An Ancient Communist Utopia? The Indus Valley Civilization

Ok fine I'll change the thumbnail. I'm still throwing some Cyrillic in there though! Just correctly this time.

Imagine being the leader of your civilization but staying humble and living in the same houses as everyone else, then 5000 years later some guy with a spoon roasts you for only having 70 pots

Maybe they built the bastions to bash the water over the head with rocks!

As an Indian my first instinct is that walls and weapons are needed in this subcontinent for protection against dangerous animals which were abundant. Weapons may have been needed for hunting also. I have no idea if the civilization fought wars but they had to tackle wild animals for sure and this included rhinos, elephants and wild cats (tigers/lions). Maybe that aspect deserves recognition in the narrative which otherwise seems presumed. But in any case thanks for this. Excellent work.

I’m 68 years old now and every time I’ve seen the image of the “priest-king” since I was a kid I wondered how they came to that conclusion if there is no decipherment of the script and no markings on the statue, I’m so glad you’ve brought this issue up. It reminds me of how all anomalous artifacts discovered are , or used to be, claimed as religious for absolutely no good reason.

Imagine working really hard with Bronze Age tools on a big wall to protect your village and being really proud of it, just for a bunch of nerds a few thousand years later to say it couldn’t possibly have been built to keep out enemies

Before the Mayan language was translated there was a school of thought that they lived in perfect peace and harmony. The inscriptions pretty much killed that idea.

There could actually be only 88 burials at one site because those buried were foreigners who happened to die in the city, for whom burial was their custom. The natives may have been very thoroughly cremated.

What I'm getting from this video is that either they were egalitarian, or they had strict hierarchies/a ruling class which functioned so differently from what we're used to seeing that we can't even recognise it as such. Either way, it's cool how unusual it is.

The Indus valley civilization is most underrated civilization in the world. The structured town plan with multistory buildings and proper drainage plan and street plan comparable to 18th century cities is uncomparable to any other 4000 years ago. It was a proper urban civilization,even Egypt with its massive pyramids was nowhere close to Indus valley civilization.

Fascinating. I see some potential similarities between the Indus Valley Civilisation and The Cucuteni-Trypillia Culture of Ancient Ukraine. Their ‘mega-sites’ are often thought to have been egalitarian without class distinction.

I just emailed this to myself scheduled a year from now. As a sociologist and soon to be economist, you convinced me that fallen civilizations are worth researching. Thanks!

I am from central area of india called vidharbha when I saw the teracota toy of Indus velly civilization I realised I used play with same shape of teracota toy , even we have a festival named pola where we make bull and chariot of teracota and go each house for gift and toffies . Even our jewelry also look very similar to indius velly civilization .

A peaceful civilization would still need walls and weapons for defence, especially when surrounded by violent neighbors

This is the longest, most interesting "eh maybe" I've ever heard

There were two burial styles mentioned in Rig Ved; one is the burial in the ground, and the other is with Fire God ( cremation ). That can be why you find a mismatch between no. of graves and population size.

the 18m thick wall is definitely built for another purpose, with defense just a bonus. 18m is much thicker than a medieval castle wall, and can withstand cannon shots before they even have siege weapons. Also, lacking a ruler whose ambition is to boss around other rulers could reduce the number of wars they fought (among each other), given how many wars in history can be boiled down to "king A wants more stuff from king B"

Indus Elite: "I've been buried with 70 pots, I'm incredibly rich." Chinese Emperor: "Slacker."

It is nice to see that one civilization spent its energy on housing its populace. Maybe one day Australia will try.

Fascinating, just fascinating. When I was a kid, we took a school trip to Lothal which has the archaeological remains of a Harappa Town. I remember being told about their water management and being shown some of the structures believed do have been used to store water along with some water ways, also saw those public baths. Though we saw the sight from afar, a friend of mine managed to fine a human tooth and all of us were so fascinated like we had made a discovery haha. I believe the tooth was taken by a person working at the museum nearby.