It was surprising to learn that...

What surprised me most from this weeks readings, was the passage at the end of chapter 2 (pages 91-95), which described the lives and history of the Indus Valley Civilization. The first thing that surprised me, was the existence of this civilization. I was very surprised to learn that the Indus Valley Civilization was actually much larger than those of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Our textbook states the best times for the Indus Valley Civilization was around 2000 B.C. About 300 years later in 1700 BC, the Indus Valley Civilization began to see a serious decline as they migrated more east toward the plains of the Ganges River. Luckily for us historians, plenty of archaeological evidence exists and most of it was pretty impressive in my opinion. 

Indus Valley Civilizations were able to build cities using a grid pattern and lots of planning. It was super interesting to read about how the people of this civilization were able to orchestrate large markets, houses and public buildings within huge walls made of brick to keep them safe and to keep enemies out. One thing I really liked from the reading were the seals used by the Indus Valley Civilization. This is one aspect of their life that we still use to this very day. When getting something notarized or signing very important documents, it is very common that some sort of professional seal is used to make documents "official". Back in the day of the Indus Valley Civilization it seemed that seals were used to represent high ranked officials or high ranked clans or tribes. I found it extremely interesting that Unicorn were the most common seal used. It makes me wonder about what kind of animal life existed during this time and it makes me wonder how animals have also advanced over time. It was also very surprising to learn that the bull seal may have represented higher ranked officials. The bull seal reminded me of the stock market today and how often in America we view those Wall Street Investors as kind of higher ranking due to their income and careers. 

Something that also was very surprising, was that no evidence of temples or ritual burial ground were found. This makes me wonder how relevant religion was for this particular civilization. It could also be that the Indus Valley Civilization praised their god or gods in a different way rather than a huge, extravagant temple. Along with no evidence of grand temples, there was also no evidence of war or slavery which was a very pleasant surprise. This really was nice to learn and it made me feel like ancient civilizations did not always resort to greed and power when making decisions for all of the society they lived in.