Good morning, I am going to pull a documentary off a channel I never do. The Channel is called Free Documentary and from the looks of it, the channel is legitimate from what I can tell. This documentary is about a civilization I remember learning about in the sixth grade in at the Indus River. So this fits in with the Ancient World documentaries that you can start planning with for the next school year. The run time for this documentary is 45:44 and is part of the Ancient Civilizations Uncovered series. This is the first episode of the series and is called Lost Ancient Trading City: Indus Valley Civilization.
India was home to one of the earliest civilizations on Earth. It was considered one of the greatest ancient civilizations. The people in the Indus River Valley traded and had an advanced economy. They flourished in the river valley and had extensive trade networks. Its discovery shocked the world because nobody heard of an ancient civilization in India. However, the discovery of Harappa changed all that. In 1910, the British were building a train station with old bricks. They discovered evidence of a great civilization in the Indus Valley. The city was called Harappa and it boasted extensive canals. In 1924, John Marshall, the British archeologist announced to the world that the Harappa civilization was as old as the Egyptian Civilization. This shocked the world. Nobody knew that there was a civilization as old as the pyramids in India. What John Marshall and his team discovered about Harappa surprised the world. There stone beaded necklaces, pottery, games, toys, alphabet, and a miniature ox-pulled cart were discovered. About 200,000 people lived in Harappa. Their handicrafts were stored in warehouses and were transported by boat. Children played with toys made from clay. There was a maze game and marbles discovered on the site. The men farmed or worked in the market and the women worked in the home. The Indus River flows down from the mountains and into the Arabian Sea. The flow was twice the amount of the Nile River and still serves the people of India today. It was the mother river and farmers could grow to produce well along it. Watermelons and cucumbers thrive along the river. Fish are plentiful and there is plenty of fishermen. During Ancient Times, the farmers would have produced a surplus that would have been used for trading. The Indus River was also used as a transportation network. The people built flat-bottom boats to help facilitate trade. Besides excavations at Harappa, excavations took place at Mohenjo-Daro and Dholavira. Mohenjo-Daro is one of the largest cities discovered in the Indus River Valley. The streets were wide enough for carts and could hold a population of 200,000 people. Excavations began in 1922 and what they discovered surprised the world. The streets were perfectly straight and easy to go through. It was a very well-planned city. The alleys were evenly spaced as well. In the area of the Indus Valley, there was a very distinct wet and dry season. The people worshiped the water. There were public bathhouses where people would bathe. The baths had drained and so the water could be drained without any additional work. Water was a gift from the gods, and after their bath, they would walk to the temple. Even today, modern people continue the traditions of the Indus River people. There is a good discussion on brickmaking and the brickmakers use the same techniques that were used in the past. To learn more about the Indus River Civilization continue to watch this documentary. Finally, I had been looking for a documentary about the Indus River Valley civilization and I found a worthy documentary to share. I feel like when it comes to the ancient world, there is a heavy focus on Ancient Egypt and this is a good break from those documentaries. This was a very well-done documentary and is an excellent overview of the Indus Valley people. The narration was good and had an even pace. This documentary makes me curious to see if there have been any new discoveries about the Indus River people. This documentary goes to the top of my list of potential documentaries to show to a history classroom.
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The purpose of this blog is to share information on what can be used in a classroom, private school, or home school setting as well as serve as a portfolio of my personal and professional work. The reviews are my opinions and should be treated as such. I just want to provide a tool for teachers to select documentaries for their classrooms. |