Talk:Indus Valley Civilisation/Archive 1

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Paul Barlow's message

I've altered the bit about ninetenth century Aryan theory, partly because the original text implied that these were theories about the collapse of the IVC. But this was before the IVC was discovered! Partly because its acount of the 'laughable' nature of these theories is, I think, simplistic and ahistorical. Paul Barlow yes no maybe so i love this palce i went there for vacation it was boring though --Good call! Pfaffenblogger

The nature of the Indus civilization's agricultural system is still largely a matter of conjecture. But the matter is important. It is possible that this civilization teaches an important lesson. By means of collective social action and harmonious integration with the natural environment, human beings may have once created considerable economic prosperity without social inequality or political oppression. If this is indeed the Indus civilization's achievement, it is among the most noble in all human history.

Ummm.... This is really not very NPOV, is it? It looks to me like some bizarre blend of communism, environmentalism, syndicalism, etc. inserting its view(s) into something pretending to be scholarly. Call for votes: should this be deleted or reworded? --Michael 02:16 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Yeah, get rid of it. Do you have to use "Michael" for a signature? There is a rather more famous user here called user:Michael, and you don't want to be getting confused with him. -- Tim Starling 02:23 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
OK, I'm reworking it. There's another such paragraph in the conclusion near the end that's going to get the same treatment.
As to my signature, I used "Michael" because that happens to be my name. I reasoned (not unreasonably, I assumed) that if someone wanted the full details of me they could just click.  :-) Anyway, I've modified the signature so I don't get associated with a hostile user. --Michael Richter 03:01 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
The signature thing is no big deal, it's just annoying. Any edit by User:Michael requires immediate action, so every time someone sees your signature they have to check who you really are. Plus whenever I see such a signature I sigh and roll up my sleeves. I don't know why, it's just an involuntary response. :) -- Tim Starling 03:21 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
It's no big deal either way, so I don't care much. I should point out, though, that edits are signed with my full user name: User:Michael T. Richter. It's only in the talk pages with the double-dash, multiple-tilde thing that it said "Michael". --Michael Richter 14:36 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

The deleted paragraph would have seemed less non-NPOV, perhaps, if it had been properly contextualized -- the two other earliest civilizations, Egypt and Mesopotamia, were both associated with the rise of extreme social inequality, despotic centralized power, and warfare, all of which have long been seen to be necessary components of civilization formation. The IV Civilization suggests that market formation & regional integration coupled with relative social equality is an alternative path to urbanization & civilization. Perhaps someone could take a stab at expressing this in place of the original paragraph, which richly deserved deletion. User:pfaffenblogger 13 Aug 2003

Pfaffenblogger had a good point here, back in August. Does the present article make this contrast sufficiently clear? (Without crowing about the superior humaneness of IV Civ, of course.) --Wetman 18:43, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A link to Rakhigarhi would seem to be called for, as it appears to be around as big (or bigger) than the other two cities mentioned as being significant. I leave the decision as to where this link should go to someone who knows more about the subject than I (given that I only disovered these guys' existence about an hour ago!) -- Finlay McWalter 00:02, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I already did it. Someone revert me if I've overstated things. -- Finlay McWalter 00:40, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

A little background. I'm the author of most of the text here. It was supposed to be published in a multi-volume textbook on the world history of technology, but the company went bankrupt, and I decided to post it here, lest it never be seen. I can quibble with some of the changes that have been made, but I have also been humbled by many of them. I have a Ph.D., but I do not believe that my training truly taught me what a neutral POV could be -- if anything, I was taught that such a thing is impossible. I've learned that it's very well worth striving for. I am very much in your debt.

Links?

Why are there virtually no links to support any of the substance of this Featured Entry? There is one good one. Additional inks to the basic archaeology on which all this is based are sorely needed. Wetman 01:56, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

hey Wetman, it turns out you nominated this article on FAC yourself, on 9 Jan 2004. dab 11:44, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is my first (active) encounter with Wiki, so I'll try the discussion first.

Seems like the section on the IVC's writing is too laconic (it being one of the most exciting enigmas of the history). Starting with the fact that there are (recalling from memory) about 400 symbols used in the inscriptions (which is way too much for a phonetic system and way too few for a ideographic one). I would also mention the attempts at unravaling this puzzle, mainly the Soviet team's attempt and, especially, the book by Asko Parpola "decyphering the Indus script", which, even though disputed, is a major compilation of data (and represents an exciting theory) on the subject.

The baths in the cytadels may have been used for religious purification goals (which may hint at some connection of IVC's cult with Hinduism). A description (or even a photo) of the 3-headed bull sitting in the Yoga posture would have been appropriate in this context.

Perhaps it is worth mentioning that one of Thor Heyerdahl's expeditions' goal was to establish whether IVC may have been linked with Mesopotamia by trade or migration.

The IVC is indeed one of the most interesting historical enigmas today, and Thor Heyerdahl's musings in Aku-Aku (I believe it was) about the potential relationship between Indus-Valley markings (there is insufficient evidence to indicate that it was a full-blown alphabet or syllabary) and the Rongo-rongo of Rapa Nui are interesting (in fact, I don't remember the name of it, but there is a whole book written on this very subject by someone else. I read it when I was in high school over 15 years ago and have long since forgotten the name and the author...) All of that said, however, Wikipedia has a fairly strict policy that the Wikipedia is not the place for the publishing of original research. If you find the subject sufficiently interesting, perhaps you should develop a website of your own that deals with it, in as much depth as you can muster, and then link to that site from the IVC page in the wikipedia. :-) TShilo12 05:27, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Major update

Hi All,

I have spent the past 6 years on research and promotion of ICV, mainly focusing on distribution of materials to media and other serious R&D institutions. I recently noticed Your site and found that much information is missing. I have added my contribution. A breif summary of my contribution is as follows. I'll try to visit often and keep this section up-to-date.

1. Added two new sections called 'Science' and 'Arts' to the Article, focused to the scientific and artistic achievments of the Indus Valley.

2. Moreover, updated the opening summary, 'Overview' and 'Writing' sections with additional information and recent research.

3. Added 2 new links in External links section.

4. Added additional information on Mehrgarh and Lothal sites.

Nov. 20, 2004 - Atla

Hu: Welcome to Wikipedia, Atla, and thank you for your work. It is very interesting work and a very interesting topic. It would seem then that you are user 213.35.128.162, who has made so many edits today. Glad you have chosen an ID. You can sign by typing three or four tildes ~~~~, which will automagically be replaced with a link to your user page when you save the edit. Hu 22:29, 2004 Nov 20 (UTC)

Map?

165.21.154.12 07:59, 22 October 2005 (UTC) Featured article without even a map of where it was? --Golbez 06:45, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

To quote: In the early twentieth century, scholars argued that the collapse was so sudden that it must have been caused by foreign conquest, in an "Aryan invasion." This idea was based on the longstanding claim that "superior" Aryan invaders, with their horses and chariots, conquered the "primitive," "dark," and "weak" peoples they encountered in ancient South Asia. Subsequently, these "white" invaders intermingled with the indigenous "dark" population, and grew "weak" ? and therefore ripe for repeated conquest. It was part of a larger, mythological narrative that was used to legitimize the English colonization of the "weak" and "dark" peoples of India. These ideas were developed before the discovery of the Indus civilization itself, when it was assumed that the pre-Aryan Indian populations lived primitive lives. When the civilization was discovered in the 1920s, these arguments were adapted to present the Indo-Aryans as energetic barbarian warriors who overthrew a passive or peaceful urban culture. In the words of the archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, the Indo-Aryan war god Indra "stands accused" of the

This doesn't strike me as sufficiently NPOV. The linguistic (and now genetic) evidence linking the Aryans to the ancestors of the Europeans is very solid and, as the collapse of the Indus Civilisation and the Indo-European invasion-migration-whatever you want to call it did occur fairly close together (I've seen them get more seperated in books over my lifetime and I'm not old). It's an easy mistake to make and not limited to "foreign" civilisations. It was applied to Rome, for example, even by those who regarded themselves as Rome's cultural heirs.

indeed. this suggests that to observe that one people was conquered by another people is a racist slur against the conquered. That's ridiculous. Historians must be allowed to make statements like this without being accused of racism (if you say that the indigenous population was defeated because they were black would be quite a different story of course). Why, the Greeks were conquered by the Romans, and even the conquerors admitted that the conquered were culturally more advanced. The whole argument is bogus. Being civilized is no protection against invaders. dab 13:22, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
ok. I am new to this sort of thing, and I am not a scholar of ancient history, and I do not subscribe to any Hindutva beliefs, so take this as an opinion of a lay person(although this person is a descendant of the Indus civilization). Wasn't the original idea of the Aryan invasion supposed to explain how the languages of the subcontinent could be related to the languages of the Middle-East and of Europe? Hence the term Indo-European language? The problem is that it was highly convenient that Fredriech Max Muller and Charles Morris talked of an invasion by paler nomadic tribes on horses who brought with them the Vedas and the beginnings of modern Hinduism, when the subcontinent was under European rule. Especially when at that time it was an important facet of imperialism to subdue and control the local population by any means necessary. Even when Muller recanted, and insisted that the term Aryan was supposed to describe a linguistic group, and should have no relation to race, it was already too late, and the Western world absorbed the theory as the only viable theory for the subcontinent and accepted it into history books till even today. At first it was a linguistic theory, it became a historical-racial theory. There are various reasons why the foundations of the theory are lacking, especially in light of the discovery of the Indus civilization and the excavations occuring even now. I will not go into them since it is discussed in the article(as well as reasons for the theory) "Aryan Invasion Theory" on Wikipedia.
I apologize for how long its taking to get to my basic point, although we should not label historians as racists, especially when they are dealing with limited evidence given to them, we have to take into account the world the historians lived in, when they made their claims. No matter how unbiased a historian might be when investigating history, he/she will always have certain ideas, prejudices that would influence their judgements, and at the turn of the century, Imperialism was the game. Any thought of a local indigenous people, especially under European rule, having any sort of civilization by their own hands would seem a bit improbable to the colonials (I would imagine, maybe there are counter-examples). While throughout history, it is true one people conquering another is a standard story, and it seems to be a convenient and easy theory to work with, in this case it solves the linguistic problem, sometimes one should not be so eager to accept the idea of an invading conquering horde because it is the simplest theory, especially since there seems to be so far a lack of archeological evidence. - Mr. P. Patel. 210pm edt Nov 22, 2004.
sure. read Proto-Indo-European#Origins. We don't have to subscribe to any given historical theory. If, however, we arrive at a theory that was advanced historically for the wrong reasons (imperialism), the theory does not in the least suffer from that. sure, the invasion/horde aspect was over-emphasized. We are speaking of migration/diffusion. But there you are. The language came from the west, and Harappa declined, just as the Aryans arrived. It's circumstantial evidence, but it's evidence unconnected to imperialist/racist reasoning. dab 19:22, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Regarding the so-called Aryan invasion theory, it would seem that it could be discounted for the same reasons we can discount the Persian invasion theory for the Persian province of Gandhara, or the so-called Greek invasion theory of Alexander (doesn't everyone know that Alexander was really Indian and that he invaded Greece?). While we are on it the Arab invasion theory is equally suspect and Islam did not come to Pakistan from outside, Mohammed was originally Hindu. And then the Afghan invasion and the Mughal invasion are all equally suspect!!!!
Regarding the "fall" of Indus civilisation it would seem that all civilisations suffered in the period from the 17th to the 15th century BCE. Babylon was invaded by Indo-European Hittites and Kassites that seem to have had an Indo-Aryan aristocracy, which shortly thereafterwards set up as ulers of the Mitanni Hurrians. Even Egypt was divided with the north being ruled by the Hyksos. The quesion we need to as is twofold. Why did these events occur then - what factors contributed to the weakness and vulnerability of all settled urban cultures at this time and secondly what forces propelled the so-called "invaders" to achieve dominance. One aspect seems clear - there was a genuine decrease in trade at this time, copper no longer came from Oman (the Omani (?Magan?) mines were abandonned about then. Henceforth it was Alashiya (Cyprus) that provided the Middle East with its copper).
My suspicion is that there was some global factor that weakened civilisations generally (perhaps a worstening of world climates and an increasing aridity) that reduced yields in all semi-arid Mid-Latitude civilisations, and that with reduced yeilds they could not maintain their previous degree of social complexity, or their centralised control of outlying areas. Such factors would have effected pastures of nomadic people, and there may have been a trend from settled peasant agriculture toowards transhumance pastralism and eventually full nomadic cultures. Thus we have a much more nuanced explanation for the Aryan "invasion". John D. Croft 09:58, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Writing

I am quite surprised how this article made it across FAC. There was hardly any discussion, and most of it reads like a hype. Especially the 'Writing' section is less than satisfactory. It appears that Asko Parpola is indeed notable for publishing the Indus script corpus, but he is also touted as "decipherer" of the Indus script on Hindutva websites. If he indeed claims to have deciphered the script, it should at least be noted that this 'decipherement' has hardly met with general agreement. dab 14:57, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Indeed. I am appalled that this article made it through FAC, being filled with as many misspellings and stylistic errors as it is. I'm going to try to clean it up a little. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 20:47, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
Whoa! Parts of the article (the section under the heading "Writing") look like a copyvio from http://www.harappa.com/script/maha1.html. What should be done? —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 20:50, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
Can someone confirm whether this is a copyvio or whether we somehow have permission from the site? —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 20:51, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)
this is appalling indeed. the article was featured at a completely different stage, back in March. [1] It was nominated in January. See Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Featured_log/October_2003_to_April_2004#Indus_Valley_Civilization. There was no discussion at all. Nobody commented, and it was simply considered FA'd. Maybe our FA standards have changed? Maybe we need a FA patrol looking for deterioration of FAs? The person picking the FA of the day should at least do some checking of this kind. dab 22:06, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

some of the text was copyvio from http://www.he.net/~archaeol/9909/newsbriefs/indus.html dab 09:27, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't see the violation. Please be more specific if you would like to make such a charge. Perhaps even point to the edit that introduced it. Hu 20:28, 2004 Nov 23 (UTC)
Seems like someone has now removed the copyrighted text from the article. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 22:27, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)

If you don't think the article is FA quality, then list it on Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates. --mav 20:21, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The article's better now that the text violating copyright has been removed. Some of the bad writing was in that section. —Lowellian (talk)[[]] 22:28, Nov 23, 2004 (UTC)


The edit where I removed the copyvio is here. I do think the article is fair, but I am certain it would be exposed to much criticism if listed on FAC at the present stage. I am listing it on Wikipedia:Featured article removal candidates for this reason. dab 13:50, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Lost city of Cambay

Shouldn't this part of ancient Indian history be added to the Indus Valley Civilization article? Or should it be a new article. Although it isn't sure exactly how old this sunken city in the Gulf of Cambay is, but it's definitely a part of Indian history (and history of human civilization, btw) and older than the cities of the Indus valley (Harrapa and Mohenjo-daro).

If you don't know what I mean, check these articles:

-- Bender235 21:53, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

touted in January 2002 and never heard of again? Sure, it would be among the oldes cities if it was 9000 years old. But just how are they going to date submerged ruins? But well, we can write an article about it anyway, of course. dab 22:14, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
carbon dating. I see. those hacks dated two pieces of wood, to 5000 BC, and to 7000 BC. Of course the 7000 BC makes the news rather than the 5000 BC one. I would want to see some serious confirmation of this measurement before I even consider accepting the wood is of this age, let alone the ruins. But I think it's no coincidence I have never heard of the case before :) dab 22:21, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Well, this lost city news is no hoax, I mean, History Today seems to be a serious magazine (the 2nd article was feat. in HT Nov./2002). These to two pieces of wood and the two different results of C14-dating don't have to be contradictions. It's possible that the city existed from 7000 BC to 5000 BC. -- Bender235 00:31, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
of course. it has to be investigated. it's also possible that they dug up a piece of wood completely unrelated with the city. I wonder what has been said about that during the past two years. It doesn't seem to have made the news again. dab 08:48, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
here is one more scientific article (also from 2002):[2]. apart from hinduist sites that pounced on the discovery as the obvious site of vedic civilization, I could find no followup. It seems like the whole thing was just silently buried. (or maybe there will be future publications. But at the moment the date hinges on the radiocarbon dating of a single piece of wood. Added a note to Gulf of Cambay. dab 09:05, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Nice article. I'll look for some new reports about it, too. The evidence provided by NIOT in the Gulf of Cambay has prompted the Government of India to set up a 'National Team' to probe the area further to unravel the details of these exciting marine archaeological findings. The details of the discovery are expected to change the present view of the prehistory of India and its environs. It probably takes a while until they publish some new details, but it's only a matter of time. -- Bender235 09:58, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"The details of the discovery are expected to change the present view" this kind of statement makes me cringe. It's about as unscientiic as you can get. They practically admit that there is a desired outcome, rather than subscribing to neutral research. dab 10:23, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Lack of evidence does not evidence make. Pateince is a vitue. Assuming dab always hears everything published, there is still the possibility that nothing has been published since January 2002. If, indeed, some scrap of information may have escaped him, maybe we can uncover it in time ;) [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 20:40, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

This is discussed on Talk:Ruins in the Gulf of Cambay. --Brunnock 22:41, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Relavance of Links

http://micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com/frontline.html is the reply to earlier article in Frontline magazine. Are these articles too academic (insted of wikipedia becoming an encyclopedia) ?

Too academic? I daresay too polemic. But go ahead and link to it, people can make up their minds themselves. dab 08:33, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I'd like to point out that this being an encyclopedia, there shouldn't be anything too academic to have as an external link or reference. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 11:52, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Featured article

This article was recently defeatured. However, it was not defeatured because of lack of quality, but because it never went properly through the FAC process. So if you want to renominate this article again and are willing to work on the possible objections, feel free to do so. --Conti|✉ 13:52, Dec 11, 2004 (UTC)

All right :) --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 22:27, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Minor Edits in Light of Recent Discoveries

I altered the wording that indicated that the Indus civilization is one of the 3 earliest civilizations to clarify that it is one of the earliest recognized civilizations. This, in light of the recent discoveries of the ancient quite-well-planned cities several miles undersea not only under the Black Sea but also out into the Arabian Gulf, which indicate that many previous ideas about the first appearances of what modern scholarship recognizes as "Civilization" may long have preceded what were formerly unquestioned benchmark dates. I don't intend my miniscule edits to become in and of themselves a source of debate edging on original research, but I think that to not recognize recent discoveries and the the doubts such discoveries cast upon previous ideas about the "earliest-ever civilizations date to 5000- years ago" ideas would amount to tacit approval of a definite (and not so independent of POV position) view of archaelogy. I could (authoritatively) go into depth and argue at length about recent discoveries that suggest that Greek nautological methodoly was based on rudimentary memories of prior significantly-far-more-sophisticated knowledge of nautology, if anyone really feels like getting into fisticuffs about the idea that human civilization has progressed linearly and that we've never become "dumber" than we once were at any given time... for a good, and grievous example, cf: THE DARK AGES...) TShilo12 11:47, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

the idea of counting civilizations is stupid anyway (nth civilization? which one was "the first"?) -- like everything else, civilization developed gradually. Early cities developed some 10,000 years ago. It's not like they decided one morning, let's be civilized. If you ask me, 3000 BC is not particularly early for a "civilization". It would be quite early for written documents, granted, but unfortunately nothing can be made of the "Indus script". dab (ᛏ) 11:54, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)
So what you're saying then, is that we're on the same page. TShilo12 05:34, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)


flying machines???

are we quoting random crackpots now? dab (ᛏ) 14:20, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

There should be a place for crackpot theories, somewhere on the page.--Wiglaf 14:55, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
On second thought, I think that such a theory should not belong at Wikipedia.--Wiglaf 18:54, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)
It might actually be worth mentioning, in a carefully watched section of the article, that there are a great number of "unconventional" and "seemingly far-fetched" ideas wrt the level of advancement of the IVC. There are a great number, not only about flying machines, but also such things as that the IVC spawned the polynesian culture, the only evidence of which is the alleged similarity between certain rongorongo figures and IVC "writing". You'll notice, this "crackpot" theory makes prominent mention in the rongorongo article... Tomer TALK 22:24, Apr 7, 2005 (UTC)
TShilo12, I am very tolerant towards crackpot theories, and I am usually the one who defends transatlantic voyages. However, the article you referred to probably the most speculative text I have ever read. Moreover, the similarities with the rongorongo script is old news. Your "authority" is not the one who discovered it.--Wiglaf 22:52, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My personal feelings toward someone who labels a Reverend as a "crackpot" tends to be very low.

My personal feelings toward someone who claims authority over a Reverend who also happens to hold a Ph.D. also tends to be very low.

My personal feelings toward someone who hasn't the intellectual capacity to recognize a simple paper airplane as a "machine" is likewise low. Though I am ignorant of what references the Reverend has and how complex or simple these "machines" may have been, perhaps you should read them. Maybe they were simple rubberband-powered devices. Neither I nor you know. But you seem to haven't the brain power to recognize this on your own. And you certainly haven't the research style requisite to hold the Wikipedia position you hold, as you apparently immediately assume you know more than anyone else.

My personal feelings are that you likely once smoked it yourself.

Do you have the research abilities to recognize who wrote this? If you do, why don't you consult the Reverend yourself before immediately assuming that you know more than he does ... Mr Know-It-All??? User:Roylee

User:Roylee, There is no place for this kind of diatribe on Wikipedia. Also, I can list a number of people holding the title "reverend", who are not only crackpots, but completely insane. This applies to any number of Ph.D.'s in psychology as well. User:Wiglaf, I didn't refer to any "authority", nor did I cite any articles. Please check out what you're saying before you fly off the handle. If the similarities between IVS and Rongorongo are "old news", especially apparently to you, how is it that you can refer to transatlantic voyages, when only trans-pacific voyages are necessary for any such potential relationship? Also, the "flying machines" theory is forwarded by the same researchers who noted these similarities, because the IVC has not left any evidence of a shipbuilding or navigational system sufficient to account for their presumed presence on Easter Island. Regardless of how "old news" the similarity in "scripts" might be, this fact alone places such theories squarely back into the realm of "crackpot". Tomer TALK 00:57, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you do not realize that you have just committed a crime, called "libel: slandering in public" ... on a public web site. You are accusing the Reverend above of something ... in public ... that you cannot prove. (Ready for a lawsuit? No joke. Get ready, or revise the above statements at once.) If you disagree, consult a lawyer (I already have). Here are your statements turned around on you:

User:Wiglaf and User:TShilo12, there is no place for this kind of crackpot writing on Wikipedia. There should be a place for this sort of crackpot writing, somewhere on the page. On second thought, I think that such crackpot writing should not belong at Wikipedia. You'll notice, this "crackpot" writing makes prominent mention in the hugabugaboo article.... These opinions belong squarely back in the realm of "crackpot". I probably could find persons with the same credentials as yourselves who are not only "crackpot" but legally insane.

Why is it that I must tell you this? Why cannot you realize this or consult a lawyer on your own? I personally question your intellectual integrity. ... Like I said, I suggest you revise your statements above ... fast. Click "edit this page" at the top, and start deleting before too many children out there read what you wrote. No joke.

Now, back to the heart of the matter...

TransPacific? To travel from West Africa to Mexico, from what I saw on the last globe I looked at, it is a lot shorter over the Atlantic Ocean than the Pacific. Or are you referring to something else?

As for your statements about "evidence," I'd like to quote something from another Wikipedia Talk Page (I'm referencing "209.150.67.45" here):

...referring to Timeline of mathematics and Egyptian mathematics, it is obsurd to believe that nearly 5000 years ago, ancient Egyptians were able to calculate π as 4×(8/9)² (or 3.160493...), with an error of slightly over 0.63 percent, and then suddenly hit an "intellectual wall" and totally stagnate intellectually for nearly 2 millennia afterward (before finally succumbing to the conquests of outside tribal warriors) without ever even contemplating this notion of "nothingness." Golden ratio is another such number including "0" as a decimal place holder. (But also is it certainly fascinating to note an ancient Egyptian knowledge -- many millennia ago -- of this number's existence!) Psychologically and mathematically, are we to really believe that in those 2 millennia no one single Egyptian mathematician ever thought about representing "nothingness" somehow? Speaking in the Science of Psychology now, History records only a few hundred years requisite for ancient Greek mathematicians to progress to some notion of "zero" concurrent with their ideological development of similar mathematical ideas. If it took the Greeks only a few hundred years, why would it take Egypt several millennia, facing the fact that the Greeks studied mathematics in Egypt? Please refer to the following quote:
"...there must have been much more to Egyptian mathematics. We know that Thales, Pythagoras and others visited Egypt to study. If there were only applied arithmetic methods as we have seen in the papyri, the trip would have had little value. But where are the records of achievement? Very likely, the mathematics extant was absorbed into the body of Greek mathematics -- in an age where new and better works completely displaced the old, and in this case the old works written in hieroglypics. Additionally, the Alexandrian library, one place where ancient Egyptian mathematical works may have been preserved, was destroyed by about 400 CE." [3]
Some historians believe that our ancient Roman ancestors destroyed more than just ancient Egyptian civilization and society, not to mention totally obliterating their peoples from the face of the Earth (but yes, was it the Romans? or Persians? or Greeks? or the Arabs in the end? or ...? We cannot point fingers here, because we have no definite knowledge). Some historians believe that our ancient ancestors plundered specialized knowledge of ancient Egypt and conspired to publicly declare those ideas (to us, their children) as their own. Note, for example, the Great Pyramid of Giza. Please read the article on that page. Why are we so confounded in this modern day for an explanation as to how it might have been feasibly constructed? Some are saying advanced engineering while others are claiming advanced alchemy!!! Note also the Suez Canal. Why would the ancient Egyptians dig such a monumental canal over 3000 years ago if they didn't possess a need to pass thru?
. . . .
In other words, in the above statements you are limiting yourself to what you see. You are not imagining possibilities. When one society conquers another, like criminals taking over a victim's home, what do you think might happen? We must use our imaginations to get a better picture.
But from the few remnants we have, they [ancient Egypt] seem to have been far more advanced than has been commonly speculated. Unfortunately, they are no longer here to tell us. [--209.150.67.45]

What "209.150.67.45" says about ancient Egypt may possibly apply here. And again, why must I state this? Why cannot you realize this on your own? Here is a quote to goad you along the meager intellectual prowess needed to recognize this:

Decline and collapse
No one knows why, but it coincided with the arrival of nomadic Indo-European speakers in the area.

I wonder why that happened. Don't you? Must I really quote the section on Science for you? Can you read it yourselves? Looks like something that a conquerer would be interested in. Or do you not recognize this?

Here, I'll make it easy for you: Criminals work hard to cover their tracks.

Get the picture? I'm tired of explaining this to you. I'm going to bed to sleep. Please research your topic. Please write to the Reverend. He is not a "crackpot." He'll write back to you ... intelligently. Trust me. Good night.

Oh, whatever, and good night yourself. My time is too important to waste interacting with crackheads and crackpots. Not only do you clearly have no understanding whereof you speak, but your verbal flailings have no place in wikiworld. I won't waste another minute responding to your rubbish, I'll just keep an eye out for any half-baked "contributions" you might make to the article, with my trigger-finger on "revert". Tomer TALK 02:52, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)

It appears that TShilo12 split into at least two users during the night. He tried to hide by calling himself Tomer and then an anon user temporarily appeared (having only this contribution). I will leave it to others to make up their minds about the conversation that took place during the night.--Wiglaf 07:09, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Uh, no. I am only User:TShilo12. My sn is Tomer, but my user is only TShilo12. I have no alternative username or userpage for Tomer. My name is Tomer Shiloach, my sn is TShilo12. I sign all my posts, immediately, or shortly thereafter if I messup and forget. Most of the insanely long diatribe to which I responded was all the "contribution" of a single user whose IP addy or nearly-anon userid I neither care nor have the energy to recall or relearn. Search the History page if it contents you to do so, but I am signed in 24-7, even on shabat when I'm not using my computer... The moron to whom I responded after his umpteen thousand impossible-to-follow paragraphs was the only user who wrote anything between my addressing you (Wiglaf) and him in the same paragraph long long ago, in a galaxy far far away. My one and only response to said user's diatribe has already been made, and signed. Tomer TALK 10:29, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
ok, could everybody please sign what they're saying? this is unreadable, even ignoring the sockpuppet issues. On the content side, all I have to say is: see where we are heading as soon as we allow "Bronze Age flying machines" theorists into the article? Regarding the "reverend": You can buy the title for $50 on the internet. But you are a fool if you do, because you can legally call yourself "reverend" for free. To whomever was talking of libel and lawsuits: Making void legal threats may get you blocked from editing, see Wikipedia:legal threats. If you're serious, pursue your lawsuit but cease from editing Wikipedia in the meantime. dab (ᛏ) 07:23, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
ah, Wiglaf, it is actually a tounge-in-cheek method of "npov" editing to counter slightly kooky theories with completely bizarre ones. So saying that the IVC had flying machines may actually help put the notion into perspective that the IVC was an extremely advanced, peaceful, serene, artistic and what have you culture. Compare Rigveda where the claim that the Veda was written on the North pole helps put into perspective the claim that there is an "astronomical code" in the Rigveda, I think you can see where I'm getting at. dab (ᛏ) 07:37, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
I see. I usually stay out of this kind of controveries. I see that in this discussion I have been accused of promoting transatlantic voyages (my defense of them is limited to stating that there are people defending the Kensington Runestone). I guess I should have considered my words more carefully.--Wiglaf 08:11, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
PS. Judging from User:Roylee's reactions it looks like a case of self-promotion.--Wiglaf 08:58, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
If allowing crackpot theories into the article is going to require considering the inclusion of what'shisname's rubbish and POV edits, I hereby retract my previous endorsement of such a section. I think w/in the bounds of an encyclopedia it should be included, but if what it takes to keep out crackhead editors, I'll acquiesce and say "throw out the crackpots with the crackheads". Tomer TALK 10:33, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
Yes, sometimes it is necessary to exclude some sections. There is no limit to the number of theories that you can find on the Internet, and I don't think that Wikipedia's credibility benefits from discussing them all.--Wiglaf 10:41, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)


also, since against my expectation, we're actually discussing Barton's "theory", the full quote is:

In fact, there is evidence from ancient East Indian chronicles (some of these pictures are on AAWR (African American Web Ring) of the geat scientific advancement of the Black prehistoric inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization (6000 b.c. to 1700 b.c), who built flying machines, who had flushing toilets, cities on a gridlike pattern, and many of what we may call "modern" conviniences.

apart from demonstrating that our "PHD'd Reverend" is unable to spell convenience, this also shows he has no clue what he is talking about. He is repeating some weird statements he found on some "Black Power" website, including that the IVC dates to 6000 BC, and that it was a "Black" civilization. I don't know if the IVC had flushing toilets, but I'm not going to take the word of somebody who also claims the IVC was founded by neolithic flying Africans. (sure, the IVC people may have been dark-skinned, being the ancestors of the Dravidians, but that is hardly an established fact, and I don't see what their skin colour has to do with anything, including their bathroom fittings or their aeronautics) dab (ᛏ) 10:49, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

you mean "weird" right? :-p Tomer TALK 10:55, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
Hey! no fair! you can't correct stuff while I'm correcting you! You you you YOU CRACKPOT! ;-p Tomer TALK 10:57, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
omg, here they come! the flying lawsuits! <me ducks!> Tomer TALK 10:58, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)
whoa, I thought I could correct my typos before anyone noticed. For the record, I had "thoery" and "weird" in my original edit :) dab (ᛏ) 10:59, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thoery! Thoery!? What's wrong with "thoery"? Stop thoering stuff like that aruined! (I need sleep...) Tomer TALK 11:06, Apr 8, 2005 (UTC)


'Saraswati Valley' - position in article

Posting here because I am aware that this will otherwise lead to someone reverting it without discussion. While I cannot dispute the fact that 'some' historians, almost certainly with Hindu Nationalist leanings wish to change the common signifier for this civilisation, I dont think it has reached a level of acceptability that warrants its inclusion in the article, let alone in the article lead-in. Note: As compared to 40,000 Google hits for the phrase "Indus Valley Civilisation" there are 57 for "Saraswati Valley Civilisation." Of the latter, all but 8 are on pages which do not also refer to it as the IVC. None of the 8 remaining entries are on pages with an expressly political purpose (rather than pages with an academic purpose, and a particular political bent.) Further, there are no references to the phrase at all in a JSTOR search of peer-reviewed history journals or in a general Lexis search for news articles.

This seems to indicate that the page is being used to propagate a particular theory as gaining acceptance when it has not done so as yet, which is inappropriate and not NPOV. Hence I intend to delete the reference, at best retaining a reference later on about the myth of the Saraswati river.

Hornplease 06:56, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

All that your Google search proves is that people do not refer to the culture as the "Saraswati Valley Civilization". It says nothing about the extent to which the Saraswati theory has been accepted. Georg Feuerstein is a non-political Indologist who has just written a book on the subject. In evaluating the Saraswati theory, Klaus Klostermaier said that although it's not clear that the new (Sarswati) theory is entirely correct, it is clear that the old chronology will be changed because of the Saraswati Theory. Aurobindo Ghosh also endorsed something like the Saraswati theory.
So I think that you have failed to show that the Saraswati Theory should not be presented in this article. --goethean ॐ 15:52, 31 May 2005 (UTC)
I have no objection to a statement that a miniscule minority of non-academic Indologists - not archaeologists - believe that there are dry river beds which can be identified with the Vedic Saraswati, and that the vanishing of that river - Saraswati or not - contributed to the decline of the IVC. However, given that, as you agree, the IVC is not referred to as the "Saraswati Valley", if should not be called thus. A statement that a few scholars of religion - not archaeologists - hold this theory to be worth examining, which is all that you have demonstrated to this point - can be accomodated in the article somewhere more appropriate. Hornplease 21:40, 31 May 2005 (UTC)

I have no problem accepting that this dried up river may correspond with Vedic Sarasvati. After all, sarasvati means "with lots of pools", i.e. we are looking at something between a swamp and a river. This has however nothing to do with the IVC, it just means that the Aryans settled there for some time in late Rigvedic times before moving further East. It appears Sarasvati only became overwhelmingly important as the "disappeared river" after they had left the area behind. My point is that identificatin of Sarasvati has no bearing on the IVC, since the decline of the IVC predates the hymns to Sarasvati by about 1000 years. dab (ᛏ) 08:55, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Given that nobody else has raised any further argument, I am changing the position of the reference. Please discuss it here further if you have an objection, dont revert immediately. Hornplease 06:06, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Someone wanted to remove the nationalist motivations behind the name "saraswati culture". Since, I have so far not seen any valid scholarly reasons (see Dab's comment) behind this name, I reverted it.--Wiglaf 19:28, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The google test being talked about here is quite flawed. I don't think any one who matters refers to the civilization as "Sarasvati Valley Civilization", so don't expect to find any hits for that. But there are a significant number of historians who refer to it as Indus Saraswati/Sarasvati civilization for which I get a combined 15000 articles (many of which might be common.) No doubt, an overwhelming majority (argumentum ad populum?) knows it as Indus Valley Civilization for historical reasons, but that fact that this name is considered inappropriate by a significant number of scholars should be emphasized in the introduction. It is obvious that hindu nationalists would love to attach Sarasvati to the civilization, and Islamists would love to dissociate this river as much as they can with the civilization, and try to associate the civilization with Persian and middle eastern cultures, but beyond these people's rants and arguments there are some facts which need to be presented here. deeptrivia 30 June 2005 21:41 (UTC)

It's not "Sarasvati Valley" anyway. That's a hybrid term. It's either "Indus Valley" or "Sarasvati". But while "Indus Valley" is unambiguous, geographically, "Sarasvati" alludes to a set of rather shaky hypothesis floating around in the background. 1 July 2005 08:26 (UTC)

Nobody disagrees that some people believe that there should be a name change. however, first of all the google numbers you quote above are in the ratio of 1200:400,000. That's nowhere near even a non-negligible minority. Further, a search on Lexis-Nexis and on jstor.org, the academic journal archive, indicate that neither peer-reviewed articles nor those with the benefit of subediting use the phrase (in other words, absolutely zero hits. as compared to over 20000 for Indus Valley/Harappan Civ.). I will leave a mention of the suggested name change in the body of the text. However, once again, it DOES NOT DESERVE TO BE IN BOLD IN THE FIRST PARAGRAPH. Hornplease 10:47, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
I support the removal. Wikipedia is not the place for the promotion of new names, it is an encyclopedia.--Wiglaf 10:57, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Yawn. What are you guys, like 92 years old? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.241.128.112 (talk) 23:23, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Rxasgomez's edits

I am moving User:Rxasgomez's edits here before reverting his changes in case anyone wants to keep any of it: --goethean ॐ 23:48, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Aryan invasion hypothesis proposed a strong opinion about that Indus Vally Civilisation was the Proto-Dravidian civilisation. The Sangam literature always had cited that dravidians moved to the existing part of South India from a destroyed land - Kumari kandam.

Ahar-Banas culture / Banas culture

do we have a reference to that? See [4]. dab (ᛏ) 08:10, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

The links at the bottom of the page dude.From the Horses mouth. [5]

The map

we need to redraw Image:Indus Map.jpg; it's probably a copyvio anyway. See also [6]. I would do it, but I don't have a good gfdl'd blank map of the area. dab (ᛏ) 08:10, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

we are really stretching "fair use" here. All images used in this article were simly taken from other websites, and no fair use rationale is argued. At least the map should be redrawn by a wikipedian. dab (ᛏ) 06:08, 19 July 2005 (UTC)


Dear if you,i will go myself and make it ,but it will take just month but i will do it?tell me area where to take picture beacuse Moen-jo-daro is Big place

khalidkhoso

Wikification

I noticed there was some minimal wikification, but I think we can do better. I've wikified up the the 3rd paragraph of the Cities section. raylu 03:04, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

the map

I'm sorry, but Image:CiviltàValleIndoMappa.png is almost worthless. Not only because of its lack of detail, but the area marked as pertaining to the IVC covers half of the Hindukush. The only source given is "Copyright © Nataraja". We desperately need something like Image:Indus Map.jpg GFDL'd. dab (ᛏ) 11:00, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

I've replaced the map. dab (ᛏ) 11:43, 6 September 2005 (UTC)


The Overview section was horrible

It looked as if anyone who was carrying any baggage dumped it at the first place he could find. I don't know enough about the IVC to add new information, but I can move sentences around and I think the overview now reads better. Please check out the difference [7] and give your comments. I suggest splitting the article into 1) Overview 2) Historical evidence and controversies. (Geographical scope will probably get covered here) 3) Chronology (Emergence, peak, decline) 4) Achievements - Science, technology, arts, etc. --Ravikiran 18:25, 4 November 2005 (UTC)


I do not want to directly edit the page on Indus Valley you have so painstakingly created. I find it strange that no mention is made of Mr Rakhaldas Banerji, one of the pioneers in field archeology in India who was instrumental in the Discovery of Indus Valley Civilisation. Here is a link : http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051007/asp/opinion/story_5323283.asp I quote : Before excavations at Harrappa could proceed apace, news came that Rakhaldas Banerji, a historian and archaeologist from Calcutta, had discovered in Mohenjo-daro in Sind seals similar to those found in Harrappa. From the ruins of Mohenjo-daro, or mound of the dead, Banerji had retrieved what can only be described as a treasure. He had found and recognized seals of the Harrappa type.

Another missing name is that of Mr Daya Ram Sahni.

Regards

somsuj

Can I remove the neutrality template?

The article doesn't seem too controversial to me.--Rob117 23:53, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Greek uncia

Ancient Greek uncia is a unit of length, not weight or mass, which is being discussed in the article. Perhaps you mean Roman ounce (Roman uncia)? Pgan002 10:04, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Bronze

what is the earliest evidence of Bronze in the IVC? Where was it found, and how is it dated? Is the introduction of Bronze consistent with 3rd millennium trade with Mesopotamia (Meluhha)? 130.60.142.65 11:14, 30 January 2006 (UTC)


Vandalism?

It appears as if someone deliberatly modified the page by making it say contemporary to the Poopy Age civilizations of of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. So I changed it.--Ojj 20:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Aryan Controversy

Due the controversy surrounding the Aryan people,I added an nutrality sign.

Geography - Deccan Plateau??

"The Indus valley was by main rivers, the Indus River. The Indus River was very important to Indus life. The river provided irrigation, and also created fertile land for farming. In the middle of India is the Deccan Plateau, which might have helped protect the Indus people from foreign invaders. The Himalayas are also located near the Indus Valley, as is the Hindu Kush mountain range."

I think that the Deccan plateau line does not belong in this section. Balochistan, Hindu Kush mountains and Thar desert were the main line of defense from foreign invaders. I think this line must be removed.

Siddiqui 00:50, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

The first settlements for Indo-Aryans

"According to the Indo-Aryan migration hypothesis, Gujarat and Pakistan were the first settlements for Indo-Aryans."

The page for the hypothesis does not mention this. I would appreciate it if someone could link me to this, or remove this claim. Thanks! --Kash 00:18, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Graham Hancock?

Is it a good idea to use Graham Hancock's website as a reference? --Brunnock 12:53, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

No, it is not. Hancock is neither an archaeologist nor a historian, let alone an expert in ancient South Asia. To say that his "theories" are far outside the mainstream would be an understatement. This is not to say that views which challenge the mainstream should not be heard, but that they should come from qualified individuals who use appropriately rigorous research methodology and who are willing to submit their work for review by their equally qualified peers. Jlandahl 01:01, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

race

I've removed this whole section, which is mostly assertion. We can't really make deductions about race based on small sculptures.

The facial features of a famous bronze figurine of a Dancing Girl and a bearded statuette from Mohenjo Daro are not Aryans.
Skeletal remains from the two cities, as described by Basham, were of people who were long headed, narrow nosed and of a slender Mediterranean type, found all over the ancient Near East. This is an important element of the present population of South Asia. Proto-Australoid (Munda or Austro-Asiatic) is another race, which consists of individuals with flat noses and thick lips who can still be found within wild hill tribes (like Gond and Khasi) of modern India. The Dancing Girl from Mohenjo Daro seems to be a Proto-Australoid. At Mohenjo Daro one skull of a Mongolian and one of a short-headed Alpine type were found. The bearded figure shows both of these elements.
Most of the people of South India are a blend of Mediterranean and Proto-Australoid, the two chief ethnic factors of the Harappan people described above. The presence of Dravidian speakers among Iranian people in present day Balochistan is intriguing. The area where the Nal and Zhob Village Cultures developed thousands of years ago, is inhabited by the Brahui who speak a Dravidian language.

Ther comments about the people of south india being a "blend of Mediterranean and proto-Australoid" are also unsupported. The stuff about an "Alpine type" seems to draw on a strangely archaic model of race. Paul B 17:44, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

tablet date

sorry, that was my mistake, I didn't read the article properly. dab (ᛏ) 17:05, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

periodization

The periodization table (taken from the Tokyo museum website) has "1900-1700: Harappan/Late-Harappan transitionan", meaning the decline and collapse of the "Civilization" propoer; I put the middle date, 1800, as the end of the "Civilization", but I suppose 1700 or 1900 are just as valid end dates, since the IVC didn't collapse one morning, we are looking at a gradual decline. dab (ᛏ) 17:14, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Article title

Considering wikipedia spelling policy, it seems to me that this article should be at Indus Valley Civilisation (South Asian/British English), and Indus Valley Civilization (American English) should be a redirect. deeptrivia (talk) 20:27, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

you have a point there. dab (ᛏ) 18:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

India/Bharat/Pakistan

It is fair enough to state that most of the IVC lay within what is now Pakistan. However, it is not common to refer to the Republic of India as Bharat in English. If there is need to disambiguate the territory of the modern state from the geographical region, use Republic of India vs. Indian subcontinent. "India" may refer to either -- it is at present the location of the Republic of India article, which may be misleading, but is probably the least confusing for most (non-historical) purposes. dab (ᛏ) 18:00, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

User:sarfarosh2 has been persistently engaging in a number of edits that not only include changing India to Bharat, but also:
  • Repetitively changing the correct reference: Charles Masson, Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and Punjab, 1826-1838 to Narrative of Various Journeys in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There was no Pakistan in 1838, not even remotely.
  • Changing the sentence "In 1857, the British authorities used Harappan bricks in the construction of the East Indian Railway line connecting Karachi and Lahore" to: "In 1857, the British authorities used Harappan bricks in the construction of the Lahore-Multan railway line."
  • Consistently changing South Asia to Pakistan
  • Consistently removing references to India or any Indian cities or towns.
He/she has done this (last count) on 17 separate occasions without any explanation and has been reverted each time. I sincerely feel that he/she should either explain what is being attempted (on the talk page), or be given a vandalism warning. A lot of time is wasted by well-meaning editors in trying to untangle the confusion created. Fowler&fowler 20:27, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
not a very promising user, I'll agree. You would do well to place a warning to this extent on her talkpage. If she persists after having been warned two or three times, a block will be in order. So far we haven't really issued warnings, because it was less bother to just silently roll back. dab (ᛏ) 21:25, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Have issued warning on the user's talkpage. Fowler&fowler 15:00, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

=

PLEASE READ

The swastika shown in the inscription is not related to Hinduism. If you took the time to notice, it is facing the wrong way. The Hindu Swastika faces the other way and has DOTS within the squares. Please for the love of GOD dont relate IVC to Hinduism without an evidence.

And to the person above me. Ancient India was not a country. It was a subcontinent. It is incorrect to label IVC as Ancient Indian. Ancient Indian in modern times refers to the history of India within its own borders.

IVC is part of Pakistani history. While Pakistani did not exist prior to 1947, the people of Pakistani have always live there and the history belongs to the people of Pakistan, REGARDLESS of what they now call themselves.

IVC is not Indian or Ancient Indian. Ancient Indian (the subcontinent) is now referred to as the South Asia. Call it Ancient South Asian history but NOT Ancient Indian.

If you want to discuss, then please post here instead of changing the post.

We need to fix the use of the terms. The term "ancient India" has changed.


Yeah, you saying right ,it is not india nor history of it.

User=khalidkhoso

you mean Pakistan and the Republic of India. "India" is also the term for the subcontinent, see India (disambiguation). Regarding your claims about the swastika, please read sauwastika and swastika. dab (𒁳) 11:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

India is not the term for the subcontinent anymore, and it was only the term for South Asia for a very short time. Bharat was used before. We need to follow with the times, as names change. If you can call South Asia, India, we might aswell start calling Europe, Roman empire again. Unre4LITY 01:12, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Khalid, Khalid, Khalid Ancient India for all practical purposes has meant and will continue to mean Indian Subcontinent or India as it was known before Partition. It has never been equated with India as we know it now after the 1947 partition, just because of a simple reason, there was only one geographical entitiy called India for the rest of the world before 1947 and it covered the entire subcontinent. As for South Asia, this term only appeared a few decades ago, specifically after the fifties. Historically, the region has always been known as India by the rest of the world. That is why its called 'HISTORY' It is the past, you can't change it now, no amount of spin and islamo-centric revisionism so prevelant in Pakistan today is going to change it. March 21, 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.117.79.209 (talk • contribs). at 08:27, 21 March 2007

You people do realise that the peoples from pakistan, india and bangladesh are the same. The only difference is their religion, but genetically, they are very similar. So saying the IVC is only part of pakistani history is not very valid.

Wikipedia is not a place for originial research.Where did you get this assumption that South Asians are "geneticly the same?" Are you telling me a black skinned tamil=blonde haired Pathan? Do you even know where Pakistan, India and Bangldesh are? Do you even know where South Asia is?-Vmrgrsergr 22:04, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

why not add these topic

Hello every buddy, it is good to see so much work done on our history, i never though, there r people around who care about it.thanx every buddy for efforts, thanx again.

reason of makeing this new post is that, i live in larkana,it is my home place, and I lived my 8 years of live in Moen-jo-daro that is pretty big period, I know but because my college is at door step there,anways i have come back to topic again,Strange not even pciture is uploaded of danceing girl, i will do it for you, but i want you to make for you but please make topic and space for it,

2nd thing ,there is also statue of King wearing Ajaruk,you have not uploaded his picture, I have it ,i will do it too, I will go and take some picture for wiki(that i love),even ajruk is still being used and it is having same pattern, when i will send that picture you will see it ,but again i need space and headline for it.

3rd, Main picture is not showing "stupa",it is on 10 Rupee Note of Pakistan currency now in 20 Rupee currency will find old picture for it because ,bad for all of that it was distroyed due to rain and now just mud was used to reconstrcut . do u knw what i am talking? well i have to be more clear, Stupa the upper part of Moen-Jo-daro though to King Sitting place, i know some of you might agree with it,beacuse i have read it in my local sindhi books.

waiting for positive and polite answer

Thanx wikipedia letting me to do some thing for my Own User=khalidkhoso —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Khalidkhoso (talk • contribs) 09:07, 5 December 2006 (UTC).

hello Khalidkhoso -- we will be grateful if you could upload photographs of the area. Please make sure you take the pictures yourself (or have the permission of the person who took them), and release them under the GFDL. I also suggest you upload them to http://commons.wikimedia.org/ directly (you'll need to create an account there, too). dab (𒁳) 11:37, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

please stop reverting my edits

Deeptrivia,Please stop reverting my edits on the indus valley civilization article.I also made a small addition to the "ancient India" link with the ancient Pakistan link so readers are not confused.If there's a mention of only modern day Pakistan while a mention of only "ancient India",the reader will get the impression the entire region was India.The indus is also part of ancient Pakistan.(Almost all of it infact)

I simply placed the Pakistan tag because I saw several indian project tags on the talk page.This has allowed me to make add this article to the category of Pakistan related topics. Regards Nadirali 00:32, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Dear Nadirali, project templates are supposed to go only on talk pages. I hope that helps. Eid Mubarak and Happy New Year! deeptrivia (talk) 00:49, 31 December 2006 (UTC)


If you're willing to remove those Indian tags then it's fine with me.I'll do the same with the Pakistani tags.Please the term "ancient India" is very nationalistic.There never was such a country as "India".Just a group of indipendant states.These states were were only united after indipendance from Britain.By removing all refferences to pakistan,it's clear you want to claim the indus for yourself.Please stop this so-called "academic" claim.The term "India" was invented by the greeks evolving from the words "Sindhu" and Indus.The word really meant nothing to the people of SOuth Asia.The Arabs and the other civilizations reffered to Sindh.Please this claim over the Indus is very imperialistic and disrespectful to Pakistani editors. I'm placing the tag in the right place and replacing the reverts you made. Nadirali 01:56, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for letting the template off the article and on to the talk page, Nadirali. I don't think I have anything else to say about your other concerns. Regards, deeptrivia (talk) 02:45, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Funny to c here

this is really funny to see here that Indian and Pakistani are having edit war (some thing they are good at).you are fighting on tags(???).i have seen no one …fighting what is happening with Historical places of Indus now? i think no buddy cares ,u just care to fight just in words do nothing practically(including me).Almost all parts of Moen-jo-daro are demolised,almost all. I been there this Eid.Every buddy claims that it is there history did any one took any step for it? NO NO i am not being emotional(just realistic)facing truth

Khalidkhoso 13:50, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

A few Indians here love cramming the word India in every article they can find. They need to face the fact that nobody calls South Asia, India anymore. Just like nobody calls Europe, Roman empire. And to add to the confusion, India is now a country. Gotta love the fact that India doesnt have a history article on Wikipedia yet, as people keep thinking South Asia and RoI are the same entities. Unre4LITY 01:16, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Merge proposal

I found the weights and measure article in the list of articles lacking sources on doing a copyright check in google it found this page so a good part of the article comes from this page already and this page is very well written to begin with, anyone looking for the weights and measures after merger will be redirected here and it will provide other important information for their research.--Matt 22:10, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Fowler&fowler's deletion of all references to BB Lal, Jane Mcintosh, Misra and Gupta

I don't know what kind of antipathy User:Fowler&fowler has against these archaeologists, but the outright deletion of each and every reference to these scholars undermines the integrity of this article. If you hate or dislike these scholars (or whatever else is the reason you delete them on this and other pages) please make at least the effort to replace the references, not to delete them.

The sentences on the extent of the IVC had "citation needed" tags before, and wikipedia editors have done a lot of effort for replacing them with references, which you now deleted. Other sentences were altogether deleted by you.

I have seen in your edits that you recommend J. M. Kenoyer's book "Ancient Cities of the Indus Civilization". I share your enthusiasm for this well researched book, but your deletions on the IVC make me wonder if you have read it yourself. Kenoyer at least is tolerant enough to these Indian archaeologists that he frequently cites them, also in this book, and ironically this book is pretty critical to the Aryan migration theory. Ironically it is because of exactly these views that you want to delete the Indian archaeologists from the article! But all four are very notable archaeologists, and your deletion of each and every reference to them needs an explanation. --RF 16:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I haven't removed references in the References Section, only gratuitous use of these "references" in Notes. For example, the use of "S. P. Gupta" for something well known. As for Kenoyer, and both his books (the one you refer to and "Ancient South Asian World"), all he says is that IVC didn't die out as a result of Aryan invasion (or rather that there is no archaeological or textual evidence corroborating it). But that is already stated on this page in the Late Harappan section. Kenoyer doesn't say that Aryans didn't migrate into the subcontinent, but just that there is no evidence of their presence in IVC sites (in the form of burnt or destroyed structures etc.) I have talked with Mark a number of times myself, and his position is miles away from the Out-of-India school. I have nothing against Indian academics, BTW. B. B. Lal is a respected archaelologist as the Witzel-Farmer article says itself. However, the citation I removed was to an address he gave which was explicitly POV. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:01, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Even though you now say that BB Lal is a respected archaeologist, you removed references to him in this article and in the Mehrgarh article. You removed SP Gupta "for something well known". You may not know it, but the sentences on the extent of the IVC had earlier "citation needed" tags, and these will return if you delete the reference. SP Gupta is an accomplished archaeologists (who is also often cited by Kenoyer, among others), and to delete all references to him for "political" reasons is troubling. The references to SP Gupta and BB Lal are not even in the least related to the Aryan migration controversy, they are only about hard facts about the IVC-archaeology. BB Lal and SP Gupta are in this archaeology related article anyway more relevant than politicized non-archaeologists like Sen or the Witzel-Farmer-Frontline article, the latter which you added at the same time as deleting the former.

Can you please explain what these deleted references have to do with the Aryan migration controversy? no thats highly specified info not for any childs eyes so be quiet say nothing

An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus river at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan [1], at Sutkagen dor (Western Baluchistan, Pakistan),[2] at Mandu on the Beas River near Jammu[3], and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km from Delhi [4]. Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on lakes, the ancient sea-coast and on islands.[5]
Over 500 ancient sites belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization have been discovered along the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries (S.P. Gupta 1995: 183). By contrast, only about 100 of the known Indus Valley sites have been discovered on the Indus and its tributaries. [6]
Necklaces, bangles, and other ornaments from Early and Mature Harappan sites closely resemble ornaments that are still used in Rajasthan and other parts of India.[7]
A harp-like instrument depicted on an Indus seal and two shell objects found at Lothal indicate the use of stringed musical instruments. The Harappans also made various toys and games, among them cubical dices (with one to six holes on the faces) which were found in sites like Mohenjo-Daro.[8]


These are just hard archaeological facts, and archaeologists have worked hard to reveal to them. Is this your special kind of way of thanking the archaeologists?--RF 17:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What I meant by "something well known" was simply that there are other (and in some cases much older non-POV references) for those "archaeological facts" as you put it. I felt that by consistently citing S. P. Gupta, his writings (which are not mainstream) were being legitimized. As for Kenoyer, citing S. P. Gupta, (at least looking in my copies of his two books), one book has no citation, the other has S. P. Gupta only as the editor of a collection (and the citation is to articles in the collection including many to Meadows and Kenoyer). As for having citations for those facts mentioned above, I will add citations during the course of the day. For example, for Sutkagen dor, here is a much better citation: Dales, G. F. 1962. "Harappan Outposts on the Makran Coast." Antiquity 36(142) p:86. Your asking for other citations, is valid and I apologise for not replacing the removed ciatations with other citations. I will do so during the course of the day. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:54, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Your judgment about SP Gupta is not based on facts. After BB Lal, of course, he is among the most distinguished archaeologists of India. Gupta has edited books with BB Lal, was chairman of the Indian Archaeological Society, was awarded the Mortimer Wheeler Prize, and has written acclaimed studies on archaeology and Indian art. Yes he was criticized by Witzel-Farmer, who happen to criticize quite a lot of scholars they don't agree with. So what? Why this campaign against some Indian archaeologists? --RF 18:06, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I've added more focussed references (many of Indian authors, in case you think I have something against Indian authors) and will keep adding more in the coming days. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:53, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
The article, BTW, was poorly written regardless of POV. The "Mandu" in your quote above is really "Manda". The Mandu is a town in Madhya Pradesh and was linked to that too. I have corrected that. Just glossing over the article, I notice one reference to "Cliff Notes!" Will get to that later. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Out of India Revisionist Literature and References in this Article

To user Rayfield and others: I have removed some blatant use of the revisionist Out-of-India literature in this article. This literature (and its references formerly used in this article are, like S. P. Gupta) are not only not a part of mainstream scholarship, but are explicitly POV. Among their notable achievements is the perpetration of the Harappan horse seal hoax in 2000. Here is an extended quote from the article "Horseplay in Harappa" by Michael Witzel (Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard) and Steve Farmer:[9]

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 16:32, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well yes, we have noticed that you have deleted all references to BB Lal, Jane Mcinthosh, VN Misra and SP Gupta. And at the same time made some legitimate edits (which ironically added references to Michael Witzel and Farmer, not "neutral" references either).
Why are you adding this McCarthyism-piece of polemics here and spamming the same Witzel-Farmer-Frontline article on other unrelated articles. What are you trying to prove? These four archaeologists are accomplished archaeologists, Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, Chairman of the Indian Archaeological Society and what not else. I mean, it is very hard to find a more eminent archaeologist than BB Lal in India. --RF 16:52, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
By the way, the S. S. Misra you marked in bold above has nothing to do with the V.N. Misra you deleted.--RF 17:47, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I've answered your objections in the section above and will replace the citations with standard academic citations. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:56, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
While I agree that there theory is not mainstream, let us *know* that there is no POV outside wikipedia. We need to cite them too, and removing them is outright wrong.
As I explained in the section above, there are two problems with the S. P. Gupta (and cohorts) citations: (a) it seems their book was being repetitively mentioned for facts that had nothing to do with them, for which there are much more focussed references available (for work done both in India and in Pakistan) by the people who actually participated in the excavations; all I have done in those instances, is to provide the more focussed citations, (b) their views on Saraswati-Sindhu and their sympathy for some (albeit weak) version of Out-of-India. I am happy to add a section on both their views and those of their critics, but I'm not sure if my interlocutors will be up for it. BTW, I have not removed any books from the references section, this in spite of the fact that the article doesn't cite many Pakistani archaeologists (although the work in Sutagan dor, Rehman Dheri, Ganwariwala, Balakot, and other places, many mentioned in the article, was done by them). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 19:37, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

As for B. B. Lal and S. P. Gupta, they both seem to have got involved in political agendas in the last decade or so. I am not the only one who has noticed it; here is a quote from: Guha, Sudeshna. 2005. "Negotiating Evidence: History, Archaeology and the Indus Civilisation" Modern Asian Studies. 39: 399-426 Cambridge University Press.

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:54, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

You can not refute from evidences by telling them as having political agenda. Then, Max Muller should be termed as that. Read www.sabha.info. Max Muller has clearly written in his letters to wife, mother etc. that he want to show Hindus `what their root is' and there by uprooting their faith so that Christianity can conquer the people & that way the land forever. He was paid translator of British Raj. Colonial & conversion motives were critised by Indian Sanskrit scholars of 19th century. Indian Sanskrit scholars of Hindu scriptures had critised faulty Rig-Vedic translation to deduce invasion of whites ( now they will be naturally Hindus in India so you can also tell about their `political agenda'. Even British Prime Minister has told in their legislare that Britishers have as much right to be in India & rule India as much Aryans had.) So, does this not show British Raj's political agenda ? I think even this should be written in the article so that readers can improve their understanding of the topic. There are ref. avilable.

You should face consequences of throwing stone outside, despite living in Glass House ! WIN 11:17, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

Max Müller is not a part of the contemporary debates in ancient South Asian history. Contemporary Western scholars try their best to avoid the orientalist perspectives of the past, and are clearly not involved in the colonialist enterprise that marked previous generations of scholarship. The British colonial enterprise was (by definition) political, so that is beyond question, but it is also mostly irrelevant to contemporary scholarship. What remains most relevant are nationalistic and religious/political motivations (whether on the part of South Asians or non-South Asians like David Frawley) and the vestiges of orientialism which still remain within Western academia. Jlandahl 22:15, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Changes being made by User:Freedom skies

I have added focussed citations (including many by Indian archaeologists); the citations are to the people who actually did the archaeological work and not to some general textbook (esp. ones that are not widely known). I have no idea what user Freedom skies is trying to do with his so called restoration. Please discuss here and inform us. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

The changes you actually DID make was delete every reference to every scholar you dislike. This is not how wikipedia should work, and I think this to be very childish - they were not even in the body of the article. And the reason for that- that he was criticized by another scholar, not even an archaeologist, is laughable. Kenoyer at least is not as prejudiced and has cited not only his 1984 book, which you would know if you were reading his works. There is no big difference between saraswati sindhu, indus-saraswati or Indus Ghaggar-Hakra, it's the same idea, but Indus-Saraswati is most often used. You have also deleted the sentence with the numbers of the Indus Valley sites discovered on the Indus and the Ghaggar-Hakra rivers, and the sentence that IVC sites were found on islands. I consider this to be important information. Please put it back. --RF 19:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you are arguing about. Also, I don't know if you have been reading what I wrote above, but I already mentioned the S. P. Gupta's 1984 edited book in the previous sections (and Kenoyer's citation of papers from it, including papers of Meadow and Kenoyer). I wish articles from that book had been cited on this page, but I didn't see them anywhere when I first looked at this page; what I saw cited instead were references to S. P. Gupta's later more political works. Here is what the page looked like before I began to edit it: previous version. Where do you see a citation to the 1984 book? And where did I remove it? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 20:42, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
PS Please see the quote from S. Guha's article in the section above. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 17:56, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

The label "Saraswati" for the Harappan civilization (whether in hypenated form or not) is very much disputed even in India. Here is Shereen Ratnagar, Professor of Archaeology, Jawarharlal Nehru University, Delhi, from her book: Understanding Harappa : Civilization in the Greater Indus Valley. New Delhi, Tulika Books, 2006. 166 pages. ISBN 8189487027:

Fowler&fowler«Talk» 18:46, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that Indus valley civilisation is the correct name for the civilisation, the passage quoted above is not neccecarily factual in terms of saying Second there is no proof at all that the mighty Sarasvati of the Rigveda was in fact this (now dry) river- the identification is itself open to doubt.. Apart from there being facts/proof to indicate that Saraswati did exist as this dry river ( including geological facts as to why it dried up) The evidence also points to the fact that it was NOT a tributary of the Indus, ( refuting point 3 of the passage quoted above ) and in fact drew the waters of the Sutlej and the Yamuna to be a river system of it's own[8]. And though a large number of sites have been found along this river system, none of them are of the scale of Harrapa / Mohenjodaro, leaving the Indus Valley tag as the correct one. Saraswati did exist,today the timing is disputed and not the existence, Wheter it is vedic and indic vs Harrapan and non vedic is more disputed today than it's existence. Haphar 07:52, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

the tired "Saraswati" debate is just a matter of taste and ideological orientation, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the IVC itself. This is an article on an archaeological culture, and we should not allow contemporary ideological bickerings being dragged into it. We don't call Sumer the "Idigna-Buranun civilization", even though the names of the rivers are undisputed, "Mesopotamia" serves well enough, and so should "Indus Valley". The rest is bloat, hype and politics. dab (𒁳) 11:30, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Rig-Veda is considered as the first Indic scripture to have compiled by Indian Hindus. And, Vedas are revered as source of all knowledge ( Veda = knowledge ). So, if Rig-Vedic hymns praises Saraswati river as mightiest & holiest of Sapta Sindhu ( & not Afghan area ) then what your so called "ideological orientation" is doing here ? When Rig-Veda mentions Saraswati between Yamuna & Satluj rivers and late Vedic scriptures mentions Sarawati river's demise in desert then which science will come here ? Archeological or Linguistic ? WIN 11:37, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

As has been said many times by many people, there was no indigenous historiography in ancient India. The orally transmitted texts were all written down for the first time at the end of the first millennium CE. Guessing time periods from such religious texts (or for that matter guessing what is real and what is figurative) is not an exact science. As for the so called Saraswati river or the Ghaggar-Hakra river, the science showing that it ran parallel to the Indus, is all very sketchy; all that the remote sensing studies show is that there are dry river beds in some areas of western India and Pakistan. They don't prove that there was one river, or that it ran parallel to the Indus all the way to the sea. Among other tertiary sources, encyclopaedia Britannica doesn't talk about the Indus-Saraswati civilization, doesn't mention Saraswati, doesn't mention Ghaggar-Hakra, only the Indus civilization. It does mention the possible Dravidian origin of the Indus script though. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)
I don't know Gregory Possehl's general "leanings", shall we say, but find it interesting that he takes the identification of the Sarasvati and Ghaggar-Hakra as uncontroversial: "Linguistic, archaeological, and historical data show that the Sarasvati of the Vedas is the modern Ghaggar or Hakra."[10] I'm trying to stay out of any particular "camp", but also trying to understand the prevailing thoughts on identification of the Sarasvati. I agree that references to it are out of place in discussions of the Indus Civilization, much less as a replacement term for the era and its people, as there's little to no reason for believing that there was any connection between the Indus and Vedic cultures. (Gee, I guess that puts me in a "camp" after all.) Jlandahl 22:38, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I am not at all surprised that Britannica doesn't mention Saraswati in IVC. How can one expect to find Indic views in the British Ency. You should be knowing that even British education system in India , had never given importance to India's past or scientific inventions.Infact it tried to portray that there was nothing to write about scientific development in ancient India ! So, it's too much to expect Indic side from British Ency. , for the subject which touches very heart of India ( & a former british colony ) ! WIN 09:31, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Priest King Image

To India Rising: The image that you added is not the "Pashupati" image in the "yogic" posture (which is already there on the page), but rather the "Priest King" image. (See here). I am therefore correcting the caption of that image. Regards, Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:57, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Misleading map in Geography Section

Could we have a slightly less misleading map? The current map shows no indication of where the land mass is located, and the map seems to omit a lot of settlements in the Western part of South Asia. Either find a map which has all the settlements, or just the big cities.
Imo, there is no point to have a map with settlements considering that there are meant to be something like 2000 settlements. A map of Indus Valley, showing the cities of Harappa, Mohenjo Daro and Lothal would do fine.
Thank you
--Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 18:10, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't pretend to understand the "land mass" comment, but you are certainly welcome to draw a nicer and better map. dab (𒁳) 11:26, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I will. Let me just explain the map. It will only include the major cities of IVC. E.g Harappa, Mohenjo daro, and Lothal. An outline will be given as to where all the settlements are spread. And the borders of India and Pakistan will be shown to give an indication of where on Asia this place lies. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 22:19, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Please keep all of the outlying settlements on the map. It gives a better idea of how widespread IVC was. Including only the major cities would be misleading. The country borders is a good idea, though. ॐ Priyanath talk 22:47, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I am simply going to find a map. And yes, there will be an outline of wherever the settlements are spread out. Some reports suggest Iran and Afghanistan aswell. Current map shows no indication of this. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 23:43, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, here is one, http://img120.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ivcne5.png . What do you think? --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 00:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, that version is missing all the good detail on the current version - all of the outlying settlements. Let's add information, such as current country borders, rather than deleting information. The current map is perfect - except for the missing country borders. Just add the country borders, and we have an excellent map, full of all the relevant detail..... ॐ Priyanath talk 00:10, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is a much better map - it just needs the country borders. If you can addinformation and detail, like that map shows, then it would be an improvement over the current map. Current country borders are far less important than detail of the IVC, which is what this article is about, after all. ॐ Priyanath talk 00:19, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Could we have references for this map. I am asking because it is quite unlike any IVC map I've ever seen. (Whole of Pakistan, Northern Areas, half of Afghanistan, parts of Kyrgistan and Iran) deeptrivia (talk) 00:33, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

In fact, it's entirely inaccurate. Keep the current one for now. ॐ Priyanath talk 00:44, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The current map is wrong. It shows Harappa and Lothal vertically aligned. What kind of map was this guy using? Please tell me whats inaccurate about this map? It actually covers all the settlements. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 01:00, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Here are some more maps: The above was an example because it was simple.
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/india/images/maps/sites.gif
http:// www.india-history.com/images/maps/harappa.jpg
--Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 01:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

This is the best for having more detail, and accuracy, which is what we should be aiming for: http://pubweb.cc.u-tokai.ac.jp/indus/english/map.html ॐ Priyanath talk 01:29, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

More detail? There are something like 2000 settlements, and this map happily omits 90% of them. We could start by giving a basic map of Indus valley, so it can me identified with a modern map. I am not saying delete the map, but one of the maps I posted should be included. In fact it was once, but someone removed it. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 01:35, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Let's use a map only from an authoritative source. There is a description of the breadth of IVC by the current director of the Harappa dig here:
http://www.harappa.com/har/indus-saraswati-geography.html
There is also a rough map there that shows the extent of IVC. It's the most reliable source, the most current, is non POV, and encyclopedic. Since there seem to be some, er, POV issues here, and since this is an encyclopedia, the map should be from the best source. Check it out. It seems pretty different from the various maps linked above. ॐ Priyanath talk 02:54, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Ok, the map shown on harappa.com looks fine. I will try to find other Non-Pov maps and consult you about them. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 03:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Removing Paragraph Two (Lead)

IP 136.159.32.178, why are you persistently removing paragraph 2 from the lead? Please explain. Thanks. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:48, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Rakhigarhi

There is an article from an online newspaper talking about Rakhigarhi being the largest Harrrapan site. [9]. It quotes the Director of ASI. I do not know/have not heard of this location/name before- does anyone has details related to this ? Haphar 09:26, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

References?

I was just going through this, when I tripped over another website with word to word similarities between Wikipedia and http://www.crystalinks.com/induscivilization.html. I want to know who copied whom? And why is there no reference to this page. If Wiki copied it, then they could at least have paraphrased it. Could someone tell me? However, since there are some references present, there is a possibility that our IVC is the innocent party. Any ideas? Browsing Through 09:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

IMPORTANT - Professor Egbert Richter Ushanas!

Professor Egbert Richter Ushanas, has taken parts in excavations in other ancient civilizations scuh as that of Crete and Easter Island. Concerning the IVC seals he has said, "All the seals are based on Vedas -- Rig Veda and Atharva Veda."

NEWS article "German Indologist claims to have decoded Indus scripts" http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=352560&sid=FTP http://www.sundeepbooks.com/servlet/sugetbiblio?bno=001148 Research Book The Indus Script and the Rgveda by Egbert Richter Ushanas

I want to be able to post this! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 136.159.32.178 (talk) 18:22, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

Oka... There is no evidence as of yet, linking IVC with Hinduism. And if their language is deciphered, it will make headlines the world over. And there is no way of "Decoding" the language since its nothing like ANY language in existence today. They will need to discover some artefact which was created specifically to decode this language.
A lot of Hinduvta followers will do anything to link IVC with Hinduism, and this is done solely for their religious agenda. This is portrayed on Wikipedia by users refusing to have a proper map showing where IVC is located. Using this so called "Evidence" to create a link would be classed as "Original Research".
However, what about focusing on the evidence which shows IVC were not Hindu? Now I understand, Hinduism might be an evolving religion, but ignoring some of the biggest principles of Hinduism doesnt cover it. The people of IVC buried their dead, and ate the meat of Cows. I believe these two actions are some of the biggest taboos of Hinduism, and this couldnt have changed over time. You must understand that this "evidence" linking Hinduism to IVC is created, and not reached through logic and discoveries. I am not saying its impossible, but evidence still has to be discovered to show this link. And by the current looks of it, a lot of evidence has to be presented to explain some of the things which are not allowed in Hinduism, but were practised on a daily basis in the time of IVC. --Unre4Lﺍﹸﻧﺮﮮﺍﻝ UT 18:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Cementry H culture which is post-IVC era and which has first signs of cremation & not burial is considered as some proof of Indo Aryan means Hindu culture. But Indo Aryan's parent region which is Kurgan area ( as per widely accepted Kurgan hypothesis ) in steppes shows Burials only ! Infact it's identified as IE from special burial methods. So, should we understand that Indo Aryans on their way from BMAC changed from burial to cremation ! I think first you should think in wider picture and then accuse others. WIN 08:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

that's what we are to understand, yes. similarly, the Urnfield culture also began cremating at some point. You'll need to accept that cremation was "invented" at some point no matter what else you believe. But yes, in the case of India, emergence of cremation in Cemetary H is a good indicator of the emergence of "Proto-Hinduism". We can even trace this development in the RV, in very good agreement with its Late Harappan date. dab (𒁳) 08:52, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Well one of the "biggest taboo" ie -eating meat of cows happened in vedic times, as is substantiated by historic texts and references to feasts in ancient texts - (however one professor was beaten for publishing a book with proof on this by Bajrang Dal activists). The other taboo is not really taboo for all Hindu's. In a very small minority no doubt but there are sects / tribes that are Hindu and bury their dead. So these taboos do not "prove" either point of view. Haphar 19:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

sigh, YAISD, yet another Indus script deciphermnent. Sure, add him to the lot we already have at Indus script. This is a bit like the Phaistos Disc decipherment claims: fascinating to watch, in a slightly disturbing way :) dab (𒁳) 20:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Richter, who has also decoded tablets from Easter Island in Pacific Ocean and disc of Phaistos" -- lol. These people kill me, once they have solved one of mankind's great mysteries, they never know how to stop :) dab (𒁳) 20:16, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
correction, Richter's "decipherment" isn't even new; it dates to 1997. We've had to deal with this stuff before on Rongorongo and Indus script. Textbook crank material. dab (𒁳) 10:11, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
I agree. Richter is a nut job. Doesn't belong here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:21, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Lol, how do these crazy guys even make it to the news websites? deeptrivia (talk) 20:38, 24 March 2007 (UTC)
by saying what the editors wanted to hear all along? I imagine he would have gotten coverage in a rather different set of publications if his amazing decipherment had turned out to be Dravidian :) dab (𒁳) 11:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Image of limestone "seated male" from Mohenjo-daro in Arts and Culture

I tried to add a picture of an Indus Valley Sculpture under Arts and Culture which is currently illustrated with a "A statuette of a female figure." The figure I tried to replace it with is the limestone seated male figure from Islamabad Museum (see http://www.harappa.com/indus/46.html and http://www.harappa.com/indus/45.html) which as far as I have found is the largest sculpture/figurine excavated from any of the Indus Valley sites (at 28 cm by 22 cm it is larger than the "Priest King", "Dancing Girl" and "Male Torso") and as refined and beautiful as any of them, though far less well known. The change I made was reverted back immediately. Can someone explain why the far cruder female statuette is preferred to the seated male? If it is a licensing issue about which I am admittedly ill-informed we can contact Harrapa.com and get explicit permission. I think this artifact deserves attention. 71.233.29.241 14:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Yeah that statuette picture should be replaced. Among other things, it is a poor-quality image. However, in my opinion, it should be replaced with a picture of the dancing girl, which in fact the accompanying text describes (I seem to remember). Your image could be added somewhere else. The dancing girl image is available on a University of Pennsylvania website, and may require prior permission from them. (See image number 10 here) Perhaps someone could email them and ask. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:26, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Incomplete Map

The map showing the area of Indus valley is incomplete as it doesn't include Eastern and Northern Kutch i.e the area around Dholavira one of the most important sites, also the area upto the eastern bank of Yamuna should be included where a number of sites have been discovered and Alamgirpur is the eastern most site of IVC. March 30, 2007 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.117.79.209 (talk) 07:03, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

Random, Irrelevant, and Poorly Written Additions by WIN

user:WIN has been adding text to the "legacy" section that seems random, logically disconnected, irrelevant to the context, poorly sourced, and shabbily written. Here is an example:

Sorry to be blunt, but this is not the kind of addition that other editors copy-edit, salvage as best they can, and somehow incorporate into the text (which they would gladly have done were user WIN a new user). What does "explosion (300% increase)" mean when no source is provided and no mention is made of the original number of settlements? Where does Edwin Bryant say what seems to be attributed to him? A citation and page number is needed. Finally, what is the merit of this addition? It is repetitive. It has already been alluded to in an appropriate encyclopaedic tone in the Late Harappan section before it. I have therefore reverted it.

Here is the next example:

User WIN cannot make such unsourced and poorly written additions and then expect others stand by and do nothing. I have reverted this too. Finally, user WIN has created a new section titled "Remarks," whose raison d'etre seems to elude me, unless it is the addition of out-of-context quotes for refurbishing a particular POV. Thousands of quotes from countless authors can be added to article, but the gist of those quotes has already been incorporated into the text. The last edit has been reverted as well. This article was once a featured article and there is no reason why it can't be one again if poorly sourced and shabbily written additions can be kept out. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 14:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Edwin Bryant has written that same words in an univesity discussion webpage. Edwin Bryant has said something which is not that unknown ,especially to a Professior like you. ( I assume that since you are a professior and recently edited a lot on the subject , you must be from the similar field.) Lapis Lazuli mention is directly from the WP article. Western archeologists quotes are well ref. Now, if you find some OIT pushing motive ( as accused by you ) then I can not help it. If providing some hidden facts to the world is like pushing OIT , then AIT/AMT supporters should also be accused for hiding the details to interprete their version. And, that interpretation is believed like a truth. And, now when somebody shows the hidden facts then he will be termed as pseudo , nationalist & what not ! Sorry, but I have to say this to defend your accuse. WIN 06:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry, you are incomprehensible. Please express your ideas clearly. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 21:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If you can not understand simple English ( which you do - evident from your edits in IVC ) then what to tell you ? You can sense some OIT pushing `motive' from my additions but can not understand above simple words !!! It's clear way of being `dumb'. This is pseudoism.

Do you want Edwin Bryant's university discussion webpage link ? If Edwin Bryant's words are incomprehensible to you then you should stop editing this page as `understanding' is not your cup of tea ( or coffee ) ! WIN 04:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

WIN, Fowler is not accusing you of having an OIT bias, but of poor writing with missing or inadequate references. You said, "Do you want Edwin Bryant's university discussion webpage link ?" That's exactly the point, but more specifically you need to quote your sources accurately and cite your references correctly. See WP:CITE for a guide to citing sources in Wikipedia. Jlandahl 00:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Citadels?

We have Wheeler's extravagant ideas to thank for the continuing notion that the Indus cities had citadels. How much longer must we endure his flights of fancy? Possehl (2002) lists this enduring idea as one of the "myths about the Indus Civilization that need to be set aside if we are to better understand these ancient peoples and their ways of life." More specifically he says:

[11]

Jlandahl 22:26, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Nitpickery

"...IVC, was an ancient riverine civilization that flourished in the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra river valleys in..." is a tautology, since the word 'riverine' means located on or by the banks of a river.Mtiffany71 04:10, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Yup. Good edit. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 04:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Proto-Dravidian, Proto-Munda?

The Proto-Dravidian or Proto-anything arguments seem highly debateable at this point based on my reading of Bryant. Is there any reason why these hypotheses deserve to be placed so prominently? (i.e. the first sentence of the second paragraph as I write this).

And for that matter, the Britannica article used as support is misleading on a number of aspects, most notably in its claim that the script "has been partly and tentatively deciphered; the language has been tentatively identified as Dravidian". There is, of course, absolutely no consensus on either of these points, and the Farmer/Sproat/Witzel work would at least need to be mentioned. Britannica also talks about only two cities, uses the word "empire", and worst of all tells a dramatic tale of Mohenjo-daro being sacked "by raiders who swept over the city and then passed on" -- who wrote that article, Wheeler's ghost? Jlandahl 16:18, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like this was added by an anonymous user here. Any objections to moving this text (with modifications) to somewhere else in the article? Jlandahl 16:52, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ (Kenoyer 1998:96)
  2. ^ S.P. Gupta. The dawn of civilization, in G.C. Pande (ed.)(History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, ed., D.P. Chattophadhyaya, vol I Part 1) (New Delhi:Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999)
  3. ^ S.P. Gupta. The dawn of civilization, in G.C. Pande (ed.)(History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, ed., D.P. Chattophadhyaya, vol I Part 1) (New Delhi:Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999)
  4. ^ (S.P. Gupta 1995:183)
  5. ^ e.g., Dholavira at the Khadir islands in the Rann of Kacch) S.P. Gupta. The dawn of civilization, in G.C. Pande (ed.)(History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization, ed., D.P. Chattophadhyaya, vol I Part 1) (New Delhi:Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 1999)
  6. ^ e.g. V.N. Misra 1992, in Eastern Anthropologist vol 45, pp 1-19.
  7. ^ Lal 2002:82ff, 66-67
  8. ^ Lal 2002:89ff
  9. ^ Witzel, Michael and Steve Farmer. 2000. Horseplay in Harappa, Frontline, 17(20), September 30-October 13.
  10. ^ Possehl, G: The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective, page 8. AltaMira Press, 2002
  11. ^ Possehl, G: The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective, page 247. AltaMira Press, 2002

A good strategy for establishing opinions as facts

I do find it curious that throughout the article, certain opinions have been elaborately espoused after the tags, "controversial", "disputed", and they tend to be typically of the Witzel et al school. This can be interpreted as a strategy of retaining a particular type of idea in the reader's mind while appearing neutral and unbiased by mentioning it as "disputed". Editors seem to be particularly keen in limiting references that have claims or opinions contradicting the school of thought represented by Witzel or Guha. This brings us to the more important question of what makes Lal and Gupta "politically motivated" while Witzel and Guha are supposed to be "not politically motivated"! Both Guha and Witzel's (the latter typically does not state the highly "controversial" unilinear development/rates assumptions used in linguistic arguments and dating algorithms) articles read like the political satirist's impassioned polemics from the parliamentary podium - simply look for all those typically non-academic expressions like "horseplay in...". There appears to be a lot of faith in linguistics - should we have a linguistic analysis of the style/expression used by Witzel or Guha? Such analyses can be done by the very same "neutral" computer programs which are used to analyze "scientifically" extant texts, so that a "revisionist" bias could be discounted for! Sometimes the paranoid dubbing of the "other" as the politically motivated one, can hide consciousness of an agenda within one's self. Please drop opinionated comments in the guise of "neutral" writing. Witzel, Guha and others like them are doing a great disservice to the viewpoints or any well-intentioned political agenda that they may have, by revealing emotional reactions to what should have been dealt with compact, clear and non-emotional arguments qualified by clearly stated underlying assumptions. I hope editors here have not taken it upon themselves to carry on the cudgels of a particular school's intentions in the very contested reconstructions of the history of the Indian subcontinent.Dikgaj 00:15, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Please first learn how to write clearly and simply before you attempt complex arguments. What you have written above is not only jargon ridden and verbose, but also tautological and trivial. A "political satirist's impassioned polemics from the parliamentary podium." Huh? Fowler&fowler«Talk» 03:29, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

You prove my point!

My thanks to dear Fowler&Fowler for actually supporting my views. This is the typical reaction seen : (1) try to denigrate writing style or delegitimize, and criticize the person, rather than his/her arguments (2) assumption of superiority of one's own writing or intellectual capabilities (4) a very emotional and personal reaction to any hint of criticism - (or is it a reincarnation of the "Brahminical guru" who demands abject submission to his intellectual authority?)(3) and while doing all this, run the risk of being "verbose and tautological" oneself! If this is not arrogance, what else is? You have not argued against the specific points I have raised, which are quite clearly written - (a) is it possible that a particular school's viewpoints are being pushed through even under the guise of "neutrality"? (b) why use personal opinions, and quite ill-defined terms such as "revisionist" as declared motives for removing or pruning references? (c) what makes one group of scholars "politically motivated" and another "unbiased" - just because the latter support or do not support a certain viewpoint? I do keep track of original articles by Witzel and Guha, and can produce a simple list of expressions and unqualified adjectives used by these authors that should have caught your highly sensitive filters for "verbosity and tautologies" long ago. They do indeed sound very much like passionate election speeches. Even Prof., Romila Thapar uses much more cautious and academic language while she attempts deconstruction of what she calls "revisionism". To the proselytizing priest, anything that smacks of resistance to his preachings, is trivial and inferior, and the source of such assumed resistance is incapable and unworthy. It will be much better for your project if you do not reveal such characteristics! Regards. Dikgaj 19:25, 13 July 2007 (UTC)


Very good. Suppresion or misinterpretation of some data is very widespread phenomenon in this whole matter. And, when somebody opposes that , then he is labelled as politically motivated / revisionist and what not. But, they will suitably forget that it was Max Muller who was utter conversionist & completely unable to graspe the real meaning of RigVedic verses and his motives are revealed in his letters or Wheeler who was over zealous to confirm some invasion on finding few human corpes from Mohenjo-daro & Harrapa, towns of 1,00,000 ! WIN 11:45, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Area of the IVC: Avoid personal attacks

On 2007-08-17 I added this line to the lead:

It was one of the largest civilizations of ancient times, and known sites cover an area of 1.2 million km2, "nearly twenty time area of Egypt, and over a dozen times the settled area of Egypt and Mesopotamia combined."[1].

linked to the new citation:

  1. Charles Keith Maisels (2001). Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia. Routledge. p. 186. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/ISBN 0415109752|'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000001C-QINU`"'[[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]]&nbsp;[[Special:BookSources/0415109752 |0415109752]]]]. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |isbn= at position 1 (help)

I also made some other copyedits to the text, to clarify the different names of IVC in clearer language. However, User:Fowler&fowler reverted the whole edit, rubbishing it with the remark "rv standard indian line; please discuss on talk page first".

First, the key item I had added was stated with a citation from a 2001 book written by a well known scholar of ancient civilizations. Also, the area would seem to be of direct relevance to the article, and is not addressed elsewhere in the article.

To illustrate further, Maisels discusses the area issue in detail. By about the middle of the 3d millenium BC, the areas of the then prevalent civilizations as roughly calculated by him are:

  • "cultivated valley of the Nile": 34,440 km2 (Kees:1961:17)
  • "alluvium between Tigris and Euphrates": 65km2
"By contrast, the Indus civilization extended roughly 1,100 km north to south and east to west, covering an area of around 1,210,000 square km." p.186

Thus, while he takes Kees' reference for Egypt, the Mesopotamian and Harappan calculations are his own. He elaborates on this at some length:

To get some feel for the distances involved, Harappa, located by the south bank of the River Ravi, an Indus tributary, is some 625 km from the other major centre, Mohenjo-daro on the lower Indus (and it is some 500 km from Delhi, around 859 km from Karachi). Harappa to Ganweriwala is 280 km, Ganweriwala to Mohenjo-daro 308 km. By comparison, virtually the whole length of the settled Mesopatamian alluvium is spanned by a straight line of 440 ikm, drawn from Eridu northward through Uruk, Isin and Kish to Samarra. At Baghdad the Tigris and Euphrates are only 35 km apart, while the longest transect between the rivers... amounts to only 240km, much of which in the east is or was marsh. p. 186

Maisels goes on to compare the areas and distributions of the Harappan civilization with the Mesopotamian:

The difference lies in the sheer number of Mespotamian cities, which on the southern alluvium could even be in sight of one another, in turn reflecting fundamental differences in the relationships between centres and hinterland. The consequence is a different level and type of urbanization, as between Sumer and Harappa, with nearly double the percentage (78%) of the Sumerian population living in settlements above 40 hectares as the Harappan (44%). ... The contrasts have been well made by Ratnagar's comparison of fifty Mature Harappan sites with fifty-six Early Dynastic II-III site areas surveyed by Adams (1981). (p.188)

Based on this discussion of areas and population distributions, Maisels argues that

Sumer was a society of city-states whose populations had a strong civic consciousness. Harappan society consisted of an extensive oecumene or commonwealth, with a largely village-based population which the cities helped to integrate economically and culturally.

Thus overall, Maisels presents his discussion of area is key to certain characteristics of the IVC, and this I had not read earlier, so I looked up W and it wasn't here so I added as somethign that is clearly relevant to the topic. This is my first edit to this article.

To reiterate, I did not make up this sentence, I cited a respectable academic text. I don't see how this can have any "standard indian line". It is not "standard" since no one before me seems to have added this (at least as far this talk page is concerned. Whether it is "indian" or not should not even have been raised.

On Wikipedia, you are free to delete unreferenced remarks, but generally if there is a citation, you don't delete it unless you cite counter references. In any event, when the matter has not been discussed earlier in the talk page, it is upto others to bring the matter to the discussion page.

An editor should not have to initiate a discussion just to bring a cited statement into an article.

Secondly, a number of other cleanups I had made to the description for alternate names for IVC were also thrown out. If you have to address a particular phrase, pls edit the text to take that out. Don't do a wholescale reversal.

Lastly, the comment "standard Indian line" is an ethnic statement, and violates no personal attacks norms. Had User:Fowler&fowler cited counter references, or even if he had cited others who say that Maisels is a trashy reference, or that it is dated, I would have been the first to agree. But I feel that arguments of this type is best avoided. Whether Maisels or this editor is an Indian or not has no bearing on the facts presented. Pls stick to the content.

I am reinstating these changes, by editing the page. By all means, please re-edit any changes I have made. Present any counter-facts, but please do not justify your changes by racial or personal attacks. And do not revert everything just because you don't agree with one aspect of the edit. mukerjee (talk) 06:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Oy! I think if you read the history of this page you will realise that Fowler - who may well be Indian, we dont know - chose that edit comment to indicate that the comparative size of the IVC is a useful tool for those who wish to use this encylopaedia to promote national mysticism of one sort or another. In particular, he assumed - which he should not have done, per our policies - that your addition was made in that spirit. However, I do not see it in any way as a racial attack, and hope that you will see it that way too on reflection.
That being said, I think perhaps the reference to its size does not belong in the lead, but the reference and a summary of Maisels' conclusions may well be very useful elsewhere in the article.
When there is a citation, it can be deleted - on WP, your attempt might fall under WP:BRD - and consequent discussion on the talkpage is usually useful. The reason is that it may create a problem of balance, or may be seen as unnecessary or off-topic. In this case, I suspect Fowler was unaware of the point you were trying to make.Hornplease 08:03, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Expatiating on relative sizes in the lead is clear boosterism. Since the material is in the Geography section, harping on it in the lead is overkill. rudra 08:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Notwithstanding the comments of Hornplease the term "standard" cannot apply to something never seen before ( not discussed here on this talk page, or on the main page). I went through most of the comments on Fowler and others and did not find any instance of a mention of "area". I would be happy to discuss it with him or other "most intersted people" if the reasons for this deletion are made more content-based.
As for repeating material in the lead, the whole purpose of the lead is to provide a "concise overview" (please see Wikipedia:lead. The geographical extent of the IVC, is an important comparative measure and therefore it belongs in the lead. I have now added a subsection under Geography giving more details of this aspect. If others feel it is not relevant, by all means edit it, and we can debate it, here on this page, or on our own talk pages. But summarily deleting all references to it under what appears to be a racial comment is absurd. (Personally though, I don't think he meant it racially at all, but that is another thing). mukerjee (talk) 10:32, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

the "area of the IVC" is utterly meaningless. If anything, compare estimated population sizes. Since there are no written records, we have (unlike the case of Egypt) no idea of the administrative structure of the IVC. Maybe they used quipus, who knows, but we have no evidence of correspondence. Hence we cannot conclude that the IVC had "imperial" structure, so that comparison with distances falling under the same administration in the Near East is meaningless. --dab (𒁳) 13:15, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that population would have been more relevant perhaps, but area is far more easier to measure today. The fact that we know so little about IVC is what makes this relevant - because it can be argued that the civilization was less dense, and had a more rural basis, as stated later in the article. This fact was not made up by me; it appears on the first three pages of a serious text on Early Civilizations.
While the other references I cited are not available online, I found the relevant pages from the Maisels text is accessible at google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=l_6Nd5I4BhgC&pg=PP1&dq=Maisels+Early+Civilizations&sig=oHgOdEAOlOU44xC3lZAXRrBKK8Y#PPA187,M1pls

The first three pages of the chapter on IVC are focussed on comparing the areas of civilizations. This leads to an important argument, which is summarized in the section of the page dealing with "Area of IVC"

However if most of the editors here feel the area claim is not important to the topic, I will be happy to arrive at a consensus and edit out this part (or others can do it). mukerjee (talk) 04:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Second time around: Focus on content and Avoid Personal Bias

I just reverted a wholesale revert by Fowler of some seven edits I had made (about 5K of text, including 5 citations). This time the comment said "exaggerated irredentist claims".

The charge of "irredentism" is unrelated to content, and makes sense only if the author is from an erstwhile colonial nation (if she wasn't it wouldn't be irredentism). This is again a form of personal bias.

Please consider the content of the article as it stands now. The changes I made include:

  1. Details of discovery, including direct quotations from John Brunton's diary (with citation)
  2. Reorganization of the name controversy Ghaggar-Hakra (mainly cleanups, and added subsection)
  3. Listing new sites discovered south of Narmada mouth and in Malwa (with 3 citations)
  4. Cleaning up the language in the Geography part
  5. Adding a sentence in the lead pointing to key advances in IVC (summary of points already in article)
  6. consolidating multiple references to same item using "ref name=..."
  7. re-formatting the reference section into two columns (>40 refs)

If you don't agree with something, pls edit the text to fix only that part.

I quote from Help:Revert:

  • Reverting is a decision which should be taken seriously.
  • Reverting is used primarily for fighting vandalism, or anything very similar to the effects of vandalism.
  • If you are not sure whether a revert is appropriate, discuss it first rather than immediately reverting or deleting it.
  • If you feel the edit is unsatisfactory, improve it rather than simply reverting or deleting it. mukerjee (talk) 04:21, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
It is true that in an ideal world, I (as an editor who, from time to time, watches over this page) should fix only what really needs to be fixed. However, when you make a large number of edits, all at one sitting, and introduce, in addition, controversial material in the lead, you render difficult for other editors their work of ordinary upkeep and maintenance; consequently, blanket reversals are sometimes the easiest option. If I upset you in any way, please accept my sincere apologies. However, here is what is problematic with your edits.
  • First, most of this article, but especially the lead, is written in the summary style. In other words, it abbreviates and consolidates material. It is not the place for either elaborating on existing controversies or introducing new ones. Charles Maisels is not an IVC expert; in fact he has no history of publishing articles or books specifically about the region. He has written one book with any significant IVC content, which you have liberally cited. The book has many faults, not least of which is "the author's tendency to project controversial ideas as accepted fact." (See Harriet Crawford's review in SOAS Bulletin, 2001). In an area like IVC, which has exclusive, area experts (within IVC itself), like A. H. Dani, Rafique Mughal, R. S. Bist, Shireen Ratnagar, Mark Kenoyer, Charles Meadows, S. R. Rao, George Dales, Jim Schaefer, Greg Possehl, ..., all of whom have been liberally cited within the article, doesn't it seem odd to you to repeatedly cite from a controversial book by an outsider?
  • Second, the oft-repeated myth about there being many, many more "Saraswati" sites in India than the Indus sites in Pakistan is just that, a myth, as Shereen Ratnagar has repeatedly pointed out. To cite Maisels or McIntosh, as you or others have done, is to cite one controversial reference citing another, in these cases the books by Gupta and Mishra, published by publishers in India, not internationally known, where these claims were first made. The usual method of conferring credibility to such claims, is examining the scholarly research articles published about these sites. As far as I can tell, they don't exist; if you can find them (i.e. journal articles in internationally-known peer-reviewed journals) for even a tenth of the 600 or so claimed sites, please bring them to our notice. The Indus sites might be smaller in number, but they are all well documented. To put it another way, if there really were that many sites in the "Saraswati" river valley, scholars and their graduate students from around the world, would be lining up to study them even more. To date, this hasn't happened. This brings me to my use of "Indian" in an edit summary for whose misunderstanding I again apologize. Since some prominent Indian-scholars, like B. B. Lal and S. P. Gupta, have, in their politicized post-retirement life, thrown around these exaggerated numbers with great abandon, I used "Indian" to describe that view, not some ethnicity.
  • Same with the name "Saraswati." The commonly used term in the literature is either "Indus civilization," or "Harappan civilization." Why bother (especially in the lead) with a term that is not even used in 10% of all scholarly articles in international peer-reviewed journals. Please do an academic database search for the years 1985 to 2005 for both Indus or Harappan vs. Indus-Saraswati etc. The numbers are not even close. Here, BTW, is the conclusion from Mark Kenoyer's review of Jane McIntosh's book (which is cited in the lead in support of "Saraswati"):
  • As for your extended quotes in the history section, I repeat, the history section is drastically compressed. The Masson quotes, for example, are available, courtesy, Kenoyer et al, on the Harappa.com site. It is enough to reference that. The more extended quotes could be added to the Harappa article, but not to the history section here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 07:13, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Note on the "preponderance of sites" sound-bite: Simply counting sites does not take into account the effect of continuous human occupation of the area on the survival of such sites over time. The Ghaggar-Hakra sites are in territory that has been basically deserted since IVC times, which can't be said for the Indus valley proper. Moreover, many of the G-H sites contributing to the statistical legerdemain are on the riverbed, which automatically dates them to the late period. Oops. rudra 16:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Attempt at Consensus

In view of what appears to be a consensus among editors of this page, I have removed the sentence about area from the lead. It is an useful nugget of information, but perhaps it was a bit loud in the lead. mukerjee (talk) 04:59, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. Your other changes to the lead had the unfortunate effect of emphasising the Saraswati connection, which, after much hammering over the past few years, seems best left in the last line. I personally do not wish to see it anywhere in the lead, actually, but others prevailed. As such I have reverted to an original lead, but all your other edits have been preserved for the moment. Hornplease 05:16, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Edits by Fowler2

The edits by Fowler on Sept 2-3 are essentially a revert (just compare it with versions of Beland, Sep 1 and Mukerjee Sep 2). The earlier revert of seven edits was done without comment, now there are some comments, the bulk of which seem to be criticism of a text by Jane McIntosh that I was NOT citing. The only relevant criticim is that of a book by Maisels which is rather thin. As for the text and four citations I had added, and which Fowler deletes, there is no comment at all. It is a rather underhanded way of doing things, like telling one: "you are an idiot".

I have been reverted very rarely - maybe three times out of thousands of edits on Wikipedia. From the revert page:

Being reverted can feel a bit like a slap in the face: "I worked hard on those edits, and someone just rolled it all back"

I don't wish to be slapped on the face too often. If you think you own this page, you can keep ruling your turf. I don't intend to fight for every word I edit.

Except for a fragment about the discovery, all changes I had made, e.g. to the Geography section, have been deleted. To compare:

After Mukerjee edits Sept 1

The Indus Valley Civilization extended from Balochistan bordering Iran, to Gujarat, with an upward reach to Punjab and Jammu east of the river Jhelum to Alamgirpur near Delhi on the east. This area is constantly being revised as new sites are discovered. Currently, Indus sites have been excavated on the Oxus river at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan[11], in the Gomal river valley[12] and Balakot[13] in Northwest Frontier Province, Pakistan, at Manda on the Beas River near Jammu[14], India, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, 28 km Northeast of Delhi.[15][16].
A long swath of coastal settlements[17] extended from Sutkagan Dor[18] in Western Baluchistan near the border with Iran, to Lothal[19] in Gujarat, to Bhagatrav below the mouth of the Narmada river[16][20], as well as offshore islands such as Dholavira[21]. Further inland, the chalcolithic site of Kayatha in Malwa, Madhya Pradesh also shows the black-and-red ware (fired from the inside) of the Late Harappan[22].
The Indus Valley Civilization thus encompassed most of Pakistan as well as Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab in India, with outposts in parts of Afghanistan and Jammu.
Actually I meant to take out the stuff on the Narmada River and Malwa as well. I don't know who added them and I agree that their addition does make the text choppy. Best to simply remove those too. Again this article is written in "summary-style." We can't keep adding an endless list of sites. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 11:23, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

After underhanded revert by Fowler

The Indus Valley Civilization extended from Balochistan to Gujarat, with an upward reach to Punjab from east of the river Jhelum to Rupar on the upper Sutlej; Recently, Indus sites have been discovered in Pakistan's NW Frontier Province as well. Coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor[11] in Western Baluchistan to Lothal[12] in Gujarat. The Indus Valley Civilization encompassed most of Pakistan as well as the western states of India. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus river at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan,[13] in the Gomal river valley in north-west Pakistan,[14] at Manda on the Beas River near Jammu,[15] India, and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River, only 28 km from Delhi.[16] Indus Valley sites have been found most often on rivers, but also on the ancient sea-coast,[17] for example Balakot,[18] and on islands, for example, Dholavira.[19]

This one paragraph text is haphazard and scatters sites like marbles spilt across the map. The organization I had edited was clearer in organizing the riverine (inland) sites and then the coastal sites. Of course, also the additional sites I had mentioned (and 3 refs) are deleted.

Secondly, the sites below the Narmada, and especially Kayatha, need to be mentioned because these are quite far from the traditional region associated with IVC. I had also given a citation for Kayatha from the original excavating archaeologists, and mentioned why it was thought to be harappan.

Oh, OK, I should have replied here, not above. BTW, there is nothing underhanded about my revert. It was a revert—fair and square—based on your using controversial and unreliable sources. The IVC field has a tradition now of at least 60 years of rigorous scholarship. It has a community of scholars, many of whom I mentioned in my post in the previous section above. Charles Maisels is not in that list. I have nothing against IVC being the most extensive, but I am against using dubious sources to back that up. The Britannica article you mention is a better source overall than Maisels, but it is not the main Britannica article on IVC, but rather one written by their editorial staff and used for spin-offs in the Concise Briannica and the Student Britannica. The main Britannica article on IVC consists of pages 97 to 116 of the India history page, a signed article written by Romila Thapar. That, according to Wikipedia policies, would constitute a reliable source; however, that article is silent on comparison with Mesopotamia and Egypt. It just gives the extent of the civilization to be approximately 500,000 square miles.
As for the Madhya Pradesh site, there is much information that can be added to the article and backed up with citations. The question is also one of notability and weight. Please create a separate page for the Madhya Pradesh site if you'd like, but it does not belong here. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:15, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Sharper data from Maisels

In another large edit that was reverted, here is what I had:

Of the 1,399 sites presently known (917 in India, 481 in Pakistan, 1 in Afghanistan: Misra 1994:512), only 44 sites are actually on or near the river Indus. However, around 1,000 lie along the course(s) of teh Ghaggar-Hakra [Maisels]

in contrast to what was there before (reverted by Fowler):

According to some archaeologists over 500 Harappan sites have been discovered along the dried up river beds of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries,[23] in contrast to only about 100 along the Indus and its tributaries,[24]

which is far less specific. The first version clearly provides more detail and substance.

As for the views of user:rudra, these were incorporated in the article earlier as well. I had only copyedited the text to be make the argument cleaner; in fact, the points raised by him (that Ghaggar was desert while Indus valley was populated) were abundantly clear.

Maisels and Area

The reason Maisels is important is not because he is an expert on IVC, but precisely because his area of expertise is broader. He has worked primarily in Mesopotamian archaeology. Comparing civilizations, area is one of the first things that stare you in the face - Kenoyer also compares areas - most broader views of civilizations that compare them, would look at area first because that's what you have.

E.g. the Britannia Encycl article [10], which is far shorter, uses the second sentence of the lead to establish a SW-NE diagonal extent, and the third sentence roughly a NE-SW extent, and then the fourth sentence of the lead says:

It is thus decidedly the most extensive of the world's three earliest civilizations; the other two are those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, both of which began somewhat before it.

thus placing IVC in the spatial and temporal context of these other civilizations. Thus they use three of the opening statements to establish the area comparison. Clearly the world has other idiots who think like me.

Comparisons across civilizations surely are relevant. They underline differences on the surface, but more importantly, they point towards differences in structure, which was what I had discussed in that subsection that you have chosen to completely delete. It is a theory that Maisels, following Ratnagar, is proposing based on his cross-civilizational study, and it makes a scholarly argument for a kind of governmental structure that would have differed from Mesopotamia.

But I don't want to keep fighting with rude reverters for every change. Maybe I'll just do my other stuff. mukerjee (talk) 11:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment: A fascinating aspect of Maisels' book is that nowhere does he mention the work (or the author thereof) that cries for comparison: World prehistory in a new perspective by Grahame Clark. Maisels has more recent information than Clark, obviously, but reading the two books in tandem makes for interesting reading. (Clark, btw, was an early critic of Wheeler's "Indra stands accused" thesis.) rudra 06:06, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

in recent weeks, this article has been vandalized almost every day.

my request for semi-protection has been declined.

should we just stop reverting the vandalism?

— Haim Berman 13:01, 11 November 2007 (UTC)


Historical context

I have a problem with the second sentence of the third paragra ph. The sentence reads "Alternatively, Proto-Munda, Proto-Indo-Iranian or a "lost phylum" are sometimes suggested for the language of the IVC (see Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit). I find this sentence misleading. I can not verify this in the book since i dont have access to the book. But what i can verify is the description about the book in http://www.amazon.com/Deciphering-Indus-Script-Asko-Parpola/dp/0521430798. The description clearly states that His (Asko Parpola) fascinating study confirms that the Indus script was logo-syllabic, and that the Indus language belonged to the Dravidian family. According to the description,relation to the Dravidian family seems to be the final conclusion of the book. In this context, to cite the book and then describe ony about proto-munda, proto-Indo-aryan or a lost phylus is totally misleading. In this circcumstances, either deleting the second sentence or adding a sentence which explains the conclusion of the book which is that Indus valley language belongs to Dravidian family is essential to maintain neutrality. Rudrasharman has deleted the sentence I have added to make this correction. i would like his explanation. vcpk (talk) 06:50, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

There are two separate issues here, and I confess I missed one. You are correct that the paragraph is misleading. That's because the footnote reference to Parpola is misplaced. It belongs after the first sentence, alongside the other reference. We can correct that easily. However, an Amazon blurb as an adequate description of the book simply will not pass muster. Editorial hyperbole like this usually makes academics (like Parpola) cringe. Parpola makes a case, but the issue is far from settled, as a word like "confirm" would suggest. In fact, not only has the Dravidian Hypothesis met increasing skepticism, even the logo-syllabicity of the symbols has been challenged (a good case can be made for logo-syllabicity if one assumes a rebus principle, but that only moves the problems a level deeper.) rudra (talk) 08:05, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for making the correction. But, it leaves the second sentence unreferenced. Either the sentence has to be referenced or it should be deleted since I believe it is a very important issue.

Well, I am not a linguist rather a cancer researcher. Reviewing articles which are published in respected scientific journals is a part of my job. I know very vell how the different aspects of research are pursued including theories, proposals and conclusions. So if i have to read books to verify claims made in this article i would love to do that. If you propose a reference which would suit in there, and if it is not available in reliable Internet website, I would like to have a look at it personally before I would accept the reference since it contradicts generally accepted theory.

First of all, I dont accept anything I dont understand. I would love you to explain what is logo-syllabicity and why the symbols have been challenged? Well, I honestly didnt know what it means when I copied that from the book decription. Now you seem to know what it is, i would love to understand it myself.

Secondly, I agree with the skepticism about Dravidian hypothesis. Particularly, I also understand that it wouldnt go very well with the group of people in India who dont want to believe that they came from outside ino a country where Dravidians were already living. So, I find it natural in these people's effort to discredit the Dravidian relationship to the Indus valley civilisation. What I know for sure is that majority of the people and majority of the research support dravidian link and that is what I believe in. vcpk (talk) 13:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

true, we need to provide a reference for each possibility. But this is simple. Proto-Dravidian is sort of the default assumption, notably held by Parpola and Mahadevan. Proto/Para-Munda is due to Kuiper (1991) and Witzel (1999). The other possibilities mentioned are also discussed by Witzel (1999), so that should be the reference we give. See Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit. Vcpkumar, you are free to accept or reject whatever you like: Wikipedia isn't here to impose some opinion on you. But if you want to participate in the development of the article, you will need to dig into the literature yourself, just asking people to explain things to you will not do. Wikipedia gives you more than enough starting points for your own research regarding script decipherment, logo-syllabic scripts and what have you, but if you are interested in the topic, the burden of acquiring the required background knowledge lies with you. dab (𒁳) 14:21, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, Firstly, Kuiper (1991) (according to Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit), bases his claims on his proposed finding that earlier forms of Rigveda shows para-Munda influence and dravidian influence comes only later. So he argues that the speakers of Punjab are para-Munda and not dravidian.

Following are the reasons why I think Kuiper's theories can be wrong. First of all, it is totally unacceptable to determine the race or ethnicity of people living in Punjab based on the pattern of linguistical influence in Rigveda. It is solely because,

1) we still do not how Aryans have migrated into India. It is possible that they came in contact with Munda speaking people first acquiring their influence first before they came in contact with Indus valley people acquiring dravidian influence later on.

2) Indus valley civilisation was quite sophisticated. It may just be that the Aryans could not integrate with the Harappans during the early part of migration.

We simply dont know how the migration pattern happened and with which people Aryans first integrated to acquire their influence in their language. Under these circumstances, using the pattern of Proto-mundan and dravidian influence to determine the ethnicity of people living in Punjab is pretty premature. Fanciful theories which has certainly gotten attention of some people. There is a lot of researchers who always like to propose contradictory opinions to gain popular attention and of course to gain the much needed funding for their research.

Going back to the article Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit again, I see that linguist Krishnamurti's great concern which goes like "The main flaw in Witzel's argument is his inability to show a large number of complete, unanalyzed words from Munda borrowed into the first phase of the Ṛgveda. Such an extensive lexical borrowing must precede any effort on the part of the borrowers proceeding to the next stage of isolating prefixes and using them creatively with native stems. It would have been better if he said we did not know the true source of 300 or so early borrowings into the Ṛgveda." If you decide to cite Witzel (1999), I think we need to cite Krishnamurthy's concern as well along to maintain Wikipedia's quality standars.


It is important that I talk about Journals and credibility. Scientific journals are assesed for their quality by a system called impact factor. Journal "Nature" has an impact factor of 26.6, "Science" has an impact factor of 30. Scientific career of a researcher is based on the number of publications they publish and their impact factor. Excellent quality works and scientific breakthroughs get their ways in journals with impact factor above 15. For a person to stay in scientific career, one would need to publish in journals with impact factor at least more than 10. Most of the Indian journals are not great quality journals having their impact factor in fractions less than 1. I dont know how great the journal Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com_/ where Witzel has published his article which you are using as a reference for such an important article as this one. When one thinks about using an article for reference, it is important to make sure that the publisher of the Journal or book is noteworthy as well.

Finally, I am just curious to know if you are the one who included this sentence in this article. If it was you, the burden rests upon you to convince the editorial community about the validity and reliability.

While I wouldnt mind trying to understand stuffs on my own, I think it is sensible to explain what one person is talking about if the other person does not understand. That is the way the publishing world works. We just can not talk about what we dont know. You have to know what you are talking about and you need to have the patience and time to explain your ideas to others to get its way in Wikipedia. vcpk (talk) 17:19, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Krishnamurti's criticism is completely off the mark. Kuiper's list, emended more than once, amounts to some 300 odd words, only some of which are hypothesized to be derived from Proto-Munda (or Para-Munda, as Witzel prefers.) Asking for a "large number" was, quite safely, asking for the moon as a precondition for any progress in the area. It also seems that Krishnamurti was not familiar with Witzel(2000) (also referenced in Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit, the intricate detail of which I would recommend that you go through at least once), but this may not be surprising, as for some strange reason books on conferences often take a long time to publication. We could thrown in a reference to Masica(1979) too, but seriously, we aren't writing an academic paper here where every sentence has to bristle with footnotes. We're writing an encyclopedia. The problem is erstwhile contributors coming around with axes to grind. rudra (talk) 21:58, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Some links on logosyllabic systems: Logosyllabary can get you started. This Encarta article might be useful too. Then try this, also from EJVS(11-2). If you have a subscription to AAAS, you can read a writeup of this here. rudra (talk) 22:15, 28 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks rudra for your help. vcpk (talk) 15:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

first of all, this is completely offtopic to this article. If you want to discuss our coverage of substratum in Vedic, go to Talk:Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit. Secondly, we are simply saying Munda has been proposed, among other suggestions. We are not saying Witzel is right (or wrong), quite besides the fact that Witzel himself is completely aware that his suggestion is speculative. Sure, we can cite Krishnamurti too, no problem. At the substratum article, that is, not here. Vcpkumar, you appear to compleltely misunderstand the purpose of Wikipedia talkpages. Nobody here needs "the patience and time to explain your ideas to others " for the simple reason that nobody here submits their own ideas, per WP:NOR. We refer to academically published opinions. If you want to know the gory details, go and read the paper. If you lack the required background to understand it, go and find an introductory textbook and try to cope. Wikipedia isn't some sort of virtual campus where we hold free tutorials for anyone who wishes to chime in (well, in effect, it actually is, all too often. But that's because some people know how to pester other people into jumping through hoops even if they didn't have too). dab (𒁳) 14:48, 29 December 2007 (UTC)


well, Dab, you have removed the (unreliable reference tag) in Historical context. you also wouldnt also allow Krishnamurti's opinion to be included in the same page. Well, i agree it is there in the other article. But what about people who just read this artcle and dont have the time to read the other ones. Wouldnt it lead them to develop an opinion without knowing all facts. I guess it is misleading. People who read about Witzel's opinion also should know that his opinions are contested. Otherwise, i feel it is misleading the readors and I guess it is not in the interests of Wikipedia. It may just help to add a small sentence which can be framed like "Alternatively, Proto-Munda, Proto-Indo-Iranian or a "lost phylum" are sometimes suggested for the language of the IVC by Witzel and contested by Krishnamurty. vcpk (talk) 15:24, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

Historic context: Reliability of Witzel's Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies

http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ is an unreliable source of information. The website's claims about itself might be considered suspect even if such information could be found, but that information is not available. The "About the journal" link is broken, and no credible information is provided that would let us know (1) who is behind the journal's publication, (2) what funding sources they benefit from, (3) what, if any, biases they may or may not have, (4) why the journal is being published. For all I know, it's a joke web site. The references to the website should be removed from this article as well as any statements that rely on them. If the Proto-Munda or Proto-Indo-Iranian hypotheses are noteworthy, they can be found in other, reliable sources.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 15:52, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. If we start writing encyclopedia artciles based on people's opinions from just any website, newspapers or unreliable journals and books, anybody can write about anything in here which would set a bad example. In my opinion, articles published only in reliable peer-reviewed journals and books should be included. Therefore all informations referenced to http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ in this artcle and also in other articles including Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit qualify for deletion or should be referenced to other reliable works. vcpk (talk) 16:56, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Either you haven't perused the tables of contents of the various issues, or you haven't the foggiest notion who any of the authors are and don't care two bits anyway. It's comfortable and convenient, in fact, to operate from a position of complete ignorance and infer unreliability from your expectation that academics in Indological fields should demonstrate professional webmastering skills. A whois search would show that laurasianacademy.com is registered to Witzel. Never heard of him? Then why are you in this discussion? Placing the cursor on the links below each member of the editorial board will reveal munged email addresses in the status bar of your browser. Maybe you could do the world a favor and inform these worthies that their names have been suborned for a "joke site". Don't you think they would be grateful too? rudra (talk) 02:08, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
BTW, this cipher, Michael Witzel, whom the class of worthy Wikipedians don't need to know from Adam, had the audacity a while back to submit this vita to a Columbia Univ database, and worse, had the chutzpah to mention his joke site, can you believe that? Never mind that the recent move from shore.net was with less than graceful results, what can you say, Mumia-w-18, about the temerity of a Harvard professor to carry a joke site for 12 years? Aren't you outraged? rudra (talk) 03:51, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I admit I don't have the skills to judge that content, so I'm out of the argument.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 16:30, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, I understand Witzel is the Editor-in-Chief of Electronic Journal of vedic studies. In other words, Witzel publishes an artcle in a Journal where he also has the authority to decide which article to publish and then we use the same article to write a wikipedia article. Well, I let others to decide how reliable or authentic such an article would be?? Well, I have a question for Rudra. What is the impact factor of Electronic Journal of vedic studies and how do you compare those journals to the other well reputed journals like nature(http://www.nature.com) and Science (http://www.sciencemag.org). vcpk (talk) 13:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I usually don't waste time comparing apples with oranges. I may reconsider my stance if you could tell me how likely am I to find articles on aspects of ancient Indian history in Nature or Science; or alternately, why Nature or Science should be my first ports of call were I looking for articles of that kind. rudra (talk) 20:06, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Witzel's self-published article as a reference

Well, "nature" and "electronic journal of vedic studies" may not be publishing the same kind of articles. But it can be compared in terms of quality. I guess electronic Journal of Vedic studies can be compared to some nameless Indian journals. i have a question for you Rudra? Do you agree Witzel is the editor-in-Chief of the journal "Electronic Joural of Vedic studies"?? Well, you have to!!!! If you do, Can Witzel's article pulished in his Journal be considered self-pulished. vcpk (talk) 13:38, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Did you just discover WP:SPS, after this edit summary, this reference and this elaboration? Congratulations! And now, maybe you should try to catch up on the subject. rudra (talk) 01:04, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for finally appreciating my comments. I, however, notice that you havent answered my question. You just need to answer yes or no! Whether Witzel's article in Witzel's journal can be considered self-published or not? I would, however, understand if you choose not to answer. vcpk (talk) 09:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Being a researcher myself for a long time and knowing how researching and publishing work, I thought I share some of my opionions which are probably not familiar with people who dont take research as a profession. It is not uncommon among ambitious researchers to start their own Journal. Starting their own Journal and convincing some big scientists in their area of research to be editors has become quite common in recent years since maintaining electronic Journals without the print editions turns out to be cheaper. It is also not uncommon for authors to publish their own work which they find difficult to get accepted in other reliable Journals. vcpk (talk) 13:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)




In any case, I am going to add a small extra sentence which would mean that witzel's opinion is contested by Krishnamurti. I hope it will not get deleted as soon as I add it.vcpk (talk) 08:25, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

did you even read the text? We present a list of mutually conflicting hypotheses. Of course anyone proposing one hypothesis will be critical of the others. You are not making sense. There is a main article for this question, and this discussion is patently offtopic here. dab (𒁳) 14:58, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I find Mr. dab and Mr.Rudra's conversing skills with other editors very insulting. I find how Mr.Rudra and Mr.Dab converse with other editors very unpleasant. well, I am new to wikipedia and was certainly shocked by how things work here. well, I had a chance to read about Rudra and Dab in other pages and I am not surprised. I have a feeling that they work together, I may be wrong. vcpk (talk) 08:26, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

well, sir, we have been polite with you. It is hardly my or rudra's fault that you have presented nothing of substance. You may be interested in learning that Wikipedia is not a social networking site. If you have something to contribute, you are certainly welcome to do so. So far, you have pointed out that a reference given was slightly misplaced. We have fixed it. Thank you for drawing attention to it. Now, if you have another point to make, feel free to make it, but you cannot expect that people are willing to enter a wordy debate on nothing in particular and your personal mood. See also WP:TALK. If you're going to make further contributions to this page, do make sure they are actually pertinent to the topic of the Indus Valley Civilization. If you want to discuss Witzel, go to Talk:Michael Witzel. If you want to discuss criticism of the various identifications of the substratum language, go to Talk:Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit. In general, try to pull your own weight, and find the relevant page for your comments on your own. You will find that not everyone on Wikipedia will be prepared to take you by the hand and gently direct you to the appropriate place as I just have done after you bitch at them. Rudra and I work together in building an encyclopedia. You are free to join us. If you choose not to, at least try to avoid making our job more difficult than necessary. dab (𒁳) 14:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Thank you for one more insulting remarks Dab. Well, I have been trying to argue Witzel's article published in his own Journal "Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies" is not a suitable reference. So, anything which is related this article should be either removed or referenced to another reliale source. I have used several points to argue this over the last couple of days. Please read them again and answer to me point by point instead of just dismissing me outright.vcpk (talk) 16:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
You are raising an issue that has already been covered in WP:SPS. A bibliography of Witzel's work is available on his personal pages at Harvard. Do you doubt that he is "an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications"? Yes, Mumia-w-18's point echoing WP:SPS about other sources is valid, but we don't live in a perfect world, where up-to-date publications of that sort can always be found. In fact, probably the best summary survey of recent work is in the Farmer-Sproat-Witzel article, but since you're of a mind to dismiss that as "unreliable" too, I don't think there's much scope for discussion here. rudra (talk) 20:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I am contesting a sentence written in this article which is the last sentence "Alternatively, Proto-Munda, Proto-Indo-Iranian or a "lost phylum" are sometimes suggested for the language of the IVC (see Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit)[7" in Historical context just to remind you again. This is referenced to Witzel and so talking about him as well is relevant to this article. I will certainly come back to Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit once the issue here is resolved. I dont know whether you dont understand my points or you dont want to understand. In either case, we would need a mediator and I have requested one. So, pls cool down. vcpk (talk) 16:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

I hope you (Dab) wouldnt delete my talk pages like you did with my last talk. vcpk (talk) 16:24, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

the article says, Munda has been suggested, among other things, not that the suggestion is truth. I don't see how you can contest that. We don't even mention Munda first. We have shoved in your face a reference that a well-known specialist of Vedic Sanskrit, Michael Witzel of Harvard, has made a suggestion. Now what about this is "unreliable"? Anyway, you have been told how things work. If you really have an academic background, this shouldn't be so difficult for you. You don't see me spamming the Talk:Cancer page with huffy challenges that betray my complete lack of background, do you. dab (𒁳) 16:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Dab, I agree with you. It clearly says, "suggested". I have no problem with that. I can understand that it may never happen that we will be able to prove anything conclusively what happened 1000s of years ago. My only suggestion is to add that Witzel's suggestion was also questioned by Krishnamurti. Just a few words to balance the opinion.... I Hope I make my question clear. vcpk (talk) 13:55, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
Having a cancer background does not exclude me from questioning what is right or wrong. I will do so till I have my questions answered. vcpk (talk) 16:39, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
Or until an agenda[11] is served? rudra (talk) 20:37, 30 December 2007 (UTC)
I think we are done here, then. vcpk, I suggest you address your further questions to the good people at WP:RD, which is where questions are asked and answered on Wikipedia. dab (𒁳) 21:35, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, Mr.Rudra? I dont have any agenda. I have just been trying to balance the proto-Munda and proto-Indo-Iranian agenda of yours. It is not a fair world. Power in the wrong hands. vcpk (talk) 22:54, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

this is a subject expert publishing in a scholarly publication (see, for instance, [12][13]) Doldrums (talk) 05:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

EJVS has an ISSN and a FRIDA rating of Scholarly. It has published articles by experts in the field (Staal and Thompson, to name just two off the top of my head). Its papers are cited in other scholarly work. But, yes, the website as a website stinks. As for Witzel's paper, even if for the sake of argument we take it as an instance of self-published work, the fact remains that Witzel is a multiply-published expert and the paper's subject is in his field of expertise. It meets WP:SPS easily. This whole discussion is just yet another case of POV-pushing devolving into filibustering for a WP:POINT. (And I'll grant that WP:BITE could apply, so, for the record, Vcpkumar has my apologies.) rudra (talk) 06:46, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Vcpkumar has been fully answered. This isn't the appropriate page for this debate. Nobody is "pushing" Witzel's view, it is simply listed alongside the other possibilities. I might add that it is refreshing to get some "Dravidist" trolling for a change (for this seems to be what we are looking at), after the interminable boredom of the usual "Aryan" trolling. dab (𒁳) 07:02, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, when it comes to a point where you cant justify your support to a view or explain my questions, you like to start calling me names. Thanks for calling my edits "Dravidian trolling". Dab, Isnt the kind of things you were recently arbitrated for. Rudra, thanks for your apologies to make me look like a novice thus discrediting my edits here.vcpk (talk) 13:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I have read somewhere that people living in small countries are in constant fear of their confident and powerful neighboring countries (I decide not to give examples in view of politeness) thus developing some kind of inferiority complex over time. I never thought these feelings would turn into so much fear so as to call everybody and every view nationalistic. vcpk (talk) 13:16, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Revenge on Dab's arbitration case: Rudra's deletions

My edits to wikipedia stayed for more than two weeks without any problem. Why Rudra suddenly got interested in deleting it. Well, there are always reasosns. I noticed that rudra spent probably one whole day collecting (trying to) evidence in support of Dab (Do you have a job at all??) and I commented on that. In response to my comments on Dab's arbitration case |here. Well, it is one powerless user against two mighty administrators recently arbitrated. vcpk (talk) 13:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Compromise. i am just trying to make it simple. There are two solutions for this issue. 1) remove proto-mundan theory of Witzel. 2) Krishnamurti's opinion added again (what rudra deleted). I still think the 2nd solution is more favourable since it encompasses more opinions and gives the readers more thoughts on this subject. Any solution which is neither of this two would not be unanimous and would just reflect the administraor's powerful position rather than a neutral opinion. vcpk (talk) 14:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

We are here to report the mainstream view, according to which the language of the IVC is still unknown. That means that either it may never be known (the "lost phylum" thesis is related to this) or there are multiple possibilities. We are reporting the possibilities that are being considered in serious academic work, and emphasizing the most promising one as required by our committment to report on mainstream scholarship. Just as an Amazon blurb gave you a most congenial epiphany that some scholar had "solved" the problem in favor of one thesis, so a sound bite from another WP article has now convinced you that another scholar has refuted one of the other theses. He has done no such thing, which you could grasp if you only bothered to read his book and read the paper that he was in fact summarizing with commentary -- could grasp, but will not, because you insist on holding every one hostage to your freely admitted ignorance of the ongoing scholarly work in the field. Please stop and find areas where you can contribute constructively. rudra (talk) 02:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Vcpkumar, I strongly suggest you avoid making this personal. If you argue at the man, not at the issue, you will find yourself banned from Wikipedia sooner than you might think. It appears obvious that you have nothing left to contribute to this question. Unless you find another point you would like to make, I suggest you leave this page alone now. See also WP:TALK. dab (𒁳) 06:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, Dab, rudra and team mates, Dont make it sound like you have addressed any of my concerns. The truth is that you havent addressed any of the concerns i raised relating to Wikipedia guidelines. All you (both you and rudra) have done is dismissing me outright.What is your answer to this reference being disqualified due to several wikipedia guidelines such as WP:SPS, WP:REDFLAG, WP:SELFPUB and WP:Fringe. Why would you want to support a view which is not mainstream and the one which has every reason to be called a fringe theory. Why dont you and rudra (or anybody in your team) give a point to point answer to my questions in stead of outright denying or giving a vague answer. vcpk (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Please answer all the concerns listed down point by point before reverting my edits.vcpk (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
According to WP:SPS, Self published articles can not be used as reference. However, this allows self published article by authors who have a record of publishing in noteworthy journals may still qualify to be published. Since Witzel has a record of publishing in other journals, this may be considered an exception.vcpk (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:SELFPUB lists 7 instances when self-published articles can not be used as a reference. Second one is "when it is contentious". Well, Witzel's Self-published article is contentious and contested by Krishnamurty for its poor research to make those claims (Rudra, please dont tell me that I cant talk about Krishnamurti because I learnt about his claim from another wikipedia article). So, the exception which this article may claim from WP:SPS becomes nullified.vcpk (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:REDFLAG cites exceptional claims need exceptional sources. " # surprising or apparently important claims that are not widely known; # surprising or apparently important reports of historical events not covered by mainstream news media or historiography". So, a self published article which was later contested for its poor research can certainly not be considered an exceptional claim. Can it be, Dab or Rudra (any of your team members)????vcpk (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
WP:Fringe. "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study.[3] Examples include conspiracy theories, ideas which purport to be scientific theories but have not gained scientific consensus, esoteric claims about medicine, novel re-interpretations of history and so forth". This quote from this article titled, "Identifying Fringe theories" clearly identifies this a a fringe theory.

"Articles about fringe theories sourced solely from a single primary source (even when it is peer reviewed) may be excluded from Wikipedia on notability grounds". quoted from the topic "Note about publication" clearly states that Fringe theories published in only one primary source can be excluded on notability grounds.vcpk (talk) 17:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)


I am giving up. I know you guys (rudra, dab and team mates (may be doldrums as well)) will certainly excercise your power to dismiss me outright (Well, Is it that difficult to find one more excuse to keep this fringe theory, when you are not open to an opposing opinion and have made up your mind to keep it no matter what, especially with administrative powers?). If you do, I dont want to ask God to help Wikipedia (since I am an atheist). That was just my final attempt to let everyone who ever happens to read this talk page know, how this artcile takes shape as it is. It is in no way neutral. As of January 2008, Rudra and Dab rule this article.Things will change hopefully in the future. I, unfortunately, cant spend a lot of time here since I have a real job. I will spend my energy making small contributions. Bye Bye. (I hope you will not delete the title of the talk "Revenge on Dab's arbitration case: Rudra's deletions" at least and modify the talk page again)vcpk (talk) 17:28, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Misuse of administrative power- Rudra reverts without explaining. Well, rudra chose to use his administrative power to revert my edit without giving valid explanations to my concerns. This is cleary against the proposed principles voted to accept during the Dab arbitration case. Well, I am just bringing this up so there is a clear record of rudra's administrative power misuse. I am sure this will be useful when there is a case of arbitration against him in the future, if not, atleast straighten up his behaviour with other users. Now, I am sure he will get scared and try to explain to my points as soon as he wakes up in the morning, but i guess it doesnt count anymore. But, it truly is shame there is no one to question him. vcpk (talk) 21:14, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

(well done arbcom, this is what we mean by "troll enabling"). Vcpkumar, rudra reverting you is not abusing any "administrative power" for the simple reason that he does not have any. Now, if you have anything else to say on the topic, do it. Otherwise, if you want to complain, bitch, forum-shop or generally make noise to make up for the fact that you have no case, please do it elsewhere, e.g. at WP:AN. Else, if you are serious about "I am giving up", why do you keep blathering about it? dab (𒁳) 09:37, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Dab for your suggestions. Good to know rudra is not an administrator. Let us rephrase it then "abuse of administrative power backup". I would recommend you read WP:TALK and WP:Civil which will help you improve your language. "bitching" is a curse word not allowed in conversation among civilised people. vcpk (talk) 15:09, 18 January 2008 (UTC)

Ghaggar-Hakra river?

I have read quite a lot of material on the Indus valley civilisation, and from my understanding Indus Valley is mainly spread around the Indus river. And also, it was only the artefacts found in Harappa and Mohenjo daro which made the Indus Valley famous aswell as the architecture of the cities. What exactly is the significance of the sites found near the Ganges which people claim belong to the Indus Valley? And more importantly, why is the Ghaggar-Hakra river being associated with the Indus Valley? A similar time period doesnt relate these civilisations. What makes a site "Indus Valley" is most notably the Harappan architecture and the the artefacts found in Mohenjo daro and Harappa. The current article assumes way too much and has many unsourced claims. Could someone please clear this up for me. Thank you. --Xinjao (talk) 19:50, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Hissar excavation 2008

Have the recent excavations of a harappan grave near hissar in the indian state of haryana made any news? i could not find any news on the net but a few news channels have been flashing this news here in india. They have also mentioned that the skeleton of an eight and a half foot tall woman has been unearthed (they have displayed photographs as well). Anybody heard of it? shouldn't it find a place on the article (if proper citations are found, of course)?Leif edling (talk) 16:29, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

In Hissar itself or in the district, which has several well known sites already (Rakhigarhi, Banawali, Kunal)? At any rate, this is not the article for factoids or curiosa. rudra (talk) 16:46, 27 January 2008 (UTC)
Hissar hasn't made the news. At least google news isn't aware of it. If you point us to some report, we can discuss it, but until we have some sort of source, we have nothing to debate. dab (𒁳) 09:33, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
"Hissar" is a terrible search term, especially for archeological sites! There's one in the Balkans, another in Tajikistan, and Tepe Hissar in Iran, to go along with the district in Haryana. rudra (talk) 13:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
I know. And none of them has made the news recently. dab (𒁳) 14:13, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

What's going on with this article?

This article is a complete mess. It makes sense up to about half way down, then the style changes and the formatting breaks. There is lots of what appears to be speculation about the culture without any references. What's going on? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.194.220.108 (talk) 20:01, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Per the lack of sources, this article is no longer a GA. Blnguyen (vote in the photo straw poll) 07:37, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

Little mention of Hinduism?

There seems to be little mention of Hinduism in this article, but Hinduisms link with the IVC certainly deserves more than the one mention it gets here. KBN (talk) 10:22, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

One word: anachronism. rudra (talk) 18:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, but there are certain features of the IVC present in Hinduism, certain linkages or signs that suggest an early stage of religion Hinduism derives from. I have come across lots of material on it. KBN (talk) 11:17, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If they are in reliable, high-quality, secondary academic sources, please do bring them here for discussion. Relata refero (talk) 18:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Mother Goddess

A couple of edits ago the article suggested that the idea that Mother Goddess worship took place has been doubted. Now it doesn't. Can someone get a recent reference on this? I'm off in a few hours, no time right now, sorry.Doug Weller (talk) 20:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Pashupati is a form of the Hindu God Shiva

The caption showing the Pashupati seal under the Religion section says: "An Indus Valley seal similar to the concept of the Vedic god Rudra Pashupati, the "lord of the animals" "

This is incorrect, and there is a wikipedia article for Pashupati to prove my point. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupati Quote: "Pashupati (Sanskrit: Paśupati), "Lord of cattle", is an epithet of the Hindu deity Shiva."

Secondly I believe using the word "concept" to describe what people believe to be a God is offensive, so I am changing it to something more appropriate for the article.

Please discuss any changes here prior to reverting or making other changes. Thanks 70.53.60.94 (talk) 23:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

Name of article

Just recently, I visited the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai where they had a new exhibit on the Harrapan Civilization. One of the exhibits states that "Indus valley Civilization" was the name used till recently. But,after the discovery of the Saraswati Valley civilization two names were proossed "Ghagar-Hakra" civilization and "Indus-Hakra"(or something like that). And it finally states that the commonly accepted term now is the "Harrapan Civilization" after first site where the civilization was discovered.

Can someone shed some more light on this? And if it is true that "Harrapan Civilization" is the commonly accepted term among historians; then maybe it is better to rename this article to Harrapan Civilization??--Deepak D'Souza (talk • contribs) 11:40, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

22nd century BC drought

Could someone add the 22nd century BC drought to the article? According to Staubwasser et al. (2003), it is likely to "have initiated southeastward habitat tracking within the Harappan cultural domain." —Bender235 (talk) 11:15, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

  1. ^ Charles Keith Maisels (2001). Early Civilizations of the Old World: The Formative Histories of Egypt, the Levant, Mesopotamia. Routledge. p. 186. ISBN [[Special:BookSources/ISBN 0415109752|'"`UNIQ--templatestyles-0000001E-QINU`"'[[ISBN (identifier)|ISBN]]&nbsp;[[Special:BookSources/0415109752 |0415109752]]]]. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: invalid character (help); templatestyles stripmarker in |isbn= at position 1 (help)
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