Bibliography

Shuter, Jane. The Indus Valley. Chicago, Illinois: Heinemann Library, 2003.

Richardson, Hazel. Life in the Ancient Indus River Valley. Ontario, Canada: Crabtree Publishing Company, 2005.

Aronovsky, Ilona and Gopinath, Sujata. Life in the Ancient Indus River Valley. Chicago, Illinois: Heinemann Library, 2005.

Kirkpatrick, Naida. The Indus Valley. Chicago, Illinois: Heinemann Library, 2002.

Art

I found out about the art of Mohenjo-Daro. They Ancient Indians really valued education, religion and art. Art was mostly used in drawing, on seals. Seals had drawings like cows, elephants and a lot of unicorns. Researchers think that the unicorn was either a symobol of god, or of strength and unity. I wonder if they'll ever figure it out. But most of the information about the IVC hasn't been accesed yet because their language hasn't been deciphered (yet). It'd be so much easier for me if they had, because I'd have a lot more info that way. I hope to find more stuff on the Internet.
Simone :)

Mohenjo-Daro Research

Today I researched aboutthe characteristic of "Architecture" in Mohenjo-Daro. It was one of the most important cities of the Indus Valley area. It was separated in two: the Higher Mound and the Lower Town. Amazingly, the Higher Mound was 18 meters (59 feet) high! I hope to find more about the buildings in Mohenjo-Daro in future research in the library and on the Internet.
Till next time! :)

Art & Architecture: Female Figurenes

To answer to my question "How were people portrayed in art?", I did research on the sculptures that have been found in the IVC sites. I focused on the above question of the concept of "art and architecture", but find much. I hope that I will find more on the Internet (bit redundant, but hey, where else can I expect to get the info from?).

"Why did the civilization die?"

Look at the title and you'll know what I spent my lesson doing. I focused on the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization, and discovered that there is hardly any evidence to support the theories that exist. There are four main ones: 1. Aryan invasion; 2. Changing course of rivers; 3. fall of the rulers; and 4. End of trade with Mesopotamia. In my opinion, it was the latter that seems most likely, although it could have been a combination of all of them! More info in the Internet, I hope!

Government and Law: beggining.

I couldn't find much information in the book 'Life in the Indus River Valley' about government, but I did learn some facts about the Aryans. They lived in tribes called ganas (very near to the Spanish word gammas which means 'class' (as in hierarchy), and also near the Greek letter gamma), which meant 'collection' in their language. A gana was made up of several families. Each gana had its own territory and raja (king). This shows that they lived in tribes, and therefore didn't have one specific ruler (like the old Sheikh system in Qatar). This suggests that they might not have had the same laws, although they would have shared the same concept in their ruling, and- oops. I'm saying too much already. Oh, well. Visit my Wiki for more info, I guess. By the way, if the info isn't there yet it means I don't have much time to write, I'm not that lazy, you know! :P

2nd Day: The Writing Mystery.

Yep, as you probably read in the title, I started researching education in the IVC. As I had discovered that the Indians had a very complex writing system, I wanted to get out of the shallowness and dig deeper into their past. I found out that archeologists had found almost 4,000 objects with inscriptions, mostly in the main cities of the valley. These objects were predominantly seals, made from faience and soapstone. Curiousely, 60% of these seals had kind of unicorns engraved. Was the mythical creature a god or hero of theirs? We don't know. I know that I can't put all my info up here (a pity), but visit my wikipage for more info!

First Day in the Library:

Today we had 20 minutes in the library. Although it wasn't much, I found some background information on the Ancient Indus River Valley Civilisation (IVC). They had a writing style that was written from right to left, and 400-450 different characters. It's quite amazing to believe, don't you think? Anyhow, I'm going to leave deep researching for next time. Bye!