Ornaments, Beads, and Key Archaeological Sites

What people wear on their bodies often says more about a civilisation than what they build. The jewellery, beads, and cosmetics recovered from Indus Valley sites reveal a society with wide-ranging trade networks, well-organised craft industries, and a keen interest in personal appearance. And the sites themselves, each with its own set of unique discoveries, help us piece together the full picture of how this civilisation lived, traded, worshipped, and buried its dead.

Adorning the Body: Jewellery Across the Indus Valley

Personal adornment in the Indus Valley was not reserved for the wealthy or for women alone. Archaeological finds confirm that both men and women wore ornaments, making jewellery a shared cultural practice rather than a gendered one.

Large hoards of jewellery (collections of ornaments stored or buried together) have been found at Mohenjo-Daro and Lothal. The range of items in these hoards gives us a good sense of what the well-dressed Harappan wore:

• Necklaces — Strung together from gold and semi-precious stones, these show access to materials sourced from distant regions
• Bracelets — Made from copper, often accompanied by matching beads
• Earrings and head ornaments — Crafted in gold, pointing to a love of decorating the face and hair

One discovery stands out for what it tells us about beliefs around death. At Farmana in Haryana, archaeologists uncovered a cemetery where dead bodies had been buried along with their ornaments. The Harappan people valued their jewellery enough to send it into the grave with the deceased, possibly reflecting a belief that the dead would carry their adornments into the next world.

A Thriving Craft: The Bead-Making Industry

Beads may seem like a small detail, but the Indus Valley turned them into a full-scale industry. The evidence is clear: bead-making factories have been discovered at Chanhudaro and Lothal, telling us that production was organised and commercial, not just a household hobby.

The variety of raw materials used for beads is remarkable. Harappan bead-makers worked with an impressive palette of semi-precious stones:

• Carnelian (a reddish-brown stone)
• Amethyst (purple quartz)
• Jasper (an opaque stone in various colours)
• Crystal and quartz (clear or translucent stones)
• Steatite (the same soft soapstone used for seals and the Bearded Man bust)
• Turquoise (a blue-green mineral)
• Lapis lazuli (a deep blue stone, often imported from as far as present-day Afghanistan)

This range of materials suggests that the Indus Valley people had access to resources from a wide geographical area, either through direct mining or long-distance trade.

Tiny Animal Sculptures as Functional Art

Among the most charming craft items from the civilisation are brilliantly naturalistic models of animals, especially monkeys and squirrels. These tiny carvings captured the natural posture and appearance of the animals with surprising accuracy. They were not just decorative objects: they served a practical function as pin-heads and beads, blending artistry with everyday usefulness.

Threads and Colours: Textiles and Cosmetics

The personal culture of the Indus Valley went beyond jewellery. Two other categories of evidence fill out the picture of daily life.

Spinning Cotton and Wool

A large number of spindles and spindle whorls (small disc-shaped weights fitted onto a spindle to help it spin steadily) have been found at Indus Valley sites. This tells us that spinning cotton and wool was a very common activity. The Harappan people were producing their own textiles, and the volume of spinning equipment suggests it was a widespread household practice. A piece of woven cloth discovered at Mohenjo-Daro provides direct physical evidence of the finished product.

Cosmetics and Personal Grooming

The Indus Valley people paid attention to how they looked. Cinnabar (a bright red mineral pigment) was used as a cosmetic and face-paint, giving the wearer a striking red appearance. Beyond cinnabar, they also knew and used:

• Lipstick — Applied to the lips for colour
• Collyrium (a preparation applied to the eyes, working much like modern eyeliner)

This evidence places the Indus Valley among the earliest civilisations known to have developed a culture of cosmetics and personal grooming.

Three Cities, Three Stories: The Major IVC Sites

Each major Indus Valley site has yielded its own set of distinctive finds. Understanding which discovery belongs to which site is essential to building a complete picture of the civilisation. Here are the three most important sites and what makes each one unique.

Harappa: Where It All Began

Harappa sits on the bank of the river Ravi in Punjab, Pakistan. It holds a special place in history as the first Indus Valley town to be excavated, which is why the entire civilisation is often called the Harappan culture.

The citadel (the raised, fortified part of the city) contained six granaries for storing grain. The houses followed a distinctive rule: the entrance was always placed away from the main street, giving residents privacy from the road.

Key discoveries at Harappa:

• Cemeteries — Two significant burial sites labelled R-37 and H
• Coffin burial — One of the burial practices found here
• Pottery and figurines — Painted pottery and clay figures of the Mother Goddess
• Agricultural evidence — Wheat and barley found stored in a wooden mortar
• Metal and craft tools — Copper scale, crucible for making bronze, copper mirror
• Personal and ritual items — Vanity box, dice, Virgin-Goddess seal
• Transport — Bullock carts
• Religious evidence — Signs of phallus worship
• Granary location — Notably, the granary at Harappa is outside the fort, unlike at Mohenjo-Daro

Mohenjo-Daro: The Mount of the Dead

Mohenjo-Daro stands on the bank of the river Indus in the Larkana district of Punjab, Pakistan. Its name literally means “Mount of the Dead”. The burial practice found here was post-cremation burial, where remains were interred after the body had been burned.

What sets Mohenjo-Daro apart is the sheer concentration of seals found here: 1398 seals, which account for roughly 56% of all the seals discovered across the entire civilisation. This massive number suggests the city was a major hub of trade and administration.

Key discoveries at Mohenjo-Daro:

• The Great Bath — The largest and most famous bathing structure of the civilisation
• The Great Granary — The largest building found at Mohenjo-Daro, used for grain storage
• Assembly hall — A large public gathering space
• Iconic sculptures — The Bronze Dancing Girl and the Bearded Man bust
• Seals — The Pashupathi seal, the Bull seal, and the Painted seal (depicting a demi-god figure)
• Foreign trade evidence — Three cylindrical seals of the Mesopotamian type, pointing to direct contact with Mesopotamia
• Textile evidence — A piece of woven cloth
• Toys and craft objects — Terracotta toys

Lothal: The Port City on the Gulf

Lothal is located in Gujarat on the Bhogva river, near the Gulf of Cambay. It is the only known port-town of the Indus Valley Civilisation, and it earned the nickname “Manchester of IVC” for its industrial character.

The port featured a sluice gate (a gate that controls the flow of water) and a channel designed to maintain regular water levels in the dockyard. This engineering achievement allowed ships to be loaded and unloaded regardless of tidal changes.

Lothal breaks one important rule that every other major Indus Valley site follows: here, houses had their doors facing the road. At all other sites, doorways were placed away from the main street.

Key discoveries at Lothal:

• Industrial facilities — Bead-making factory and metal-workers’ shops
• The dockyard — The only one found anywhere in the civilisation
• Unique seal type — A button seal, different from the standard square seals
• Religious evidence — Fire altars
• Decorative pottery — A painted jar depicting a bird and a fox
• Agricultural evidence — Rice husk, suggesting rice cultivation in the region
• Burial practice — Double burial, where a man and a woman were placed together in a single grave
• Transport — A terracotta model of a ship, reflecting the port city’s maritime connections
• Foreign trade evidence — Persian and Iranian seals, a Bahraini seal, and measuring scales

The presence of foreign seals at Lothal, combined with its dockyard, confirms that this city was a gateway for maritime trade linking the Indus Valley to the Persian Gulf and beyond.