The Indus River Valley Civilizations!

The Indus River Valley Civilizations

The Indus River Valley Civilization, located in modern Pakistan, was one of the world’s three earliest widespread societies. The Indus Valley Civilization was one of the three “Ancient East” societies that are considered to be the cradles of civilization of the old world of man, and are among the most widespread; the other two “Ancient East” societies are Mesopotamia and Pharonic Egypt. Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were thought to be the two great cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, emerging around 2600 BCE along the Indus River Valley in the Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan

Key Points

• The Indus Valley Civilization (also known as the Harappan Civilization) was a Bronze Age society extending from modern northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India.

·    The lifespan of the Indus Valley Civilization is often separated into three phases: Early Harappan Phase (3300-2600 BCE), Mature Harappan Phase (2600-1900 BCE) and Late Harappan Phase (1900-1300 BCE).

• Inhabitants of the ancient Indus River valley developed new techniques in handicraft, including Carnelian products and seal( seal: An emblem used as a means of authentication. Seal can refer to an impression in paper, wax, clay, or other medium). It can also refer to the device used. carving, and metallurgy (metallurgy: The scientific and mechanical technique of working with bronze. copper, and tin.) with copper, bronze, lead, and tin.
• Sir John Hubert Marshall led an excavation campaign in 1921-1922, during which he discovered the ruins of the city of Harappa. By 1931, the Mohenjo-daro site had been mostly excavated by Marshall and Sir Mortimer Wheeler. By 1999, over 1,056 cities and settlements of the Indus Civilization were located.

Indus Valley Civilization Sites: This map shows a cluster of Indus Valley Civilization cities and excavation sites along the course of the Indus River in Pakistan.

Indus Valley Civilization

At its peak, the Indus Valley Civilization may had a population of over five million people. It is considered a Bronze Age society, and inhabitants of the ancient Indus River Valley developed new techniques in metallurgy—the science of working with copper, bronze, lead, and tin. They also performed intricate handicraft, especially using products made of the semi-precious gemstone Carnelian, as well as seal carving— the cutting
of patterns into the bottom face of a seal used for stamping. The Indus cities are noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, and clusters of large, non-residential buildings.

Harappa and Mohenjo-daro

The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the Harappan Civilization. There were earlier and later cultures, often called Early Harappan and Late Harappan, in the same area of the Harappan Civilization.

Until 1999, over 1,056 cities and settlements had been found, The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is uncertain since the Indus script is still un deciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favored by a section of scholars.

Harappa was a fortified city in modern-day Pakistan that is believed to have been home to as many as 23,500 residents living in sculpted houses with flat roofs made of red sand and clay. The city spread over 150 hectares (370 acres) and had fortified administrative and religious centers of the same type used in Mohenjo-daro.

Harappa was a fortified city in modern-day Pakistan that is believed to have been home to as many as 23,500 residents living in sculpted houses with flat roofs made of red sand and clay. The city spread over 150 hectares—370 acres—and had fortified administrative and religious centers of the same type used in Mohenjo-daro.

Mohenjo-daro is thought to have been built in the twenty-sixth century BCE; it became not only the largest city of the Indus Valley Civilization but one of the world’s earliest major urban centers. Located west of the Indus River in the Larkana District, Mohenjo-daro was one of the most sophisticated cities of the period, with advanced engineering and urban planning.

Cock-fighting was thought to have religious and ritual significance, with domesticated chickens bred for religion rather than food (although the city may have been a point of origin for the worldwide domestication of chickens

Excavated Ruins of Mohenjo-daro: The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro, a city in the Indus River Valley Civilization.

The population of the Indus Valley Civilization may have once been as large as five million. Harappa and Mohenjo-daro: Two of the major cities of the Indus Valley Civilization during the Bronze Age

The remains of the Indus Valley Civilization cities indicate remarkable organization; there were well-ordered wastewater drainage and trash collection systems, and possibly even public granaries and baths. Most city-dwellers were artisans and merchants grouped together in distinct neighborhoods. The quality of urban planning suggests efficient municipal governments that placed a high priority on hygiene or religious ritual.

Infrastructure

Individual homes drew water from wells, while waste water was directed to covered drains on the main streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes, and even the smallest homes on the city outskirts were believed to have been connected to the system, further supporting the conclusion that cleanliness was a matter of great importance.

Authority and Governance

The extraordinary uniformity of Harappan artifacts is evident in pottery, seals, weights, and bricks with standardized sizes and weights, suggesting some form of authority and governance.

Harappan Culture

The Indus River Valley Civilization, also known as Harappan, included its own advanced technology, economy, and culture.

riting, and religion.

Technology

The people of the Indus Valley, also known as Harappan (Harappa was the first city in the region found by archaeologists), achieved many notable advances in technology, including great accuracy in their systems and tools for measuring length and mass.

Art

Indus Valley excavation sites have revealed a number of distinct examples of the culture’s art, including sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry, and anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite—more commonly known as Soapstone.

Among the various gold, terracotta, and stone figurines found, a figure of a “Priest-King” displayed a beard and patterned robe. Another figurine in bronze, known as the “Dancing Girl,” is only 11 cm. high and shows a female figure in a pose that suggests the presence of some choreographed dance form enjoyed by members of the civilization. Terracotta works also included cows, bears, monkeys, and dogs. In addition to figurines, the Indus River Valley people are believed to have created necklaces, bangles, and other ornaments.

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Trade and Transportation

The civilization’s economy appears to have depended significantly on trade, which was facilitated by major advances in transport technology. The Harappan Civilization may have been the first to use wheeled transport, . It also appears they built boats and watercraft—a claim supported by archaeological discoveries of a massive, dredged canal, and what is regarded as a docking facility at the coastal city of Lothal.

Writing

Harappans are believed to have used Indus Script, a language consisting of symbols. A collection of written texts on clay and stone tablets unearthed at Harappa, which have been carbon dated 3300-3200 BCE, contain trident-shaped, plant-like markings. This Indus Script suggests that writing developed independently in the Indus River Valley Civilization from the script employed in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.

The “Shiva Pashupati” seal: This seal was excavated in Mohenjo-daro and depicts a seated and possibly ithyphallic figure, surrounded by animals.

Religion

It has been widely suggested that the Harappans worshipped a mother goddess who symbolized fertility. In contrast to Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, the Indus Valley Civilization seems to have lacked any temples or palaces that would give clear evidence of religious rites or specific deities. Some Indus Valley seals show a swastika symbol, which was included in later Indian religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism.

Disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley Civilization declined around 1800 BCE due to climate
change and migration.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Discuss the causes for the disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization

The Aryan Invasion Theory (c. 1800-1500 BC)

The Indus Valley Civilization may have met its demise due to invasion. According to one theory by British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, a nomadic, Indo-European tribe, called the Aryans, suddenly overwhelmed and conquered the Indus River Valley.

Wheeler, who was Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1944 to 1948, posited that many unburied corpses found in the top levels of the Mohenjo-daro archaeological site were victims of war. The theory suggested that by using horses and more advanced weapons against the peaceful Harappan people, the Aryans may have easily defeated them.

Other scholarship suggests the collapse of Harappan society resulted from climate change. Some experts believe the drying of the Saraswati River, which began around 1900 BCE, was the main cause for climate change, while others conclude that a great flood struck the area.

The Harappans may have migrated toward the Ganges basin in the east, where they established villages and isolated farms.

These small communities could not produce the same agricultural surpluses to support large cities. With the reduced production of goods, there was a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia. By around 1700 BCE, most of the Indus Valley Civilization cities had been abandoned.

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Definition of Aesthetics!

Definition of Aesthetics

The word aesthetics is Greek in original and means perception.

There are several definitions for the aesthetics. 

1. Plato believed in the beauty of nature and the beauty of geometry, line and circle some like beauty something spiritual with the source of the soul.
2. Aristotle gave objective sense to beauty. that is  personal creativity is important and architect becomes means of the expression of beauties of mathematics on the basis of harmony, symmetry and order.
3. Peter Smith believes on three levels for aesthetic values; Fashion, design styles in different cultural periods, and aesthetic-cognitive core values that these three levels are changed over time according to the circumstances..

1. The Aim Of Aesthetics?

• Sigmund Freud consider the goal of beauty as enjoyment of art and the emotional relief.

• According to Theodor Adorno, aesthetic behavior is the ability to understand the object .
• According to information theory, that tries to explain the beauty with mathematical language, aesthetic sense is achieved when the mind is able to detect a relative order, in a series of apparently non-regular and confused provocations

George Santayana classifies the aesthetics into three

Ø  1) sensory, 2)form and 3)symbolic aesthetics

Sensory aesthetics analysis are strongly internal and subjective. The issue of form aesthetics is the role and effect of shapes, proportion, rhythm, scale, complexity, color and other elements of the built environment. Symbolic aesthetic is deal with the pleasure from people's mental history and mentality of the configuration and characteristics of the built environment. 

Form

Form is the perceptible characteristic and identity of an object. Form is the manifestation of its constituent factors.It has in creating space, it has many main aspects. 

• The first is the aesthetic of form that the appearance and characteristics of form  
• The second is the relation of form and function and its effect on formation process of form and
• the third is the mean and content of form. 

Form is a mean that is mostly used for the expression of a symbolic concept and can express different meanings. Ability and capability to convert a subjective matter to form or in other words, to convert the idea to shape and form is one of the important parts in design process. 

According to Frank Lloyd Wright, beauty is a manifestation of the principled proportionality as line, form and color. According to the definitions Rudolf Arnheim expresses in his book The Dynamics of Architectural Form can have principles such as order, harmony, symmetry, proportionality, balance, unity, etc. Wright  mentions the legality of order, balance and unity in nature as the aesthetic factors.

Visual Characteristics of Form

The visual characteristics of form include visual shape, size, color, texture, place, direction and balance.. For example, the application of line in the external form of a building can create special visual effects. 

"Shape is called as the distance line of a visible surface or environment of a volume and the main means of detecting and identifying form of object.

" Length, width and height of form that are called dimensions, define the size and proportions of form.

The other characteristic of form is color. Strength of colors is hidden in their own characteristics. These characteristics are in the colors’ darkness and clarity, coldness and warmth, saturation and level of surfaces area. Texture is presented in architecture by choosing different materials.

Francis Ching introduces texture as the characteristic of the faces of form and knows it effective on the kind of the viewer’s feeling and light reflection.

Visual balance is a characteristic of form that expresses its stability or suspension. In fact, the balance is an equivalent perceived manner. This balance include stability and is applied in creating the sense of security and calmness. 

The Effect of Form in Aesthetics

The expression of contents using the visual forms is simpler than the spoken and written language. Since understanding the visual forms is easy one. For example, sometime, just seeing is enough to understand its function and gives us the necessary information to evaluate and understand it. As example, the proportionate of the windows, position of the entrance, ornamental elements, style, material and skyline of the building in an urban environment are among the characteristics that are constituent of unity or lack of unity and integration of a street, neighborhood or region. 

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What Is Perspective in Art?

Perspective is an art technique for creating an illusion of three-dimensions (depth and space) on a two-dimensional (flat) surface. Perspective is what makes a painting seem to have form, distance, and look "real." The same rules of perspective apply to all subjects, whether it's a landscape, seascape, still life, interior scene, portrait, or figure painting.

Perspective in Western art is often called linear perspective and was developed in the early 15th century. 

Viewpoint is the spot (point) from which you, the artist, is looking at  the scene. Linear perspective is worked out according to this viewpoint.

Vanishing lines are imaginary lines used to create accurate perspective in a painting. They are drawn on the top and bottom horizontal edges of an object, along the object and then extended to the horizon line. For instance, on a building, there would be a vanishing line along the top of the roof and the bottom of the wall(s). For a window, the top and bottom of the frame.

What’s an aesthetic perspective?

Aesthetic Perspectives themes will enable students to: Aerial or Atmospheric Perspective

What  Is  a  Vanishing  Point In Art?

The horizon is set at an infinite distance where two parallel lines converge. The converging point is called the vanishing point.

The number of vanishing points determines the characteristics of different types of perspective drawing techniques, one point, two point, and three point perspective technique

The Perspective Technique

Perspective technique is devised to draw three space onto the two dimensional flat plane. It is a technique to systematically draw the appearance of objects which diminish and converge as the distance increases from the viewer.

Three basic types of perspective –

one-point, two-point, and three-point -- refer to the number of vanishing points used to create the perspective illusion

One-point perspective consists of a single vanishing point and recreates the view when one side of the subject, such as a building, sits parallel to the picture plane

• The simplest way to see this is in a one-point perspective drawing. In it, all of the horizontal and vertical lines of the primary plane run straight with the paper. The lines that move away from us, the sides of boxes, the road we are on, or the railway lines in front of us, converge towards the center of the picture. These are called orthogonal lines, a term derived from mathematics. The center point is the vanishing point.

Two-point perspective

Two-point perspective uses one vanishing point on either side of the subject, such as a painting in which the corner of a building faces the viewer. Two-point perspective is the most commonly used.

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• In two-point perspective, our subject is angled so that each of the two sides, left and right, have their vanishing point..

1. Three-point perspective works for a subject viewed from above or below. Three vanishing points depict the effects of perspective occurring in three directions.
2. 
   

In a three-point perspective, each of the vanishing points can be even more extreme. This leads to a problem about where to place your vanishing points for reference.Artists have a few tricks to help them solve this issue. Many who have a great deal of experience simply imagine where their vanishing points are. This, however, comes with years of practice and a great understanding of correct perspective.

• 1.  Identify and describe the emotional, intellectual, psychological, and/or kinesthetic effects of their interactions with various forms of creative expression
• 2.      Analyze the structural components of various forms of creative expression
• 3.      Interpret forms of creative expression within various theoretical frameworks
• 4.      Analyze how products of creative expression reflect, respond to, and shape their social, religious, political, and/or intellectual contexts
• 5.      Analyze how cultural and personal aesthetic criteria affect the processes of creation and interpretation

 http://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/html/10.11648.j.ijsts.s.2015030201.33.html

NON LINEAR PERSPECTIVE

The techniques provide visual effects which break the laws of the traditional linear perspective technique. The curvilinear projection technique is shown to be a visual simulation of lens distortions. The inverse perspective projection technique is introduced which reverses the effects of perspective technique

A wide variety of visual expression possible through the nonlinear perspective projection techniques, which enrich the visual work of computer graphics artists and designers

https://www.liveabout.com/definition-of-perspective-2577690

 

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Journalism is a ‘unique vocation

Journalism is not a profession – Journalism is a ‘unique vocation’ to serve the truth and hold a mirror to the contemporary happenings in a society

Journalism has always been looked upon as a mission to serve people —Primarily, it is a public service. 

Journalism has always been looked upon as a mission to serve people—Primarily,  it is a public service. Journalism is ultimately a ‘unique vocation’ to serve the truth and hold a mirror to the contemporary happenings in a society. The press has been described as the ‘Fourth Pillar’ and ‘Watchdog of Democracy’ because of the critical role it can play in protecting the interests of the people and moulding public opinion. 

The critical role journalism plays in protecting democracy and in serving the larger good of the society, the profession must maintain highest ethical, moral and reporting standards.

10 qualities to the journalists to be successful in JOURNALISM. They are: 

• Be Joyful
• Be Objective
• Be Unbiased
• Be Responsible
• Be a Nationalist
• Be Artistic
• Be a Lifelong Learner
• Be Inquisitive
• Be Strong
• Be Mindful 

Journalists enjoy certain privileges

While the press and journalists enjoy certain privileges like easy access to the corridors of power, these privileges reciprocally demand responsibilities from the Press and the journalists. They may make constructive criticism of the governmental policies, but at the same time they are morally and constitutionally obliged to strengthen the democratic institutions and respect the socio-cultural ethos. It should be remembered that the Freedom of Speech and Expression enshrined in our constitution is not absolute, but bound by reasonable restrictions. 

Over the years, the media has grown and the present media landscape is full of varieties and driven by market, competition and technology.  In this new ‘smart media environment’ with unprecedented flood of information, we need to be ‘smart media consumers’!  

In view of the critical role journalism plays in protecting democracy and in serving the larger good of the society, the profession must maintain highest ethical, moral and reporting standards. Journalists must never shirk from the core principles of journalism like independence and objectivity and shun unhealthy practices such as sensationalism. 

Of late, the undesirable practices of mixing news with views, partisan reportage and paid news have crept into journalism. The sooner such practices are eliminated the better it would be for journalists and the society at large. There should not be any compromise on the core values of journalism and practitioners of this profession must carry out their duties without fear or favour. 

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Beauty!

A popular quote from the 3^rd century and true to anything you happen to be beholding.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. 

PC: Dinamalar Reporter Muppudathi

From a subjective stance, beauty is what you make of it, what your preference is, what calls to your heart, soul and mind.

In objective view(Object views are often what society has decided is so.) is ' beauty means perfection, absolute precision and the essence of purity'.  

Leo Tolstoy, a Great Russian author, sums up art beautifully –
“The activity of art is based on the capacity of people to infect others with their own emotions and to be infected by the emotions of others. 
Strong emotions, weak emotions, important emotions or irrelevant emotions, good emotions or bad emotions – if they contaminate the reader, the spectator, or the listener – it attains the function of art.”

Winckelmann, a German Art Historian, 
claimed that beauty boiled down to three key factors 
The beauty of form,The beauty of an idea,The beauty of expression, which, he says, is only possible in the presence of the first two factors.

So then, beauty must be the highest form of expression and in turn, the highest aim of art.

Another visionary, Victor Cherbuliez, saw art as an activity which

• satisfies our innate love of images
• introduces ideas into these images
• And gives pleasure simultaneously to our senses, heart and reason. 

By his interpretation of art, beauty is then just an illusion.
 Beauty, possibly, doesn’t exist and there is no absolute beauty in this world.

Beauty is what we see as characteristic and harmonious.

Every piece of art, whether a painting, a vase or a statue, will have different colours, lines and textures which will appeal to your soul and heart.
What feelings these art pieces bring about in you, will in turn help you to decide whether the art is beautiful or not.

Source:

1. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/what-is-art/
2. https://www.fthinking.org/art-photo/beauty-art-creation/
3.  https://www.artway.eu/content.php?id=1090&lang=en&action=show
4. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-arthistory/chapter/what-is-art/ 
5. https://www.theartist.me/design/what-beauty-art/
6. https://www.theartist.me/design/what-beauty-art/
7. https://www.fthinking.org/art-photo/beauty-art-creation/

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JOURNALISM AS A PROFESSION/Qualities of a Journalist

 The profession of journalism now attracts a lot of able and talented students.

                Qualities of a Journalist
Journalism requires a special bent of mind. 

The first requirement of journalism as a profession is a keen interest in current events or day to day happenings. 

• A journalist must understand political, social and economic movements going on in the country and abroad. 
• He must take active interest in current events and have a good understanding of history and geography to develop a proper perspective.  I
• In fact, a journalist has to be a well-read and learned man.   He must have a well-stocked mind. 
• He has to be awake, alert and active. 
• He must possess a sound memory. 
• He must have an analytical mind.               
• A journalist must have original thinking in the face of events that take place from time to time. 
• He has to interpret, explain and comment on events. 
• He must read extensively and assimilate facts. 
• A journalist has a noble task to perform. 
• He must present facts before the people. 
• He is an educator. 
• He has to form and build public opinion. 
• He must have an independent way of thinking. 
• He must have the courage of his conviction. 
• He must not be biased or prejudiced against anybody or any organisation. 
• He must have an insight into human mind. 
• He must live and move among people to study their mode of living.  A good journalist combines in him all these qualities of head and heart.
• A journalist must supposed to perform an important social duty. 

His duty is to educate the masses properly in respect of their rights and duties. 

Also, he has to present, the facts of day-to-day life without and bias or interest. 

He has to keep his own personal prejudices away from what he is writing. 

He should guard against being exploited by those who are in power. 

Political influence or the power of wealth should not frighten or force a journalist into writing with some hidden motive. 

This requires a lot of courage, a strong conviction and a true sense of patriotism and humanism.

A good journalist is never distort facts, spread baseless rumours and exaggerates things

               Journalism is a noble and challenging profession Journalism is a developing and expanding profession.   In the wake of multi-channel T.V. programmes, journalism is holding a great promise to honest young man and woman. Those who are good at creative writing should adopt journalism as a profession or as a hobby.  

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