Harappan political authority
Topic: Harappan (Sindhu-Sarasvati) Civilisation · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 1 "Bricks, Beads and Bones"
Meaning
This is the debate about who ran the Harappan world. Harappan bricks, seals and weights are strikingly uniform, settlements were planned, and huge amounts of labour were organised. Someone must have taken these decisions. Yet archaeologists have found no confirmed palace or king. Some think there were no rulers and everyone was more or less equal. Others think each city had its own ruler. A third group thinks there was a single state. NCERT also suggests there may have been "some sort of democratic system". The question is still open.
Example
Bricks followed the same 4:2:1 ratio (length 4, breadth 2, height 1) from Jammu to Gujarat, even though they were never made at one centre. At Mohenjo-daro, the platforms under the city alone took about 4 million person-days of labour. Both facts point to strong central planning.
Don't confuse with
- "Priest-king" statue: this is only a label borrowed from Mesopotamia, so it does not prove that Harappan kings existed.