Question

tell me the detail about Harappan weapons

Answer 1

daro and Harappa

Harappan Civilisation is often characterised (for example by the Director of the British Museum on a Radio 4 series) or even idealised as peaceful and without warfare or conquest, (in comparison with all other First Civilisations) with its cities linked across vast regions and unified (variously) by trade and/or religion. Rulers have even been said to be priests or a theocracy. These interpretations are often presented as facts in books or articles for general consumption. The arguments given include: city walls are not effectively fortified to withstand attack in comparison with cities from the early historic era, and there is a paucity of well designed weapons, and there is no depiction of warfare or conquest on objects that have survived. Yet should an absence of evidence be taken as so conclusive? There are no surviving murals of anything! No tombs with wall paintings. What was going on in the camp site where Bridget Allchin excavated hundreds of clay balls? Isn't organisation as important as technology? There are objects that could be weapons. Wouldn't war technology depend on the threat or lack of it? Submitted by Gharial Abramnova from high school student questions

Jane McIntosh
The answer is probably in your last question. The Indus Civilization probably had no natural enemies. The region was separated from the towns of eastern Iran by the mountains of Indo-Iranian borderlands, still inhabited by people descended from the ancestors of the Indus people, with whom they had an integrated, mutually beneficial relationship, people from the highlands bringing their animals to the plains for winter pasture. Regions to the east and south were not densely populated and the Harappans offered a market for their products (such as copper from the Aravallis) in exchange for attractive manufactured goods or exotic materials, so the people of these regions had more to gain by peaceful cooperation than by attacking the Harappans. Similarly the nearest people by sea, the inhabitants of Oman, had much to gain by peaceful interaction and were too few to pose a threat, while the Mesopotamians, experienced in warfare, were too far away to make conquest feasible, even if they considered it (there is no evidence that Mesopotamians actually came to the Indus – they seem to have sailed no further south than the western shores of the Oman peninsula). Conversely, the vast Indus region was not sufficiently heavily populated for there to be any pressure to expand into neighbouring regions, so no incentive for the Harappans to attack their neighbours.

However, no society can operate without a means of controlling violence by individuals and in a region where wild animals abound, defence against animals is necessary. So it is entirely to be expected that Harappan villagers had weapons to protect themselves against wild animals (and to hunt them for food and materials such as leather) and highly likely that the Harappans had some form of armed police to protect the public and deal with criminals.

Answer 2

Most of weapons that the harappans used were axe,spear,dagger,bow and arrow,mace,sling,sword,shield and armour. Most of the weapons were made of copper and bronze