilization, about 2600 to 1900 BCE.
Indus Valley seals
Indus Valley seals, also called Harappan seals, are small square steatite stamp seals bearing animal motifs, most often the unicorn, with short undeciphered inscriptions, made ca. 2600–1900 BCE.
Indus weights and measures
The Indus weights and measures, also called Harappan weights, are the standardized system of cubical chert weights and linear measures used across the Indus civilization from c. 2600 to 1900 BCE.
Interpreter of Meluhha
The interpreter of Meluhha (Sumerian eme-bal me-luh-ha-ki) was a Mesopotamian translation specialist for trade with Meluhha, widely identified with the Indus civilization, attested around 2200-2000 BC.
Kechi Beg phase
The Kechi Beg phase is a pre-Harappan ceramic phase of the Quetta valley in Balochistan, Pakistan, dated roughly 3800–3200 BC and defined by Kechi Beg ware.
Kot Diji phase
The Kot Diji phase, also called the Kot Diji culture, was an Early Harappan culture of the Indus region, dated roughly 3300 to 2600 BCE.
Kulli culture
The Kulli culture, also known as the Kulli complex, was an archaeological culture of southern Balochistan from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, contemporary with the Indus civilization.
Mandi hoard
The Mandi hoard is a cache of Harappan jewelry found by a farmer at Mandi village, Uttar Pradesh, India, in 2000, the largest ancient jewelry find in India.
Ochre Coloured Pottery culture
The Ochre Coloured Pottery culture, or OCP culture, is a Bronze Age archaeological culture of the Ganga-Yamuna Doab in northern India, defined by ill-fired pottery coated with ochre.
Periodisation of the Indus Valley Civilisation
The periodisation of the Indus Valley Civilisation is the scholarly chronology dividing the Harappan civilization into Early, Mature, and Late phases, spanning roughly 3500–1300 BC.
Priest-King (Mohenjo-daro statue)
The Priest-King is a carved steatite bust of a bearded man wearing a fillet headband, excavated at Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, in 1925-26 and held in the National Museum, Karachi.
Quetta ware
Quetta ware is a black-on-buff painted ceramic tradition of the Quetta valley in northern Balochistan, Pakistan, made by settled pre-Harappan farming villages during the 4th and 3rd millennia BC.
Rangpur culture
The Rangpur culture is the Late Harappan culture of Gujarat in western India, defined at the type site of Rangpur and characterized by Lustrous Red Ware pottery.
Ravi phase
The Ravi phase, also called the Ravi aspect, is the earliest known occupation at Harappa, a village settlement of hand-built pottery dating from about 3700 to 2800 BCE.
Religion of the Indus Valley Civilisation
The religion of the Indus Valley Civilisation, the Harappan civilization of about 2600 to 1900 BC, is known only from seals, figurines, architecture, and burials, as its script is undeciphered.
Sanauli chariots
The Sanauli chariots, also written Sinauli, are three wood-and-copper two-wheeled vehicles from about 2000 BC, found in warrior burial pits at Sinauli, Uttar Pradesh, and announced in 2018.
Shu-ilishu interpreter seal
Shu-ilishu's cylinder seal is a small engraved stone cylinder seal in the Louvre whose Akkadian inscription names Shu-ilishu as interpreter of the land of Meluhha.
Sothi-Siswal culture
The Sothi-Siswal culture, also called the Siswal culture, is an Early Harappan archaeological culture of Haryana and northern Rajasthan, named after the type sites Sothi and Siswal.
Togau phase
The Togau phase is a pre-Harappan ceramic phase of Balochistan, Pakistan, defined by distinctive painted pottery discovered by Beatrice de Cardi and dated to the 5th and 4th millennia BC.
Unicorn seals
Unicorn seals are Mature Harappan Indus stamp seals, usually of burnt steatite, dating to about 2600–1900 BCE; their single-horned bovid is the most common motif on inscribed Indus seals.