All language subtitles for Civilisations.3of4.The.Indus.the.Masters.of.the.River.www.mvgroup.org

ln the 19th century. lndia was regarded
as the mother of civilisations.

But the great civilisations
could only be Middle Eastern, Egyptian.

Mortimer Wheeler, one of the great
British archaeologists in lndia.

called lndia "the Cinderella civilisation"
because it was the last born.

Some even thought it a pale copy
of Mesopotamian civilisations

before it was realised
that it was in fact unique.

When archaeologists started to dig

they found nothing resembling
the Mesopotamian civilisations.

But they soon realised
they were uncovering huge cities.

Some sites cover 200 to 300 hectares.

ln area, Mohenjo-Daro is probably
the largest of all ancient cities.

Big rivers were vital to the growth
of the lndus civilisation

as they are
to all agrarian civilisations.

The rivers facilitate agriculture.
which then feeds cities

where a new.
non-peasant population appears.

a population of labourers
and craftsmen.

ln the past. the lndus
spread across a huge plain

which was cultivated

at the risk of one's fields
disappearing every year.

There is satellite imagery.

Secondly. the kind of earth
we have here

is clearly a dried-up riverbed.
where we are standing.

Water from the past is still there.
Otherwise none would lie there.

lt's not a pond.

it's part of the riverbed.

So this is clear evidence.

We have a fairly good idea
of the strength of their economy.

The great cities of the lndus.
especially Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.

had well-developed crafts

that produced items
only this civilisation could make.

like particular types
of near-industrial ceramics.

not to mention
all that's been lost.

The lndus civilisation must have
produced a lot of textiles.

of food processed
using the technologies of the time.

No traces remain of all that.
it's all disappeared.

But today. some of its products
would qualify as industrial-quality

and they were widely exported.
from the Gulf to Mesopotamia.

One problem with the lndus civilisation

is that its people wrote.

We know that.

we have thousands of documents.

But they wrote on perishable media.

so we don't have their writings.

only what we'd call street signs.

signs on key rings.

everything that remained solid

while the other media disappeared.

So we don't know. We have no texts.

So we saw a civilisation emerge
that had writing.

but we thought
it was just for magic rituals.

when in fact it probably had
a political and administrative system

like Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Clearly. so long as we can't
decipher the writing.

which means finding
a text that is long enough

to decipher
with the classic techniques.

we won't even know
what language they spoke.

The maritime trade
of the lndus civilisation

has been studied
over the past 20 years or so.

We knew the rivers were used
for trade between the lndus cities.

lts maritime trade is more tricky.

We know that items from the lndus
reached the Oman peninsula.

that is. today's United Arab Emirates
and Oman.

as well as Bahrain and Mesopotamia.

More than that.
we have Mesopotamian texts.

a text by Sargon of Akkad
from around 2300 BC.

saying that in his harbour
were ships from Dilmun.

which is the Kuwait-Qatar region
centred on Bahrain...

boats from Magan.
today's Oman peninsula.

and from Meluhha.
the land of the lndus.

lt was probably a multilateral trade

involving people
from the whole region.

lt seems that the first people
to take to the sea

were not people from the lndus.

We must bear in mind
that today's lndus delta

is subject to huge tides.

lt's extremely difficult to navigate.

And its sea coast
is also very difficult to navigate.

But at some stage.
everyone took to the sea.

And at that time.

in the middle
of the third millennium BC.

a time of increased
international trade.

like the trade in jewellery.

for example.
large carnelian beads.

which only people from the lndus
knew how to make

but also the trade in fabrics.
including precious fabrics.

produced and exchanged
in both the lndus and Mesopotamia.

And also all sorts of goods
that came from afar.

like combs made of ivory.
and all sorts of other items

from as far as the jungles
of the Ganges valley.

How did these people communicate?

A Sumerian text.
from Mesopotamia around 2000 BC.

mentions a translator from Meluhha

who spoke the languages
of the lndus and Sumeria.

Pity he didn't leave a dictionary!

But we must imagine
that this whole ancient world.

where people
constantly exchanged things.

was multilingual.

lt's in our world

that people now speak
a single language plus English.

ln that ancient world

a language was often spoken
by just a few thousand people.

The neighbouring group
spoke a different language.

So all these people
had to be able to communicate.

How did the lndus civilisation vanish?

First. it didn't suddenly disappear.

What we know
is that from a certain date

that can be established
at around 2000 BC

something we call
"regionalisation" occurred.

This vast cultural unity
was replaced by regional entities

that lasted quite a while.

The large cities were abandoned.
that's certain.

That happens quite often.

And the reason
the large cities are abandoned

is that the way society functions

can no longer
support them economically.

But that doesn't mean
the people just left.

lt means they started
to live differently.

in a manner less visible
to archaeology.

The problem is.
archaeologists can't see everything.

Subtitles SBS Australia 2007