History of Money, Banking, and Trade
A historical look at the development and evolution of money, banking, and trade. From the ancient civilizations to the present.
History of Money, Banking, and Trade
Episode 21. Unveiling the Peaceful Prosperity of the Indus Valley: Advanced Cities, Trade Networks, and Engineering Mastery
Ever wondered how an ancient civilization could thrive without war? Learn the secrets of the Indus Valley Civilization, one of the most advanced and peaceful societies of the ancient world. Join us as we unravel their enigmatic writing system, standardized weights and measures, and extensive trade networks that connected them with distant lands like Egypt, Anatolia, China, and Mesopotamia. We'll explore the dual role their sophisticated seals played as religious symbols and trade identifiers, offering clues to their influence on later cultures and possibly the early stages of Hinduism.
Imagine walking through the impeccably planned streets of the Indus Valley cities, with grid layouts that would make modern urban planners proud. Discover how these ancient engineers prioritized public health through advanced sewage and drainage systems, public baths, and stratified residential areas. We'll also discuss the innovative canal and irrigation systems that supported their agriculture and ensured a stable water supply, safeguarding against droughts. Learn about the vital role granaries played in food storage, tax payments, and trade, and examine the strategic dockyards and man-made canals that bolstered their trade activities.
We'll also take a closer look at the major cities like Harappa and Dholavira, exploring their strategic locations and the impacts of climate change that led to their eventual abandonment. Despite a lack of written records from the native people, foreign accounts from trading partners offer fascinating glimpses into this ancient society. Finally, we'll ponder the mystery of their peaceful existence and the eventual disappearance of this remarkable civilization, challenging earlier theories like the Aryan invasion. Join us as we piece together the legacy of the Indus Valley Civilization and its enduring influence on trade, culture, and religion.
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Welcome podcast listener. I am Mike D and this is the History of Money, banking and Trade podcast. My goal is to expand your knowledge of the history and evolution of trade, along with money, banking and credit, from ancient civilizations all the way to the present. I truly hope you find these episodes to be informative and entertaining. Now, I'm not a historian but, like Dan Conlon likes to say, I am a fan of history.
Speaker 1:When we last left off, we were more or less getting an overview of the rise of the local Indus civilizations. We discussed the earliest civilizations in the region before moving into the Indus Valley phase of the region. Then we also talked about the fact that they had a form of writing, but unfortunately it can't be deciphered, and also the development of the standardized weights and measures. But more importantly, we discussed how the people of the Indus Valley traded with other cities within the Indus Valley, but also they had established long-distance trade with other civilizations as far away as into Egypt and Anatolia and up into China and, of course, mesopotamia. You combine their ability to grow excessive crops and other finished goods and this led to a population boom and the expansion of the overall Indus Valley civilizations. Remember, these were many independent city-states in the Indus Valley. So each independent city-state would more or less operate on its own, independent of each other. But, like I said, all these various city-states all had a similar culture that kind of permeated throughout this particular region. So each city was different, but kind of the same, if that makes sense. In much of these ancient societies, religion would have been as important, if not more important, than trade. However, because there's so much that we just don't know about these various Indus civilizations, we really don't know what religion or religions they would have practiced. There are certain breadcrumbs that have been left, such as statues that were found in various ruins that give the appearance of a worship of a potential fertility or mother goddess, similar to that of what was practiced in ancient Mesopotamian societies at the time.
Speaker 1:Quite a few people tend to believe that the religion of the Indus Valley may have been the precursor to Hinduism, due to the fact that there are a lot of similarities that have been found in the Indus ruins. The reason people tend to think this is the case is because certain seals have been located in the ruins. For example, a seal was located that looks very similar to Lord Pashapati, who was worshipped in the Hindu religion and, let's not forget, hindu was originated in India. So it's quite possible that certain religious aspects of the Indus Valley would have been picked up by other civilizations in India and Pakistan and used for their basis of their religion. But in the grand scheme of things, historians just don't know what the people of the Indus Valley worshipped or how they worshipped, because they didn't find any temples or any other major monuments dedicated to certain gods. A lot of the artwork that was found would have been dedicated to certain animals, but they weren't necessarily godlike, but there still was a chance that there was some sort of worship of living things. These living things could have been animals or plants, but could have also included other things like rivers or mountains or other kind of spirits. The reason that there might be these possibilities is because during the archaeological digs they noticed a lot of carved animals and seals that depicted certain plants and animals, and the one thing about the seal is that it wasn't necessarily a religious thing either. And the one thing about the seal is that it wasn't necessarily a religious thing either.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes the seals that were imprinted on goods could have informed the purchaser that the merchant had guaranteed the contents of the container and that it may have been tampered with in transit if the seal was broken. Also, each government official had their own design. So, therefore, the independent traders and the governmental official had their own design. So, therefore, the independent traders and the governmental officials had their own unique kind of seals in various different civilizations, and they were all very distinct of each other. In fact, many of the Indus Valley seals that were found in Mesopotamia suggest that there was a presence of maybe an Indus Valley colony of traders in this region. So ultimately, the seals were a great tool for the archaeologists to kind of really figure out where certain goods may have originated from and also who may have shipped the goods. To begin with they may not know specifically the person, but they can always point to the seal and kind of get a general idea of where it had actually come from. So, in the end, the seals that were discovered could have been a mix of a religious symbol, along with a unique identifier of the individual or individuals that were sending goods from point A to point B.
Speaker 1:Now, even though we really don't know what the people of the Indus worshipped, there is a popular hypothesis that these were the earliest Hindus, and I've already mentioned that previously. But it bears in mind the fact that it's quite possible that the Hindu religion may have gotten a start in the Indus Valley or at the bare minimum took certain religious or social aspects and incorporated them into the Hindu religion and this sort of lined up to what a lot of historians believe, because the scholars typically think that the Hindu religion could have started as far back as 2000 BCE, so this would have been virtually smack dab right in the middle of the Indus Valley civilization timeline. In fact, the Rig Veda, the first Hindu holy books, were probably written sometime around 1500 BCE, but it was written in Sanskrit, so we know for certain that the people of the Indus Valley did not write it, so it had to come from somewhere else. But, like I said, it's quite possible that the authors of the book got many of the ideas from the Indus Valley during some kind of trade missions. Because one thing we know is, whenever you trade with foreign societies, a lot of information would be shared amongst the people that live in faraway places and would have had different social norms. These social norms can evolve when you start trading with other people, so you may have a certain religious or societal viewpoint, but all of a sudden these traders come in from far away places and they start talking to you and giving you new ideas. I mean, that's just how religion typically would spread. I mean barring the fact that a lot of religion is spread through the sword, but you know, also a lot of times it's spread through trade. A perfect example is Indonesia. Islam took hold in Indonesia in large part because the Christian traders were so brutal and the Islamic traders came in and they're a lot more lenient to the local population. So the population kind of really drifted towards the Islam aspect of religion more so than the Christian aspect. But kind of getting off track, and I apologize, but what I'm getting at is that, you know, trade can affect social norms and within social norms that also includes religious norms.
Speaker 1:Now, getting back on track, probably the biggest piece of archaeological evidence that points towards Hinduism was a Pashupati seal that was discovered in the Indus Valley. Now this particular seal appears to represent a god of animals that appears to be a proto-Hindu god of Shiva. In the end, this is a mere hypothesis, because a lot of moving parts seem to line up and it's quite possible that the indus valley had nothing to do with hinduism, because it is pure speculation at this point, but it's also possible that the people of the indus valley had influenced hinduism at some point and the fact that the people of the Indus Valley had traded with the people in faraway places like China and Mesopotamia and, of course, mainland India, then, of course, ideas could be shared and influenced amongst each other, including the ideas of religion. Now, as I mentioned prior, they did trade with Egypt, but they did not find dead bodies that were mummified like you would find in Egypt. However, the dead bodies were often found with certain types of clothing, but they were also buried with household items like pots and plates, and even food and jewelry, so that gives the appearance that they believed in some sort of afterlife, since those types of objects would have been needed if you were to transcend after death. But it doesn't necessarily show signs of a specific religion. Also, it's worth noting that they never found any bodies that appear to have had cuts or other injuries associated with war, and the people were not buried with weapons injuries associated with war and the people were not buried with weapons. So, in the end, since the historians can't decipher their writings, the fact remains is we just don't really know their religion, how they practiced it and who they worshipped, if they worshipped at all.
Speaker 1:Besides the fact that the people of Mesopotamia and China wrote about the Indus Valley traders, the biggest reason we know that these societies existed was due to their complex cities that were ultimately discovered. It is highly likely that these cities of the Indus Valley were the first centrally planned city layouts in history. The streets were laid out in a grid format, whereas the city would be broken up into blocks that ran in straight lines, and if you want to get a good idea of what a layout of a typical Indus Valley city looked like, well, just go to any modern city and look for yourself. I mean, a perfect example for me is really Manhattan. I mean, once you get outside of lower Manhattan, when you get about, say, houston Street, everything is pretty much in perfect grid format. When you get downtown, obviously, things run a little crooked and sideways or whatever. But the fact remains is the Indus Valley really kind of revolutionized the idea of efficiently planned cities?
Speaker 1:Now, within each city, they would have had a layout where they would have had more or less different classes of people living in different sections of the city. Within each section of the city the houses would have been generally the same size. So the people in the upper class of the Innis Valley, which was typically in the upper elevations of the city, they all would have had similar size houses that would have been bigger than the houses in the poorer sections of the city and the people in the poorer sections of the city would have all had similar size houses. So it would have been quite easy for a archaeologist to kind of really do a dig and say oh well, these houses in this section of the city definitely appear bigger than these houses in this section of the city, but in each section of the city the houses were relatively the same size. So you would have had this city really broken up into different class structures and it would have been quite obvious for who was ever doing an archaeological dig in the area. Also, with regards to the farms, they would have either been located in the lower section of the city or would have been just outside of the city. So it sounds to me that within the different socioeconomic classes there were a lot of similarity in terms of income distribution. Ultimately, the city layout would have facilitated trade because it would have made it a lot easier for its citizens to access and, more importantly, know where certain businesses would have been located. And to give you an idea how old this grid pattern was, it appears that it would have started around 3000 BCE, which is quite remarkable in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Now, what really separates the Indus Valley from other civilizations and societies was the fact that they had an advanced sewage and drainage system built right into the city when they were designing it. In fact, the drainage system would have been covered by mud bricks and you would have been able to access it through certain manhole covers, just like you see in modern cities. Now you got to understand. This drainage and sewage system was put in place and maintained thousands of years before something like this would appear in European cities. In addition, a canal system would run through the city, so the average person would have had access to running water inside their homes. Many houses had a bath with a drain that led out of the house and into the main drainage system near the street, and these drains took sewage away from the city. This may have been one of the more impressive things about the Innis Valley, in that hygiene and cleanliness was taken very seriously. They may not have realized it at the time, but this probably prevented a lot of disease and sickness. And to give you an idea how far advanced this was, most of the complex plumbing systems that were set up in Inns Valley will take thousands of years for other places to catch up. Since cleanliness was so important, they had set up public bath systems that would have been similar to that of the Romans, who would install it thousands of years later, of which these public baths often would have been fed through their various canals that they had set up throughout the city and also too. One additional thing about the canals is this would have really helped ensure that the region wouldn't be necessarily affected by severe droughts. They would be able to bring water into the city from faraway places. Now, since the Innis Valley had a great irrigation system set up through the canal system, they would have been able to produce an abundance amount of crops.
Speaker 1:Now, let's not forget that this is an ancient society that would have ultimately depended upon its farming, and therefore granaries would have been of utmost importance in the city, and of utmost importance in the city. Now, in case you're not familiar with the granary, it is basically a place that was designed to safely store grains for consumption or even for future trade. The largest of the cities would have had multiple granaries of which they would have stored additional foods like fruits and vegetables. The issues with fruits and vegetables is they kind of decay quite quickly if not consumed in a short time period. So to get around the perishable problem, they would often dry them and store them in pottery. Also, these granaries often had a very Sumerian vibe to them in that, outside of the farms, these granaries would have been located right in the citadel. Also, these granaries would have been used to facilitate tax payments and salaries that were paid to local officials. Depending upon the size of the granary, some would have had walls built on the inside that would have allowed them to separate the certain grains from each other, which ultimately would have helped them measure the specific amounts of each grain that they could have used for consumption or trade. So if you're not mixing them, you can kind of really really detail which grain is which and how much of that grain you have.
Speaker 1:Now, not surprisingly, the citadel would have been located in the upper class of the city and therefore the rich people would have had much easier access to the grains. I know it's shocking to believe that, but that's the case. Also, the various cities would have built up dockyards, which would have been vital for trade, but also they would have created man-made canal systems to facilitate the trade by getting the goods from within the city to the Indus River that could have been moved up and down into various cities or regions. Furthermore, they created man-made lakes that would have helped store water for future use. These lakes would have naturally collected rainwater, but what they would have also done is created a fresh water runoff drain that would have went right into the lake, so therefore they could build up even a fresh water runoff drain that would have went right into the lake, so therefore they could build up even more fresh water. In addition, they would have created dams to help control the flow of water from the river system, which ultimately would have prevented catastrophic flooding, along with diverting excess water into the man-made lake system.
Speaker 1:Some of the larger cities would have had walls built in to prevent catastrophic flooding, as they would have built basically a protective barrier from the city and any potential raiders. So the walls would have really served two purposes One, when you have excessive flooding and someone wants to come plunder the region. But, like I said, if people were plundering the region. It doesn't appear that the people were harmed, so it's quite possible that the walls were more for building dams around the city, more so than for defensive measures, because if people were plundering the city, you would ultimately most likely find bodies with some kind of cuts or some kind of injuries, but they just weren't found. Now, with regards to building the walls, one thing that is interesting is that the people in this valley had standardized their bricks, so that each brick would have been made basically to the same size and weight ratios, and these bricks would have been used to build the walls and the dams and even the homes in the citadels. This was an ingenious way to build, because any architect designing any brick structure would always know the exact size of the bricks that were going to be used. This would mean that the people could achieve some sort of economies of scale, and this ultimately meant that the building process and even maintenance process would be much more efficient.
Speaker 1:In 1922, archaeologists discovered the ruins of Mahenjo-Dara, which was one of the largest cities in this valley, and it could have been located in modern Pakistan and may have had as many as 40,000 people at its peak. It's possible that it was the most populous city in the world at the time. Like most other cities, the buildings were made of mud bricks and the city would have been a typical Indus Valley city, in that a rectangular grid system and paved roads made of mud bricks, along with palaces and religious buildings and even government buildings, were all located within the city, and even government buildings were all located within the city. Now, historians aren't really sure when, but the inhabitants began to move away from Manjodhara as a result of climate change. As archaeologists tend to think that the Saraswati River had dried up, which obviously would have caused a drought, and without any adequate water source, the inhabitants were essentially forced to move away.
Speaker 1:Now, before I get to that point, I wanted to spend a few minutes discussing the famous bath that kind of encapsulates the Indus Valley. The Egyptians had the Great Pyramids of Giza, while the Indus Valley had the Great Bath of Manjodhara, which may have been built right around the same time the Indus Valley got its start, so it is believed that this Great Bath was built around 3300 BCE. The Great Bath was large enough to fit multiple people at once, so from a modern perspective, we'd say it looked more like a swimming pool. Possibly the bath was built with mud bricks that were sealed together with mortar and that was made of gypsum, and then they would have added some kind of tar-like substance to seal the cracks. And, of course, this great bath was in the citadel, but it did not have running water, so the great bath had to be filled by hand with buckets of water. Now, since this is located in the citadel, that means it would have been located within the upper class of the city. Therefore, it's kind of safe to assume that the rich people would have had a much easier access to it and most likely would have held some sort of social significance as well, similar to what you see in Greece and Rome, or even from a modern perspective, like a local tennis club or a local club or whatever right. So you put these local clubs in the rich part of town and you pretty much make it so only they can attend. Now there were other baths located in other cities that were similar in nature, but they were much smaller. In addition, it's worth repeating that a large percentage of the homes in the Innis Valley had their own personal baths within them, so one wouldn't necessarily need to have a great bath in the city, as they could just bathe at home, and this is something that we really don't see in European cities for thousands of years.
Speaker 1:Probably the most important city in the region may have been that of Harappa. In fact, many historians refer to the general population throughout the Indus Valley as the Harappans. This city may have been the oldest city in the region, as it may have been settled around 31 to 3400 BCE. Like other cities, it was built on the banks of the river, the Ravi River, and it probably had a similar feel to that of the Egyptian cities, in that it was built right on the floodplain, which made the land fertile and great for farming, but, more importantly, it meant that it was an ideal location to facilitate trade with other cities inside and outside of the Indus Valley. Around 2200 BCE, the population may have reached as high as 80,000 people. In fact, this city was essentially around for the entirety of the Indus Valley civilization. By around 1300 BCE, the people started moving out of the city and moved into rural areas in the region and, sadly, thousands of years later, when railroad companies started building railroads through the region, the railroad companies started stealing mud bricks from the ruins to use for local projects. Then, to make matters worse, archaeologists that were digging in the region cariously exposed old bricks to the air and the weather while digging, causing the site structures to erode at a much faster pace than if they had taken their time and not unearthed the site all at once.
Speaker 1:Another large Indus Valley city was Dulavera, which would have been located in modern-day northwest India near the Pakistan border. The city would have originally been established in a marshy, wetland area, which likely meant that the land would have been very fertile and great for trade. Dulavera was quite a distance from Manjodhara and Harappa, so this really kind of makes me feel that the city grew independently from the other cities, but would have shared many of the same cultural practices, including the advanced sewage systems and water delivery systems that we had mentioned prior. The biggest difference was the city was built out of stone, not the standard mud bricks that we had discussed prior. However, climate change took its toll on this city, just like it did in the other Indus Valley cities and also parts of Mesopotamia. While we're at it, therefore, what ended up happening was the region in which the city was located basically dried up, so much so that even the irrigation systems from the local streams couldn't be saved. So in the end, the city just wasn't habitable anymore and the citizens had to migrate away, of which it appears that most of its citizens went eastward, to other parts of modern-day India.
Speaker 1:Now, ultimately, I wanted to kind of highlight just a few different settlements and villages, as it is believed that the people of the Indus Valley would have traded goods into Mesopotamia from these various cities. In fact, sargon the Great even wrote about the people of the Indus Valley as they sailed into Mesopotamia. The people of Akkad would have referred to these people of the Indus as the Malua people. Sargon was one of the first to mention that the Malua people were sailing a merchant ship into the dockyard. Now, one thing I've mentioned previously was the fact that historians cannot decipher Indus writings. So this gives us a strong indication that the people of the Indus Valley were probably master shipbuilders by, say, 2300 BCE. Centuries after Sargon, the merchants of the Indus Valley began to take up a semi-residence in the region. So we're talking anywhere from 2400 BCE to 1700 BCE.
Speaker 1:One of the big reasons why the people of the Indus Valley could sell to Mesopotamian peoples was due to the fact that they had an abundance of timber, which was often used for items such as home furniture and, of course, was often used for items such as home furniture and, of course, was also used to build boats. Now, on, these boats would have been one of the most popular raw materials, such as carnelian, which was a type of redstone that was often used to make beads and other kinds of artworks and jewelry. In addition, lapis lazuli, which was a fairly rare blue gem that was used for jewelry and artwork, also would have been traded, and, of course, copper, which was probably the most often traded, but it was also some speculation as to where this copper had originated from, but we know for sure that the copper was not in Mesopotamia, because Mesopotamia had very little to no natural resources, so it's quite possible that this copper would have been brought in by the people of the Indus Valley from modern day India, and it would have also traveled its way through Mesopotamia and into other parts of the Near East. The interesting thing about India was the fact that the local native people did not create written records discussing the people of the Indus Valley, which is kind of unfortunate, because the Chinese and the people of Mesopotamia had great records, and therefore we probably lose a lot of information that could have been helpful in trying to understand in this population if we had more data coming from India and Pakistan. Instead, what we get is we get information by foreign people who may not have their best interest. To shed proper light upon the people of the Indus Valley.
Speaker 1:Now going back to the Indus Valley from Mesopotamia was sesame and sesame oil. Eventually, the people of the Indus will actually take the seeds back to the Indus and start planting them for themselves. So I mean, it's not unusual for something like that to happen, considering places like Ireland became very dependent upon the potato, but the potato originated from South America, not Europe. I mean, we also see this with bananas, for example, where bananas are native to Africa, but yet we probably grow more bananas in South and Central America than any other place in the world. And then you have the mangoes. The mangoes are native to India and they're all over Florida, for example, and Mexico and other places of the Americas.
Speaker 1:But anyway, going back to the trade between the Indus and Mesopotamia, the fact remains is goods were going back and forth between the two different places, and the thing is is we know this for certain because certain inscriptions and other seals that were found in the Innis Valley would indicate that certain goods had come from Mesopotamia and vice versa. We'd find the seals and other inscriptions would have been found in Mesopotamia that would have originated from the Innis Valley. Now, I've mentioned seals a few times, but I think I need to add just a little bit more color to it. It is believed that these seals were used to bundle certain goods together for trade, and one additional thing is, if the seal is broken, they can tell that the items had been tampered with. Now, these seals would have been found in various places throughout Mesopotamia, including Ur and Akkad, along with Dilmun, an ancient East Semitic-speaking civilization in Eastern Arabia.
Speaker 1:In the Babylonian episode, I brought up a person known as Ia Nasir, who was a businessman who organized and financed maritime expeditions from Ur all the way down into the Persian Gulf to a place known as Dilman. As such, I kind of wonder if maybe he had direct contact with the Indus people or not. In the end, dilman was resource rich and, in fact, it was a major port for copper trade in which people from various Indus cities would have sailed to and conducted trade. Dilman was located in the eastern province of modern Saudi Arabia, on the Persian Gulf. Now, due to its location, this was an important city for any kind of trade that would have been coming into and out of Mesopotamia from the south. So if any goods would have been imported through the Persian Gulf, they most likely would have ended up in Dilman before moving on to either places such as in Egypt or up into Mesopotamia. So it's quite possible that Indus traders transported goods to Dilman before they ended up in Mesopotamia. In addition, copper ingots appear to have been imported up to Lotho, which was the southernmost city in the Indus Valley, and it appears that these copper ingots were imported from a place known as Magan, which is in present-day Oman. So this kind of gives you an idea how trade was flowing south into southern Arabia and flowing back and forth.
Speaker 1:And, as I've said previously, the one thing trade does is it not only moves goods from one location to another, but it also moves ideas from one place to another. So while timber and raw materials and gems and other finished goods were flowing from the Indus to Mesopotamia and southern Arabia, the people of the Indus Valley were also exchanging great ideas, which ultimately improved living conditions and quality of life, since the people of the Indus Valley had engineered great drainage systems. It appears that they would have also shared these engineering know-hows with the people of Mesopotamia by the time we get to the late period, which would have been 1900 to 1300 BCE, the people in this valley were raising domesticated animals that were used for trade. Now, these animals would have typically been sheep and even dogs. However, it appears that most of the animals that were traded were not raised by the local population, but were in fact captured and then traded. These would have included dangerous animals like lions and elephants, but they would have also included things like monkeys and water buffalo and, of course, the animals that were killed. Well, they would have traded the byproducts of the animals, such as ivory and wool, and this goes back to the fact that the people of the Indus Valley had such an abundance of timber that they were able to build large ships that they could carry these huge animals like buffalo and elephants.
Speaker 1:The Chinese merchants in particular really helped develop the framework for the trade into China. It appears that they were the ones that actually designed and set up the specific trade routes that would have stretched from China to the Near East into places like Mesopotamia. Now, since most of the trade routes were over land, the people of the Indus Valley would have used donkey caravans to transport the goods, just like the people of the Mesopotamian region did, as I had mentioned in the previous episodes. So, by all accounts, it appears that the people of the Indus Valley had real good relations with people from outside the Indus Valley and we think this is because they had a lot of great trading relationships that were established.
Speaker 1:Now, also in the previous episodes, I tried not to get into too much detail into the Mesopotamian warlike cultures because I wanted to keep it in the proper scope because, as you can clearly see, it is easy to drift off into subject matters that really don't have anything to do with money, banking or trade. But the fact remains that places like Assyria and Babylonia were powerful and oftentimes brutal in warfare. And, just to be clear, mesopotamia wasn't really different than any other ancient society. The fact remains is, nearly every single ancient society was very much into the warlike fashion at one point or another. Now I bring this up because the people in this valley may have been the most peaceful people of any ancient society in the world, or ever for that matter.
Speaker 1:Now, like I said, we can't really decipher their writings, but it appears that the people in this valley had no natural enemies. Now, this could be due to the fact that they were so isolated from other societies and weren't within very close range of potential enemies who were maybe looking to take assets or resources from one another, but they also didn't fight amongst each other, as far as we could tell. So there's quite a bit of speculation as to why the people in this valley had no natural enemies. I've read that some people think that it was due to the fact that they really didn't have a centralized government. That means that you couldn't really have certain political figures pushing for war or glory, and also that meant that you wouldn't have certain political figures that were looking to basically steal land and resources from other nations. The reason why they think this is because when they did archaeological digs, they would find individual homes, and they would also find like the Great Baths, and they might find a temple, but they didn't find any buildings that really represent a potential palace planning authority, because the city was laid out in a grid format, which means that someone would have had the overall responsibility to ensure that the roads and the homes were built in certain locations. So therefore, someone or maybe it was almost like a board of governors or a co-op board, or somebody would have had some sort of responsibility for the overall decision making within the city or the village. In addition, it doesn't appear that the Indus Valley was united between the cities, so in other words, each city would have had its own representative governing body.
Speaker 1:My first thought was well, this is how the Greek city-states worked, as Greek city-states worked, as Greek city-states didn't have one centralized government that controlled the region. Each individual city would have acted as its own city-state and quite possibly that was how the Ennis Valley kind of acted within each city-state. So they may have had a very similar setup to that which you would have found in Greece. The biggest difference was the Indus Valley didn't war with each other like they did in Greece. The Greek city states were always at each other's throat, and usually it's because one city state wanted to be the dominant player. It didn't appear that this was the case in the Indus Valley, or maybe it was, and we just don't know, because we can't decipher their writings, but from an outside perspective, without really being able to decipher what they wrote, there certainly isn't any evidence that there were war between the various city-states and, hypothetically speaking, even if we could not decipher any Greek written records, the fact remains is we would know for sure that there were definitely wars that were definitely happening in Greece and the various city-states.
Speaker 1:Ultimately, there just wasn't any proof that any sort of military actions had happened in the region. In addition, archaeologists haven't found any weapons in any tombs or other burials. And what's even crazier is the fact that when the archaeologists exhumed bodies, they have not found any bodies that had any kind of wounds or cut marks that would have been associated with battle or war. Furthermore, they haven't discovered any areas that were potentially burnt down, like you see, in most military conquests. I mean, it's pretty obvious for archaeologists to see that the city of Babylon was sacked. Through archaeological records and digs. Nothing like that has been discovered in the Indus Valley. That, right there, is absolutely astonishing. I mean, look at the United States. We can't even go 10 years without being in some sort of military conflict, let alone 2,000 years. And in reality, I mean, has there ever been a society that's lasted more than a few hundred years that has not had any sort of battle or war? Yeah, as far as I can tell, the Indus Valley went 2,000 years without a war.
Speaker 1:Furthermore, as I've said a few times, the written records that we can decipher come from foreigners in the ancient world. In other words, our knowledge comes from what the Chinese and the Mesopotamians were writing about the people of the Indus Valley. Now, these people did not mention of any wars or conflicts that were occurring with their trading partners from the Indus Valley. Now it appears to me that their trading partners from the Indus Valley. Now it appears to me that if the people of the Indus Valley were warring with anyone, if any of their trade partners were warring with them, well, this would have been written down somewhere, like we might see a tablet from Babylon or Assyria indicating that, hey, their trade partner was at war with another foreign state. So, ultimately, the going belief is that the people of the Innis Valley avoided war and conflict.
Speaker 1:Now, despite the fact that these people appeared to be very peaceful, they eventually disappeared from the region. Why this happened, no one really knows for sure. Now there are a bunch of colorful hypotheses that are floating around, and one of the original ideas was that they started to disappear around 1300 BC from the region because there was an invasion by the Aryans. And, just to be clear, the Aryans are not the German population. So, in other words, don't get confused by the racist and bigoted popular ideas from the 1920s to the 1940s.
Speaker 1:The Aryans would have come from Central Asia and then they would have flowed down into the northern Indian subcontinent and what it looks like has happened is that they would have migrated down into India. Now this sounds like a plausible idea but, as I just mentioned, the fact is is there wasn't any evidence of any war or battles. So therefore the idea seems kind of unlikely and in fact it was pretty much abandoned by the 1950s. So, you know, no one's really taken seriously that these people from Central Asia came down and basically, you know, wiped out the in this valley down and basically wiped out the Indus Valley. And the reason why this had gained some kind of traction was it was noted that in the Bronze Age that these people from various proto-Indo-European languages who live primarily in what is now like Turkmenistan and Afghanistan and Uzbekistan to give you an idea well, some of these Indo-Iranian tribes had basically flowed into, even as far as into, china and then eventually flowed down into the Indian subcontinent and, like I said, they called them the Aryans because it meant that they were free, like they were free people. In fact, the name Iran means the land of the Aryans, the land of the free people. So people just said, well, look hey, all these people started kind of migrating down from the north. So you know, maybe they took over the population, but it doesn't appear that there was any kind of wars or anything like that as to why the people in this valley kind of disappeared. People in this valley kind of disappeared.
Speaker 1:Other ideas as to their decline are related to climate change. One hypothesis was there was excessive flooding that would have caused the population to move. Now, for me personally, that doesn't really make 100% sense, because the local population had engineered various water management techniques. So they probably could have protected their cities or at least diverted the excess water, as we had mentioned prior. So they could have diverted the excess water into the lake system that they had built and they would have diverted away from the farmland. So maybe it became so excessive that their engineering techniques couldn't keep up. Or maybe there was some sort of brain drain from the region and the next generation of aquatic engineers were lacking in the skills. It's a hypothesis, but it doesn't really seem to gain much traction.
Speaker 1:As far as I'm concerned, now, the most likely cause was that there was a climate change that caused severe droughts and ultimately led to the rivers and other water sources to dry up completely. Scientists have discovered a former river that would have been similar in size to that of the Indus River, but this river started to dry out around 1900 BCE. Once that happens, there's almost zero chance that a society can last much longer, because they would almost absolutely be forced to migrate to a more hospitable place or they would die. So it's more likely that the people living in Indus Valley slowly moved out of the region to live in other surrounding areas, of which it appears that many had actually migrated to the Ganges Basin. In the end, the Indus Valley civilization didn't have some kind of dramatic cataclysm.
Speaker 1:There wasn't any specific event that historians can point to and say ah, that was the beginning of the end, or there wasn't some kind of catastrophic event that caused the Indus Valley to come to a close. In reality, it was just a slow, drawn-out death of the culture, and this is, in part, of the overall mystery surrounding this civilization. Now, if some rose out of stone is found and we could decipher in this writings. Well then, maybe we can find out what the collapse might be, or maybe it just becomes more apparent, but until this is found, people will just have to put forth a hypothesis, as they find it very difficult to prove at this point. My best guess is it was climate change, and thus the region was no longer farmable and therefore people had to move on to a more hospitable place, and this is even further backed up by a 2018 archaeological study that indicated that the Indus Valley essentially went through a 900-year drought. The archaeologists believe that this drought started around 2350 BCE and lasted until about 1450 BCE. This coincides with the time frame for the collapse of the Andes civilization.
Speaker 1:The fact is, 900 years is a very long time for people to hang on in a particular region, and, in reality, trade just could not have been sophisticated enough, or farming could not have been on such a large scale that the people in this valley could have imported all their foodstuffs. In addition, a drought lasting 900 years would mean that it is virtually impossible to raise cattle and even hunt and fish. I remember reading about the Dust Bowl in the United States and how it completely devastated the local populations in the middle of the United States, and in fact, many had to just abandon the region and move into other places such as California. The Dust Bowl only lasted about six years, starting in around 1934. Now could you imagine a drought lasting 900 years and the devastation that it would bring?
Speaker 1:Now I'm not sure I made it clear, though, but there still are monsoons that would have taken place. So there are some potential rainfalls, but it appears that the amount of rain and the water coming into the region had dropped off tremendously. And, just to make it clear, within this 900 year drought, there would have been periods that had experienced excessive flooding. In fact, it sounds like there may have been six major flood events prior to the Indus being abandoned. So in the end, the people of the Indus would have most likely just moved on and resettled into other locations and probably intermarried when had children with these people of this new location, and in the end, there would have been a new culture that would have sprung up. This particular hypothesis is debated by many, but there are old Tamil poems that discuss the migration of the peoples from modern-day Pakistan down into India. So in the end, the Indus Valley basically just slowly petered out, and it was probably all due to the fact that the climate had changed and it was no longer suitable to live in the region.
Speaker 1:So, in conclusion, I wanted to just make it clear that I found these episodes to be extremely challenging due to the fact that there was just so many questions and really not enough answers when it came to the Indus Valley.
Speaker 1:In addition, I had little or no knowledge of the region to begin with. My only knowledge came from the fact that when you read about other ancient civilizations, they would often bring up trade with the Indus Valley. So I figured why not look into this a little further and maybe make it a topic? I tried to get as much trade information as possible, but it almost felt like I was trying to stick a round peg through a square hole. But either way, I hope you found these two episodes to be very enjoyable and hopefully you learned something new, because I know I have, because I know I have. If you like what you hear and want to donate to this show, you can visit us at patreoncom slash history of money banking trade or you can visit our website at moneybankingtradecom. Also, you can help out this show a ton by leaving a 5-star review along with telling a friend or two. Thank you very much. Talk to you soon.
