Number of words: 387

The core of the Harappan Civilization extended over a large area, from Gujarat in the south, across Sindh and Rajasthan and extending into Punjab and Haryana. Many sites have been found outside the core area, including some as far east as Uttar Pradesh and as far west as Sutkagen-dor on the Makran coast of Baluchistan, not far from Iran. There is even a site in Central Asia called Shortughai along the Amu Darya, close to the Afghan-Tajik border.

This extensive geographical spread means that the Harappan Civilization was made up of far more people than contemporary Egypt, China or Mesopotamia! What the Harappans lacked in grand buildings, they made up for in the sheer scale of their spread and the sophistication of their cities.

From what we know about the Harappans, they were actively engaged in domestic and international trade. For land transport, they used bullock carts. Cart ruts from Harappa show that even the axle-gauge of these carts was almost exactly the same as those used in Sindh today. The streets of the big cities would have been full of these carts ferrying merchants and their goods.

There were many rivers in this region and this meant that goods and people could be ferried from one place to another by waterways. A dry dock has been discovered at Lothal, near Ahmedabad, in Gujarat. The dock, which seems to be  the world’s first, is an impressive structure. It was connected by a canal to the estuary of the Sabarmati river and a lock-gate system was used to regulate water flow during tides. Next to the dock are the remains of the warehouses.

There is strong evidence to show that the Harappans traded actively with the Persian Gulf. The merchant ships probably went along the Makran coast, perhaps with a pit stop at Sutkagen-dor and then sailed on to the ports of the Persian Gulf. Mesopotamian tablets mention a land called Meluha that exported bead jewellery, copper, wood, peacocks, monkeys and ivory—goods that sound like Indian exports. It’s also likely that the Harappans exported cotton because they were the pioneers in the spinning and weaving of cotton. Even now, the Indian subcontinent is a major exporter of cotton textiles and garments.

Excerpted from Pages 30-31 of ‘The Incredible History of the Geography of India by Saneev Sanyal