Indus Civilization

Dead Funny History: Indus Civilization. Join historian Greg Jenner for a snappy, silly and seriously fascinating journey into the Indus Civilisation - one of the world’s earliest urban societies, and one that deserves way more hype. This episode of Dead Funny History is packed with jokes, facts and sound effects that bring ancient history to life for families and Key Stage 2 kids. From Minecraft-worthy city planning and elephant-wide streets to private indoor toilets and artisan craft markets, the Indus people were ahead of their time. They built over 1,400 towns and cities across what is now Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, all connected by shared writing, pottery and beads. But despite leaving behind thousands of texts, we still can’t read their script. Greg explores the mystery of their faceless society, the unicorn obsession, and their surprisingly bougie diet of beef, mango and turmeric. There’s also a deep dive into their plumbing prowess, some historians say their sanitation systems weren’t matched until Victorian Britain. Expect musical numbers, sketch comedy, and a quiz to test what you’ve learned. It’s history with heart, humour and high production value. Perfect for curious kids, families, and fans of You’re Dead To Me. Written by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch, Athena Kugblenu and Dr Emma Nagouse Host: Greg Jenner Performers: Mali Ann Rees and John-Luke Roberts Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse Associate Producer: Gabby Hutchinson Crouch Audio Producer: Emma Weatherill Script Consultant: Dr Danika Parikh Production Coordinator: Liz Tuohy Production Manager: Jo Kyle Sound Designer: Peregrine Andrews A BBC Studios Production

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.

• 0:06Speaker 01

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 0:34Speaker 02

  Hey, I'm Niall Rogers. This fall, I'll be driving across the country, meeting some of today's coolest and most fascinating artists. We'll explore the stories before the moments that changed everything. Because every musician remembers the moment where it all began. Experience Before the Moment, a Lincoln original series on the iHeart Radio app, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:10Greg Jenner?

  Hello and welcome to Dead Funny History. I'm Greg Jenner. I'm a historian and I want to tell you about something really cool. The ancient Indus civilization, a fascinating society that doesn't get the hype it deserves. They're the Bastille of ancient societies.

• 1:26Greg Jenner?

  The Indus civilization existed between 4,700 and 4,000 years ago in what is now modern Pakistan and India, and with another known site also in Afghanistan. It was one of the world's first known urban civilizations, which means they had city planning, drainage systems, and all sorts of clever stuff. The Indus people would be amazing at Minecraft. Some people refer to the Indus Civilization as a faceless society, because it's really hard for archaeologists to find or identify individual people, like we can with Egyptian pharaohs or Roman emperors. And even though they left behind lots of writing, we still haven't been able to translate or decode any of it.

• 2:11Greg Jenner?

  Why couldn't they leave behind a Duolingo or something?

• 2:14Speaker 04

  Do you have five minutes for a quick Indus script lesson? Hoo hoo! But there's over 4,000 surviving pieces of text! We have no idea what any of them say! Fine, say goodbye to your streak sucker! Hoo hoo! To it, to!

• 2:32Greg Jenner?

  But the Indus Civilization did leave behind lots of other stuff, from which we can learn that, like Bastille, they deserved to be celebrated.

• 2:42Greg Jenner?

  Across the Indus Civilization, we found over 1,400 towns and cities. Even though they were hundreds of kilometres apart, the people who lived in them clearly used similar things, like pottery, beads, figurines, and a shared form of writing. It connected them, just like how in our society, everywhere has a café Nero. There were some really big cities, like Harappa and Mahendradharo, where thousands of people lived. These ancient cities were very sophisticated.

• 3:12Speaker 05

  Welcome back to a place in another civilisation. Bronze Age Dave is with me in the absolutely luscious Indus City, Harappa! And we're looking at properties in the 300-clay sheep range. First up, we have this stunning and modern two-storey property made of solid-baked bricks, a lovely little courtyard, private bathroom. Transportation to the nearest town is nearby and await until you see this: the granary. We called it that even though we don't know what it's for,

• 3:57Speaker 05

  but it is within walking distance. And you know you're in an Indus City, as the whole place is built on a huge platform of mud brick.

• 4:09Greg Jenner?

  They were amazing urban planners way before the first Roman emperor was even born. And their main streets were almost ten metres wide, enough for elephants to pass each other.

• 4:20Speaker 04

  Oi, did you learn how to drive an elephant yesterday? It was a test to indicate.

• 4:27Greg Jenner?

  And their streets used a grid system, much like a Bronze Age New York. Harapa harapa, it's a hell of a town. We've also found remains of smaller country towns. You may assume that the country bumpkins were all about farming. Who are? Yes, agriculture was important, but archaeologists have also found fancy goods like beads, ornaments and bangles, sometimes with semi-precious stones or gold imported from hundreds of miles away, like what you'd find at an artisan craft market.

• 4:58Speaker 06

  Welcome to the Indus Valley Rural Goods Fair. Feel free to peruse our handmade beads and jewellery. We've got little terracotta nudie men, little terracotta nudie women, little terracotta nudie people who are neither. We accept a surprisingly wide range of contemporary Asian currencies. Sadly, there is no overpriced coffee stand, as it hasn't been invented yet. For that, please try 15th century Yemen.

• 5:22Greg Jenner?

  But one of the most impressive things about the Indus towns was...

• 5:27Greg Jenner?

  Sanitation! Drains connected up to most buildings, meaning many people could use toilets in their homes, sending the waste down the drains and far from where they lived. They didn't just have plumbing, they had individual toilets for ordinary homes.

• 5:44Speaker 04

  Are you tired of this happening? Oh, hello. Looks like you're trying to do a poo. Go away. Just being friendly. Surely there must be a better way? There is. Here in the Indus civilisation, we've invented the private poo.

• 6:04Speaker 04

  Wow! Poo in the privacy of your own home. Perfect for midnight poos, emergency poos, sharp poos, slow poos, and people who just don't want to get their bum out in front of half the town. Private poos, the sweetest relief in solitude.

• 6:28Greg Jenner?

  You'd probably have had a more pleasant poop in Bronze Age Pakistan than at Glasto. That's like finding out there was a Bronze Age wifi back there. The Indus people didn't have Bronze Age wifi, but imagine if they did.

• 6:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, so our bespoke craft items are also available online. I'll ping you the link on your tablet.

• 6:46Greg Jenner?

  My tablet's made of clay. The only thing they didn't have in their toilets was plug-in air fresheners. It's been said by some historians that such widespread plumbing wasn't seen again in major cities anywhere in the world until the 1890s, when Victorian Britain embraced indoor toilets and big sewer systems. Talk about being late to the poo party.

• 7:10Greg Jenner?

  There were possibly more baths and wells in the Indus civilization than in baths and wells now. Yeah, the Indus was definitely more exciting than you think.

• 7:19Speaker 05

  Indus? You need PR? Pronto. What's your brand? What's your vibe?

• 7:27Speaker 06

  Uh, with a civilization of clean water and drains.

• 7:31Speaker 05

  Water? Egypt has the pyramids. Romans will have amphitheaters. What's exciting about clean, accessible running water?

• 7:40Speaker 06

  We're just big fans of not getting diarrhoea.

• 7:43Speaker 05

  I'm a cat. Uh, I'm a cat. But I don't see Ridley Scott making a movie about not getting diarrhoea.

• 7:51Greg Jenner?

  The next question, of course, is what did Indus people eat? Well, zoo archaeology, which is the study of how humans interacted with animals, has found that around half of the animal bones used for food were from cows, so they probably ate a lot of beef.

• 8:07Speaker 05

  Time to present the showstoppers on the great Indus beef off. And we've got beef cake, beef pie, beef pizza, and beef meringue. Lovely.

• 8:19Greg Jenner?

  They also probably ate some sheep, pig, and goat, as well as things like dairy products, wheat, pulses, fruits, seeds, even ginger, turmeric, and mango. They also seem to have eaten locally and with the seasons. How bougie. You'd never get Gordon Ramsay shouting at this lot.

• 8:37Speaker 06

  What are you? You're a silly sausage!

• 8:40Greg Jenner?

  Those fancy artisan beads and bangles, made in their Indus craft workshops, have been found as far west as Iraq. So we think that the Indus people were trading as far afield as Bronze Age Mesopotamia.

• 8:53Speaker 06

  Oh yeah, I do deliveries. Might take a while though. I can't guarantee this terracotta nudie man will get to Sumeria in time for your cousin's birthday.

• 9:01Greg Jenner?

  But archaeologists have also found loads of seals. Not those seals. No, small clay tablets with stuff on them. Some of these have traces of what might have been rope on them, so maybe they've been used to seal containers or fasten bundles of Indus merch. Though we can't read the writing, next to it were often pictures of animals. Some of them real animals, like elephants... And tigers! But loads of them are unicorns!

• 9:31Greg Jenner?

  We have no idea why they liked unicorns so much, but we do know that the unicorn has been symbolic of that region for a very long time.

• 9:38Speaker 07

  Harapa harapa, what a magical town! Our unicorn marked, merch is renowned. We may be gone, but unicorns still abound!

• 9:50Speaker 07

  Did we see them as gods? I just think they were sound. No one knows, we're a mystery town!

• 9:56Greg Jenner?

  Speaking of mysteries, we haven't found many graves for Indus people, which is tricky because graves can teach us a lot about people's lives. Also, the lack of graves is ironic, considering one of the main discovered cities, Mahenjo Dharo, means mound of the dead. It's the most disappointingly named place since the Isle of Dogs.

• 10:15Speaker 06

  Dear Mr Jenner, I understand your dismay that the Isle of Dogs is not entirely populated by dogs with Labrador bus drivers and poodle traffic wardens. But as Mayor of London, I have more important things on my plate. Please stop writing.

• 10:28Greg Jenner?

  Sorry. The burials we have found in ancient Indus civilization were found in wooden coffins with very simple knickknacks, like bits of pottery and bangles. This may explain why, even though Westerners knew about the work of local archaeologists like Rakul Das Banerjee in the early 20th century, the reaction to the Indus civilization was very much... So what if they had toilets? Where's the bling? Where's the bodies? Where's the stuff I can nick? Two famous Indus skeletons are that of a man in his 30s or 40s, buried alongside a woman in her 20s. They're called the Rakiguri lovebirds because they are next to each other. The man is facing the woman, but she is facing away.

• 11:13Greg Jenner?

  Maybe she wasn't into him and he was just really annoying. Can I have one of your grave bangles?

• 11:18Speaker 05

  No.

• 11:19Greg Jenner?

  How about now?

• 11:20Speaker 05

  No!

• 11:21Greg Jenner?

  How about now?

• 11:22Speaker 05

  We are literally both dead.

• 11:26Greg Jenner?

  How about now? We also don't know much about who, if anyone, was in charge of these Indus cities. Nobody seems to have been particularly richer or poorer than the others. Archaeologists have tried to decode Indus religion from their little figurines of people and animals, but is that the best way to learn about a civilization's faith? What will experts think about us in a few hundred years' time?

• 11:50Speaker 05

  We think the goddess Barbie was worshipped alongside the god Ken. And Barbie was the god of flight attendants, doctors, mechanics, and jet skiing. There's nothing goddess Barbie couldn't do.

• 12:05Greg Jenner?

  Definitely risky to rely on dolls too much, so no one knows for sure how or why this great civilization ended, but there are a lot of theories.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  You have reached the end of Indus adventure. Choose your method of destruction. Climate catastrophe.

• 12:23Greg Jenner?

  Could be. A lot of the cities are near now-dried-up rivers, so the water could have run out.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  Population boom.

• 12:31Greg Jenner?

  Maybe they were victims of their own success. Too many people, not enough beef?

• 12:35Speaker 00

  Military destruction.

• 12:37Greg Jenner?

  AKA, too much beef. Again, it's possible, but there isn't much evidence for violence.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  Aliens.

• 12:43Greg Jenner?

  It was not aliens. Warning! Warning! They're on to us! Get Greg Jenner! Repeat! Get Greg...

• 12:56Greg Jenner?

  Did you hear something? Anyways, basically, we're not sure how or why this amazing Indus civilisation came to an end. But there was a slow process of transition, until all of these well-plummed and well-beefed cities and towns were abandoned by 1600 B.C.E. If we were ever able to read the thousands of written materials the Indus people left behind, we might find the answer.

• 13:23Greg Jenner?

  So, how much do you remember from today's speedy history lesson? Let's find out. Pencils at the ready.

• 13:29Greg Jenner?

  Question one: What surprising thing did most Indus houses have?

• 13:35Speaker 05

  A private, plumbed-in indoor loo.

• 13:39Greg Jenner?

  Question two: Zoo archaeology tells us that Indus people probably ate which kind of meat the most?

• 13:47Greg Jenner?

  Beef. And question three: Mahenjo Dharo is one of the best-known sites of the Indus civilisation, but what does Mahenjo Dharo mean?

• 13:59Speaker 05

  Mound of the dead.

• 14:01Greg Jenner?

  Well done. Join us next time for another snappy history lesson. And if you're a grown-up and want to learn more about the Indus civilisation, listen to our episode of You're Dead to Me with Dr Danica Parrick. Thank you for listening, bye.

• 14:14Greg Jenner?

  This was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4. Dead Funny History was written by Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch, Athena Kabenu and Dr Emma Nagouse. It was hosted by me, Greg Jenner, and performed by Malian Rees and John Luke Roberts. The script consultant was Dr Danica Parrick.

• 14:39Speaker 08

  Welcome to The Haunted Library. Join me, Colin Morgan, as I read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. A story of science and ambition, loneliness and longing, and what it truly means to be human.

• 14:58Speaker 08

  Listen to The Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts, or find us on YouTube.