Describe the layout of harappan city
An Indus city was made of mud-brick buildings. It had walls and roads. Water was very important to Indus people, so the builders started by diggingwells, and layingdrains. Main streets were up to 10 metres wide, wide enough for carts to pass. Side streets were narrow, more like alleys.
Some cities had acitadelhigh on a mound. In the citadel were bigger buildings. Perhaps the city's rulers lived there. Most people lived and worked in the lower part of town.
Most Indus people did not live in cities at all. Perhaps 9 out of 10 people were farmers and traders who lived in small villages.
Indus Valley cities were neatly planned. They had straight roads making a grid pattern, dividing the city into blocks. Main streets were almost 10 metres wide, so two bullock carts could pass by each other. Drains were laid along the streets and wells were dug for water.
Mohenjo-Daro stood on a mound and had a wall with gateways to go in and out. Some city districts inside were raised on mounds too. On the highest mound was a citadel, which was perhaps where priests and rulers lived.
People built new houses on top of old ones, as the mud-bricks crumbled. So, over hundreds of years the cities grew higher. In time some new houses were seven metres above the level of the old houses at the bottom!The Great Bath in the city of Mohenjo-Daro looks like a swimming pool. It was over 14 metres long and seven metres wide. It had a brick-paved courtyard and columns on three sides.
Water (probably from a well) filled the Bath to about 2.4 metres deep (a tall man is about 1.8 metres). Two sets of steps led down to the bottom. Water drained out through one corner into a drain. Tar and gypsum mortar between the bricks made sure no water leaked out.
Water was very important to the Indus Valley people. The Great Bath may have been a temple, where priests and rulers bathed in religious ceremonies.