NCERT Class 6 History Chapter 4: In the Earliest Cities YouTube Lecture Handouts
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NCERT Class 6 History Chapter 4: In the Earliest Cities
City Layout
- West: Higher & Smaller - Citadel
- East: Lower & Large - lower town – walls of baked bricks (interlocking)
- Mohenjo-Daro: Great Bath - lined with bricks, coated with plaster, and made water-tight with a layer of natural tar
- Kalibangan and Lothal - fire altars
- Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, and Lothal - store houses
Houses, Drains & Streets – Planned & Built at Same Time
- One or two story
- Built around courtyard
- Each house had bathing area- wells to supply water
- Covered drains – gentle slope
- Small drains to bigger drains
- Drains had inspection holes – for cleaning
Life in City
- People planned construction of buildings (rulers)
- Ornaments of gold, silver, bead
- Scribes: people who wrote and prepared seals
- Craftsperson – terracotta toys
- Harappan seal: earliest form of writing – still not deciphered
Crafts
- Stone weights made of chert
- Beads made of carnelian, red stone
- Copper & bronze: Tools, weapons, ornaments & vessels
- Gold & silver: Ornaments and vessels
- Seals of stone – rectangular – animals carved on them
- Pots with black designs
- Cotton in Mehrgarh – cloth
- Spindle whorls – terracotta & faience (artificial with gum & sand or quartz) – to spin thread
- Faience – used for bead, bangle, earrings
- Specialist – cutting stone, polishing bead, carving seal
Raw Material
- Naturally or by farmers – processed to produce finished goods
- Copper: Rajasthan & Oman
- Tin: Mixed with copper to make bronze – Afghanistan & Iran
- Gold: Karnataka
- Stones: Gujarat, Iran & Afghanistan
Food
- Farmers & herders supplied food - wheat, barley, pulses, peas, rice, sesame, linseed and mustard
- Plough: to dig earth & plant seeds (wood)
- Harappans reared cattle, sheep, goat and buffalo
- Water & pasture around settlement
Harappan Towns in Gujarat
- Dholavira: Khadir Beyt in Rann of Kutch - fresh water and fertile soil
- Lothal: Sabarmati River, in Gujarat, close to the Gulf of Khambat - semi-precious stones
Decline of Civilization
- Rivers dried up
- Deforestation – no more grazing
- Flooding
- Rulers lost control
- People moved to new settlements
✍ Manishika