Thanks for the pings!
Posted on 06/27/2023 3:35:31 AM PDT by FarCenter
A little over a century ago, British and Indian archeologists began excavating the remains of what they soon realized was a previously unknown civilization in the Indus Valley.
Straddling parts of Pakistan and India and reaching into Afghanistan, the culture these explorers unearthed had existed at the same time as those of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, and covered a much larger area.
It was also astonishingly advanced: sophisticated and complex, boasting large, carefully laid out cities, a relatively affluent population, writing, plumbing and baths, wide trade connections, and even standardized weights and measures.
What kind of a society was the Indus Valley Civilization, as it came to be known? Who lived there and how did they organize themselves? Archeologists and other experts ask these questions to this day, but the first explorers were already noticing some unique features.
In Mesopotamia and Egypt, “much money and thought were lavished on the building of magnificent temples for the gods and on palaces and tombs of kings,” observed Sir John Marshall, who supervised the excavation of two of the five main cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, “but the rest of the people seemingly had to content themselves with insignificant dwellings of mud.”
In the Indus Valley, “the picture is reversed, and the finest structures were those erected for the convenience of the citizens. Temples, palaces and tombs there may of course have been, but if so, they are either still undiscovered or so like other edifices as not to be readily distinguishable from them.”
Egalitarian society
In its heyday, from about 2600 to 1900 BC, the Indus Valley Civilization created what may have been the world’s most egalitarian early complex society, defying long-held presumptions about the relationship between urbanization and inequality in the past.
Its large cities were expansive, planned, and boasted large-scale architecture, including roomy residential houses, and smaller settlements in the surrounding areas appeared to support a similar culture with a similar standard of living.
The most tantalizing feature of the ancient Indus Valley remains is what they appear to lack: any trace of a ruling class or managerial elite.
This defies the longtime theoretical assumption that any complex society must have stratified social relations: that collective action, urbanization, and economic specialization only develop in a very unequal culture that takes direction from the top, and that all social trajectories evolve toward a common and universal outcome, the state.
One factor I would throw out there....they are in a contained area (mountains to the north) and invasion by others is pretty limited. If you lacked wars, invasions, or threats...you probably didn’t get into fortifications or castles.
Absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence.
Mass suicide?
ping
“no managerial elites”...they got rid of all the Democrats
Considering the backward tribal cultures that replaced them, I guess they lost civil focus, maybe let homosexuals, crime, and all destroy them.
Mountains to the west also. But I think abundance was the factor here. Abundance of food and resources makes for a big happy family. It was the same in ancient Australia.
BFL
Sorry you don’t have complexity without planning.
You don’t planning without a planner.
A planner is is a leader. A leader is by definition is part of a hierarchy.
Find their god/gods and you will find their hierarchy.
Their religion will be the source of the lack of temples and palaces.
I suspect that the lack of temples and statues in their cities is due to laws like the Jewish religion’s prohibition of graven images.
A personal experience about Mohenjo-daro
https://www.dawn.com/news/1316323
It likely was a colony of ancient Shambhala (Sanskrit: शम्भल Śambhala)
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/mysteries-kingdom-shambhala-001529
Thanks for the pings!
Interesting. I had a similar experience when I was about eight, we were living in Islamabad at the time (1967). This may have been in conjunction with a trip to the Mangla dam, but Mohenjo-daro was fascinating.
The Dwarka keyword, sorted:
Sure can have complexity without a central planner.
What is needed are a few simple rules people know to follow.
Essentially, things like the rule of law and property rights.
Planning does not require a single ruler or a tiny ruling class.
Well, long after the nirmanakaya ( form) aspect of a city has been emptied, the energy or sambhigakaya aspect can continue. This creates an access point int the dhramakaya ( space) awareness of a geolocation, a sense of vast space filled with luminess awareness.
And so sensitivity of childhood allows this perception, but also gthoise who do regular meditation practice can have such pure awareness. And so it is possible to meet a siddha in such a place.In this case a Sindhu Siddha.
THe world is truly and awesome place once we get over ourselves,and our ego obstructions , preconceived notions od reality, going into pure perception. LOL.
Sure it does.
You don’t have the rule of law without someone to write those laws and someone to enforce them.
An orderly city doesn’t arise organically from a few simple rules voluntarily followed by those choosing to build there.
Drive around Pittsburg if you want to visit such a city that grows organically. You will never be more lost in your life.
Drive around in Salt Lake City if you want to drive in a well planned city that was laid out from the beginning to be orderly.
Humans are genetically wired to be led. People chose their leaders or their leaders chose themselves.
Either way, for good or ill they will be led.
All of history says it is so.
Either way, for good or ill they will be led.
All of history says it is so.
Perhaps we are disputing what a "tiny ruling class" means.
Elected leaders which are regularly changed are quite different from an god-king.
I agree, humans are wired to be led. How they are led matters.
"Sindhu gave birth to this place (Mohenjo-Daro), which gave birth to India and then Pakistan."
Do you connect Sindhu to the advanced civilizations chronicled in the Mahabharata?
I do also.
Yes, many are modern day heroes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
