[dwa3592]

It's a pleasant finding but not surprising. In all the excavations done over time in indus valley, they never found any weapons or any signs of war. I have this book with pretty cool illustrations if anyone wants a light read on this topic -

https://www.amazon.com/dp/014345532X?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_...

I am not related to the author in anyway. i heard about this book on a podcast and bought it.

[rayiner]

I suspect that’s some noble savage mythologizing. Many Harrapan weapons have been found: https://www.allsubjectjournal.com/assets/archives/2015/vol2i...

[pegasus]

Yes, they are exaggerations, similar things have been said about the Minoans. It's still true AFAIK that these societies were much less militaristic than the ones that followed them.

[dwa3592]

mythologizing?

What is myth about not finding military grade weapons or shields or large fortifications or artifacts on glorification of war and killing, like they found in other civilizations??

Did you even read the paper you cited or was it just a cheap attempt to find a critique bc of your own personal beliefs? - most of the weapons are tools (agri, hunting etc) and the time period is 1900-1400 BC when the civilization was in its last stage.

granted IVC hasn't been excavated to the degree the other civilizations has been, but at this point no concrete evidence has been found of wars and bloodshed at the scale compared to other civilizations.

[rayiner]

The mythologizing is in taking the absence of data—as you acknowledge, IVC hasn’t been excavated to the degree of other civilizations—and projecting onto that blank slate utopian ideas about a society free of warfare.

We know very little about the IVC. We haven’t decoded their writing, for example. So how can we draw conclusions in comparison to civilizations (like ancient Egypt) where we know about wars from their extensive written records of wars?

[dwa3592]

that's a good question and if you lead with that it would have been a genuine discussion but you had to slap the "savage mythologizing" in the comment and what did you base that upon? the excavation that has been done points to a direction, is it a really significant evidence, no but its not nothing and it points to the possibility that IVC was rather less barbaric than the other civilizations and this was prior to the study in TFA which is even more evidence in the similar direction!!! so it seems to me that you are raising suspicions based on strong bias that you have against this region rather than any genuine curiosity or scientific backing.

[jojobas]

Even Australian Aboriginals had weapons of war. Some of the seals spoken about in the article depict swords and shields. There is no way anything of value didn't have to be defended by force.

[pm90]

thank you so much for this recommendation. I've been interested in this topic for a while; while I was looking for something a bit more substantial, I do love it when authors explain history in different ways! My original introduction to history was through the Amar Chitra Katha series; ever since I've always had an interest in learning history.