Wikipedia:Today's featured article/November 22, 2004

Indus Valley Civilisation map

The Indus Valley Civilization (fl. 2800 BCE–1800 BCE) was an ancient civilization that is so named because its first excavated sites, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, were on the Indus river in the northwest of the Indian sub-continent in present day Pakistan. At its height around 2200 BCE, the Indus Civilization covered an area larger than Europe, centered on Mohenjo Daro on the Indus River. The nomenclature Sindhu-Sarasvati Civilization was introduced into Indian textbooks in 2002, as a new designation for the well-known Indus Valley civilization. The addition of "Saraswati," an ancient river central to Hindu myth, is meant to show (or make believe) that Indus Valley civilization was actually part of Vedic civilization. Research which identifies the civilization's location with the Vedic Sarasvati river system mentioned in ancient literature is speculative. (more...)

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