Imagine that you are asked to travel back into time to about the year 2000 B. The place is one of many marvels and mysteries. It is a place that is well known, yet not much is known about it at all. Its past is hidden by a fog. Even the most well-versed of experts know hardly anything about this place, yet what we know about it is astonishing. The time is 2000 B.C. the place is Ancient India.
Nearly 4000 years ago, people began to inhabit the Indus Valley. (Though we don't know who they were, it is likely that they came from China.) Explorers were probably looking for new routes to use for trade, as they came across the fertile spice filled lands. Remember this is just speculations and nothing can be proven.
But what DO WE KNOW???.
The homes were amazingly advanced for the time period. They were either one or two stories high structures. Each were made from sun-baked clay bricks. They were stacked together in such a way as to form flat roofs, used for small family gardens or even star gazing. .
Each home also had a private bathroom. It had a space near the wall that had a square of raised bricks. This was the shower. They might have poured water from a bucket to wash themselves, but it is more likely that they had a running water supply. The water that was used drained down a small spacing in the bricks. The water drained into a clay pipe that went underground. This was probably the first real sewage system. (Note: every house - even the smallest furthest away- had a connection to the sewers.).
The houses were placed around court-yards.
The cities themselves were vary well planed out. Each one was a perfect grid. The roads were straight. They formed perfect squares around the houses. The towns themselves were divided into two sections. The east side was mostly houses while the west were the businesses. The two sides were divided by a long wide road. They were like two cities with one name.
The digs in the Indus Valley have turned up with several particular pieces of artifacts that interesting.
