The Story of India 1: Beginnings (7 of 22)

The Story of India

WOOD: The archaeologists camped in tents here, and they were plagued by mosquitoes, too.
That night in the dig hut, I read again the romantic account of those first discoveries, at the same time as the finding of Tutankhamen in Egypt.
"Not often is it given to archaeologists, " wrote the British excavator John Marshall, "as it was given to Schliemann at Mycenae "to light upon the remains of a forgotten civilisation.
"It looks, however, at the moment, "as if we are on the threshold of such a discovery "here in the plains of the Indus." Like the other great ancient civilisations in Iraq, Egypt and China, India's first cities had grown up on a river.
The ruins of Harappa stood on the dried-up bed of a tributary of the river Indus.

Its huge citadel walls had been quarried away by Victorian railway contractors.
But there was still evidence of industry and trade, of writing and high level organisation and a huge population.
Harappa was far older than anything previously known in India.
Amazingly, at the time of the building of the pyramids of Egypt, there had been vast cities here in India.
WOOD: When does Harappa begin?
Harappa was beginning 3500 BC, 5,000 years ago from here.
WOOD: Right, 3500 BC! So this is a very, very long-lasting place.
And when was the heyday, the high period, of the Indus civilisation?
The high period of the Indus civilisation started from 2900 BC to 1900 BC.
This is the highest period, and we call it Mature Harappan Period.
And how many people do you think...
(LAUGHS) How many people do you think lived here in the height of its power?
-I think about two lakh peoples.
-200,000 people?
Yes, according to their houses and streets, it is an estimated guess.