Its a sequential compilation of available researches about the World's first urban settlements.

1. TRADITIONAL PLANNING OF
ANCIENT CITIES
By: Ar. Iram Aziz

2. Formation of settlement

3. Source: www.arthursclipart.org/prehistoricman/cave

4. • Primitive man : Nomads
• Learning skills/ emergence of technologies : professionals
– Invention of fire
• Cooking
– Wheel
• Pottery and travelling
– Cultivation & animal husbandry/ cattle rearing
• Site selection for agriculture/ fertile land along water bodies.
• Food production in surplus for masses > food storage techniques > barter system
• Small hamlets started forming
• Fear/ insecurities led to religious practices
– Formation of religious institutions
• Travelling called for trading, role of economy realised
• Importance of education realised, led to social institutions
– Profession based- doctors, potters, economists, etc.
– Caste based

5. • City Management institutions came up- Seat of Power
(Govt./Priest/ Dictator)
• Landuse definition
– Topography defined major landuses at settlement level such as
religious institutions, Seat of King, public spaces, farms, etc.
– Social groups got polarised as per religion/ profession/ caste, etc.
• Trade routes dominated Network planning.
• Site topography dominated sewerage & drainage
management.
• Grid network at city level was the simplest to perceive, had
been functional and easy to implement, e.g. Harappa cities.
• Pockets formed inside such networks were left for residences.
• City walls came up to combat external threats like animals,
invaders, armies, etc.
• Buildings were more responsive to climate.

6. Ancient Urban Settlements

8. Source: andaman.org

9. Flow of Agriculture technology
Source: andaman.org
Red arrows: adoption of agrariran techno
Yellow: adoption of rice cultivation (paddy fields)

11. INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION

13. Indus Civilisation Chronology
Period Phase Yrs. (B.C.)
5 Late Harappan (Cemetery H) ?1700-1300
4 Late Harappan Transitional 1900-?1700
3C Harappan Phase 2200-1900
3B Mature Phase Harappan Phase 2450-2200
3A Harappan Phase 2600-2450
2 Kot Diji Phase 2800-2600
Early Phase
1A/B Ravi Phase 3300-2800

14. Indus Valley Civilisation (3300-2600 B.C.)

16. Mehrgarh Period I : 7000
BCE–5500 BCE, was
Neolithic and aceramic
(i.e., without the use of
pottery)… pre-Harrapan

18. Level of Skills
Double cropping to increase food supply

19. Level of Urbanisation
Pro-dentistry in Mehrgarh
Reconstruction by:
Lica Bondola,
Piggorini Museum, Rome

20. Level of Urbanisation
Dockyard with opening for
drainage purpose
Anchors found at Reconstruction of Lothal
Lothal docks
Advanced mode of transportation

21. Level of Urbanisation
System of measurements

22. Level of Urbanisation
Silver seal
Clay seals
System of seals signifies existence of Govt. & trading system

23. Level of Urbanisation
• Skills over Metallurgy
• Artistry of precious & semi-precious
stones
Copper plate with vertical edges

24. Level of Urbanisation
Potter’s Furnace

25. Level of Urbanisation
Ceramic items (excel over pottery skills)

26. Level of Urbanisation
Kitchenette: Pot furnace!

27. • Twin Cities, Mohenjo-Daro (Indus basin) & Harappa (Ravi
basin)
• Cities were ‘Seat of Power’: Govts.
• City Planning
– Similar to Sumerian Civilisation
– Extensive fortifications in upper town
– Grid layout : Main roads at N-S & E-W
– Block size of 1.5 x 1.5 km
– Street width ratio ; Roads : Streets : Lanes = 6 : 3 : 2
– Upper town : seat of power & institutions
• Citadel in West
– Lower town: commercial & residential
– Open drains with soak pits, on either sides of streets
– Underground drains in middle of main roads with manholes.
– Sewage disposal unknown

28. •Similar to Sumerian Civilisation
•Fortifications
•Cardinal grid layout
•Blocks sized
•Upper town & Lower town
City Planning

29. City Planning
6X

30. City Planning
3X
6X

31. City Planning
3X
6X
2X

32. City Planning Drain for Great Bath

33. City Planning City Drain

34. Block level Drainage system
City Planning

35. City Planning Soak pits
Block level pit
House level pit

36. City Planning
Mound E Gateway (Harappa), Artists Conception
by Chris Sloan, courtesy of JM Kenoyer
Sewage disposal unknown

37. • Architecture
– Standard brick size = 300 x 200 x 100 mm
– Citadel on high plinth
• Granaries with air duct and big podia
• Great Bath (12 x 7 x 2.5 m)
• Collonaded portico
• Rooms for rituals around Bath
• Chitti (stupa) symbolises Human head, proto-type of God
• Staircase leading upper storey
– Assembly Hall or ‘College of Priests’
• Big buildings served as Govt. offices
• Big hall with wooden pillars
• Town hall or Municipal hall
– Building alignment at cardinal directions
– Building entrances from secondary & tertiary streets
– Buildings had raised brick plinths as precautions against floods
– Rooms around courtyards with window openings = blind streets.
– Sawn paved bathrooms/ toilets (within houses)
– Bathrooms had drain channels within thick walls.
– Stairway in bricks from courtyards leading upper storey/ rooftop

38. City Architecture Mound

39. City Architecture Great Bath

40. City Architecture Granary

41. City Architecture Wells- Individual (left) and Public (right)

42. Tradition of simple burial in ‘wooden’ coffin

43. Hypothesis for declination;
•Prolonged flooding (M.R. Sahni, Raikes & Dales)
•Tectonic shift of rivers & tributaries, leaving cities high (above
water fetching capacity) and dry (Lambrick)
•Epidemic & insecurities lead to disunity; opportunity for foreign
invaders, i.e. Aryans (V. Gordon Childe, Sir R.E.M. Wheeler & Stuart Piggot)

44. EGYPTIAN CIVILISATION
Up
Up
pe
pe
Lower
r
r

45. 1. Chalcolithic (4500–3500 BCE)
• bits of pottery found
• Speculations over carved
basins
o olive oil processing
o collect rainwater
o grinding of grain
2. Early Bronze Age (3500–2350
BCE)
• Pieces of pottery.
2. Middle Bronze Age (2000–1550
ANCIENT JERUSALEM
BCE)
• Egyptian texts from the 19th-
18th centuries BC
• city is sufficiently large and
powerful to construct a
"massive" stone wall to
defend its water supply
2. Late Bronze Age (1550–1200
BCE)
• Pottery and bronze
arrowheads
2. Iron Age I (1200–980/70 BCE)
3. Iron Age IIa (1000–900 BCE)
4. Babylonian and Persian
periods (586–322 BCE)

46. ANCIENT JERUSALEM
City of David

47. ADVENT OF HINDU CIVILISATION

48. Invasion of Aryans
Myth or Reality?!

49. 1. How does the Aryan Invasion Theory reconcile with the timeline of the drying up of
the River Saraswathi?
2. How does it explain references in the Rig Veda to the vastness of the River
Saraswathi?
3. How does it explain the fact that the cities of the Indus were deserted at the same
time as the drying up of the Saraswathi? Therefore, the cities were deserted due
to natural causes.
4. How did the Aryans who were so small in number, and supposedly pastoral,
destroy the Harappans and develop such a diverse culture in such a short span of
time? The Rig Veda itself talks of oceans, ships and town planning.
5. How does the Aryan Invasion Theory account for certain similarities between
Vedic and Harappan cultures?
6. How does the Aryan Invasion Theory explain the lack of evidence for the
destruction of the Cities of the Indus on account of alien Invasions?
7. The Rig Veda describes the Geography of India in very great detail and at best
mentions an ancient homeland in passing. How does the Aryan Invasion Theory
explain this?
8. Why does the Aryan Invasion Theory adopt such a simplistic approach to explain
the potential complexities of Ancient Indian history which must have included a
plethora of diverse and inter-related cultures?