This Ancient Civilization Was More Advanced Than Rome
Few history buffs need to be reminded of the accomplishments of the Roman Empire, which contributed lasting innovations in construction, publishing, law, and many other fields. Far lesser known and understood, however, is the Indus Valley civilization that sprung up around the Indus River and its adjacent waterways in modern-day Pakistan and eventually stretched into parts of modern-day India and Afghanistan.
The Indus Valley’s peak years lasted from approximately 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE, around the same time that cities in Mesopotamia and Egypt were thriving. At the height of the civilization, the Indus people enjoyed advancements that not only surpassed those of their contemporaries but also rivaled — and in many cases outshone — the advancements that arrived more than a millennium later in ancient Rome.
One major drawback to studying the Indus Valley civilization is that, unlike the cuneiform script of Mesopotamia and the hieroglyphics used by the Egyptians, the Indus people’s distinct system of writing has yet to be deciphered. But while that has prevented historians from gaining significant insight into the minds of these ancient denizens, archaeological discoveries have provided plenty of evidence for their advanced thinking.
Organized City Planning
Unlike the chaotic pathways of Mesopotamia, the streets of Indus Valley cities were established in a grid system oriented along the north-south and east-west axes, intersecting roads at right angles to one another, which allowed for an orderly flow in population centers that hosted upwards of 35,000 residents.
Main thoroughfares could reach 30 feet wide to allow for the passage of carts, while the entrances of houses were stationed off narrower alleyways, away from the busy streets. Most homes received water furnished by a private well and were typically positioned around a central courtyard to provide an area for light and ventilation.
The cities themselves were built on massive stone platforms, in some cases covering more than 80,000 square feet, to remain above the floods of the Indus River. One of the largest cities, Mohenjo-daro, is famed for its Great Bath measuring nearly 900 square feet; the ruins of this ancient hub are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. And the Lothal archaeological site, another ancient city, features a basin around 700 feet long and 100 feet wide that is believed to be the world’s first dockyard.
Underlying all this construction was a system of measurement that followed carefully delineated ratios and led to the creation of oven-baked bricks of identical size. This, in turn, led to standard sizes for streets and buildings that could be found across urban centers throughout the Indus Valley.
Cities in the Roman Empire — which began in 27 BCE, more than a thousand years after the Indus Valley’s decline — were also renowned for adhering to a grid system, known as centuriation, and for a well-planned layout that placed forums and amphitheaters at the intersection of major thoroughfares. Yet Rome itself was not so carefully organized, with its collection of narrow, winding streets that emerged amid the hilly, swampy terrain of the original settlement. These conditions proved problematic as the city swelled to more than a million residents by the imperial period, with many Romans packed into multistory apartment buildings known as insulae that were susceptible to fires.
You may also like
More from our network
Advanced Plumbing and Sewage Systems
Perhaps the most impressive features of Indus Valley cities are the pioneering indoor plumbing and waste management systems that helped curb the spread of diseases. Virtually every home had an indoor washroom and latrine, with brick pavement floors packed tightly to prevent leaking and sloped to ensure proper drainage. Waste traveled through terra-cotta pipes that were routed to covered drain ditches that ran along city avenues and into an underground sewage system that flowed out of the city. Screens were installed at various areas for the collection of solid waste, while other points along the sewage network had holes and removable stones that allowed for inspection.
A millennium later, Rome also had an extensive underground sewer system, as well as a dedicated waste-management labor force and even a collection of public toilets for its citizens. However, the indoor plumbing structure that was enjoyed by just about every Indus Valley city-dweller was a luxury that was available only in Rome’s more expensive neighborhoods.
A Society of Equals?
One of the major mysteries of the Indus Valley civilization is the dearth of surviving structures pointing to a clear ruling authority, such as a palace or royal tomb for a monarch, or a temple for a dominant religious organization.
The lack of such grand edifices matches up with other architectural features of Indus Valley cities: Homes, while differing in size, were not so drastically misproportioned as to highlight major discrepancies in wealth between residents. What’s more, public buildings such as the Great Bath were located in easily accessible areas that underscored the idea of communal sharing.
This has prompted some historians to posit that Indus Valley communities were organized by the principles of a heterarchy, with contributions coming from different groups of people, as opposed to the top-down demands of a hierarchy. And that could well have fostered a system of social equality that would have been unheard of in Rome, with its aristocratic class of patricians holding control in the early days of the republic, before power concentrated in the hands of an emperor in the imperial era.
For all their achievements, the Indus people couldn’t stave off the demise that felled Rome and the other great cultures of antiquity; the civilization began to decline around 1700 BCE due to a combination of factors including climate change and dwindling trade. Nevertheless, this often-overlooked culture has received its belated due for being far ahead of its time, a testament to the impressive records it left behind even as more remain to be revealed.
