Public architecture organises urban life
Mohenjo-daro’s Great Bath and the carefully graded streets of several Harappan cities show that civic planning extended beyond individual houses. Their exact political meaning remains unknown because no royal archive has been deciphered.
Baked-brick drains, wells and bathing spaces were maintained at neighbourhood scale. Archaeologists can describe this material coordination, but the evidence does not reveal whether a king, council, priesthood or another institution directed it.
Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica: Indus civilization
Weights, seals and workshops make exchange portable
Standardised stone weights recur across distant settlements, while seals and specialised workshops point to organised production and exchange. Similarity did not erase local variation: cities used shared systems in distinct ways.
Carnelian beads, shell objects, copper goods and pottery travelled through overlapping inland and maritime networks. Mesopotamian records referring to Meluhha are commonly connected with the Indus world, though the exact geography of that name is debated.
Source: Met Museum: Trade and the Indus civilization