Indus Valley Civilization

Ruins of Mohenjo-daro on the Indus River in Pakistan, the first South Asian UNESCO World Heritage Site; the Great Bath is in the foreground. Miniature votive images or toys from Harappa, c. 2500 BCE, clay figurines of zebu oxen, a cart, and a chicken.

The Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC), also known as the Indus Civilisation, was a Bronze Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of the three early civilisations of the Near East and South Asia. Of the three, it was the most widespread: it spanning much of Pakistan, northwestern India, and northeast Afghanistan. The civilisation flourished in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once flowed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.