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HISTORY · OPEN COLLECTION

Indus civilisation

Long-lived villages, specialised crafts and planned settlements gradually became connected. These developments preceded the shared standards and urban networks of the Mature Harappan period.

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Indus civilisation

Before you begin · Indus

From Villages to Cities of the Indus

The great Harappan cities arose from millennia of agriculture, craftsmanship and contacts between very different regions.

  1. 7th millennium BCE

    Mehrgarh

    Adobe, cereals and livestock document a long history of food production.

  2. c. 3300–2600 BCE

    Regional Centres

    Rehman Dheri and early Harappa show planning, crafts and contacts prior to urban integration.

  3. c. 2600–1900 BCE

    The Harappan World

    An extensive network connects large cities and rural communities with shared material practices.

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Prehistoric origins

In Mehrgarh, near the Bolan Pass, archaeology documents from the 7th millennium BCE adobe buildings and an economy linked to cereals and livestock. The settlement shifted several times within its environment. Its successive occupations show that learning to produce food and transform materials was a long process, preceding the cities of the Indus Valley.

The earliest cultures

During the following millennia, regional traditions developed with their own workshops and networks. At Rehman Dheri, occupied from approximately 3300 BCE, an enclosure and organised streets reveal early planning. At Harappa, the Ravi and Kot Diji phases show changes in settlement size, object manufacture and the use of signs. These centres were not identical copies of a single capital.

How this history is formed

Between approximately 2600 and 1900 BCE, cities, towns and villages participated in a much more integrated network. Seals, forms of measurement and shared craft techniques helped coordinate exchanges. Harappa and Mohenjo-daro belonged to that urban world, whose political organisation we still investigate. Their material similarity allows recognising relationships; it is not enough to reconstruct an empire or name its rulers.

From the past to the museum you are about to explore

The seals, vessels and everyday objects in the museum help recognise that coordination between distant places.

Interpreting these traces. Indus script remains without an accepted decipherment; we cannot securely attribute names or languages to its inhabitants.

Sources for further exploration
Explore the earliest cultures

Indus / Harappa

c. 2600 BCE · antecedents from c. 3300 · SOUTH ASIA

Access to the museum brings together the atlas and the background of Indo. Then, seven areas organise the historical context, culture, architecture, figures and society, treasures and equipment, beliefs and curiosities, and three historical doors to other museums. Each file preserves narrative layers, cautions and differentiated sources.

The room combines a specific visual catalog with an audited thematic dossier. Separates facts, interpretations and cautions; the 3D volumes continue to be replaceable markers until models with provenance and license are incorporated.

Bolan Pass, Indus plains and northwest of present-day Pakistan and India

Long-lasting villages, specialised crafts and planned settlements gradually connected to make possible the standardisation of the mature Harappan period.

Mehrgarh and Rehman Dheri were not mature Harappan cities nor links in a single chain; the process brought together several regional trajectories.

Read the background and its sources →

EXPLORE THE COLLECTION

The museum, section by section

Follow the museum’s curated order or go straight to a section. Every record includes its full public documentation and sources.

01 · COLLECTION

Museum Access

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Consult the maps and initial context sheets to situate this museum in time and territory; then choose the areas that interest you most.

02 · COLLECTION

Origins and context

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The first stop reconstructs the area before Indo; then, places and processes allow entering its history without reducing it to a start date or an inevitable destiny.

03 · COLLECTION

Culture, music and words

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These stops distinguish instruments, ritual actions, orality or writing and visual culture. Where there is no theatre, score or certain meaning, the museum preserves the limit.

04 · COLLECTION

Architecture and places

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These architectures explain how materials, water, work and memory organized the territory without converting an elevation reconstruction into certainty.

05 · COLLECTION

People and their stories

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Known people, reconstructed voices and collective footprints. From oldest to most recent according to life, reign or scene. The periods may overlap; The voices without a determinable date close the journey.

06 · COLLECTION

Treasures and evidence

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Concrete pieces to understand materials, decisions and knowledge systems, with separate evidence and interpretation.

07 · COLLECTION

Beliefs and curiosities

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These cards separate what is documented from what is interpreted and recover practices, questions and details capable of changing our image of this culture.

08 · COLLECTION

Connected cultures

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Each door explains why the link exists, when it occurred, and what limits prevent contact from being converted into shared identity.

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books

La ciudad de los signos callados

Discover the connected fiction project. The available Prehistory reader is in Spanish; other volumes are not presented as finished products for sale.

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Play through history

Try the available Prehistory browser alpha. Campaigns for the other cultures are still in development.

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Visit the real places

Use each record’s institution and heritage links to continue your research. Country-by-country historical travel guides are planned, not yet published.

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Objects with a story

Discover artistic designs inspired by the collections and check each product’s availability. Museum access remains free.

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