The Indus Valley

1
The Indus Valley

• In 1922, archaeologists made a startling
  discovery in northwestern India. While digging
  in the Indus River Valley, they unearthed bricks,
  small statues, and other artifacts unlike any
  they had seen before. The archaeologists soon
  realized that they had uncovered a lost
  civilization one that had been forgotten for
  some 3,500 years.

2
Mysteries of the Indus Valley

• The earliest Indian Civilization emerged in the
  Indus River Valley, in present-day Pakistan,
  about 2500 B.C.
• Indus Valley sites have not fully been uncovered.
• We have no names of queens, no tax records, no
  literature, or no accounts of famous victories.
• The Indus Valley civilization covered the largest
  area of any civilization until the rise of Persia
  more than 1,000 years later.

3
Well-Planned Cities

• Two main cities Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
• Both cities had huge warehouses to store grain
  brought from outlying cities.
• Both cities were very well planned. Each city
  was laid in a grid pattern.
• Houses had surprisingly modern plumbing systems,
  with baths, drains, and water chutes that led
  into sewers beneath the streets.
• From all the evidence, archaeologists have
  concluded that the Indus Valley cities had a well
  organized government with powerful leaders.

4
Farming Trade

• Most of the people were farmers
• Crops included wheat, barley, melons, and dates.
• They were the first people to cultivate cotton
  and weave its fibers into cloth.
• Some were merchants and traders.
• Ships carrying cotton, cloth, grain, copper,
  pearls, and ivory combs sailed to distant lands
  by hugging the Arabian Sea coast and sailing up
  the Persian Gulf.
• Contact with Sumer may have stimulated the people
  to develop their own system of writing.

5
Religious Beliefs

• Polytheistic
• They worshipped sacred animals
• A mother Goddess, the source of creation, seems
  to have been widely honored.

6
Early Civilizations in China

• The distance and physical barriers separated
  China from the rest of the world.
• This isolation contributed to the Chinese belief
  that China was the center of the Earth and the
  sole source of civilization.
• Chinese history began in the Haung He valley
  where Neolithic people learned to farm.
• Chinese civilization first took shape about 1650
  B.C. under the control of the Shang.

7
Government Social Classes in Ancient China

• Kings during the Shang period probably only
  controlled a small area. Loyal princes and
  nobles governed most of the land.
• Artifacts suggest that noblewomen had
  considerable status during the Shang period.
• Most people in Shang China were peasants, the
  middle class was made up of merchants and
  artisans. The upper class was the royal family,
  nobles, and warriors.

8
Religion

• They prayed to many Gods and nature spirits.
• The King was seen as the link between the people
  and the Shang Di (The mother Goddess who brought
  plants and animals to earth).
• Ancestor worship Gods would not respond to mere
  mortals, so only spirits of the greatest mortals,
  such as the ancestors of the King, could get the
  ear of the Gods. The Chinese called on their
  ancestors to bring good fortune to the family.
• Some of the oldest examples of Chinese writing
  are on oracle bones. On the animal bones or
  turtle shells, Shang priests wrote questions
  addressed to the gods or the spirit of an
  ancestor. Priest then heated the bone or shell
  until it cracked. By interpreting the pattern of
  cracks, they provided answers or advice from the
  ancestors.

9
China

• North China is dominated by the alluvial plain
  along the Yellow River. This part of China Proper
  is mostly flat and the soil, replenished by silt
  carried down by the river, is well-suited to
  agriculture.