The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization (3300 1300 BCE; mature period 2600

1900 BCE) that was located in the northwestern region[1] of the Indian Subcontinent,[2][3] consisting of what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India. Flourishing around the Indus River basin, the civilization [n 1] primarily centered along the Indus and the Punjab region, extending into t he Ghaggar-Hakra River valley[7] and the Ganges-Yamuna Doab.[8][9] Geographicall y, the civilization was spread over an area of some 1,260,000 km, making it the l argest ancient civilization in the world. There is an Indus Valley site on the O xus river at Shortugai[10] and extending towards Alamgirpur on the Hindon river located only 28 km from Delhi, India. The Indus Valley is one of the world's earliest urban civilizations, along with its contemporaries, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. At its peak, the Indus Civili zation may have had a population of well over five million. Inhabitants of the a ncient Indus river valley, developed new techniques in metallurgy and handicraft (carneol products, seal carving), and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin. T he civilization is noted for its cities built of brick, roadside drainage system , and multistoried houses. The mature phase of this civilization is known as the Harappan Civilization, as the first of its cities to be unearthed was the one at Harappa, excavated in the 1920s in what was at the time the Punjab province of British India (now in Paki stan).[11] Excavation of Harappan sites have been ongoing since 1920, with impor tant breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999.[12] To date, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Ghaggar-Ha kra river and its tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban center s of Harappa, Lothal, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site), Dholavira, Kali banga, and Rakhigarhi. The civilization is sometimes referred to as the Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilizatio n or the Indus-Sarasvati civilization.[13] The appellation Indus-Sarasvati is ba sed on the possible identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra River with the Sarasvati River of the Nadistuti sukta in the Rig Veda, but this usage is disputed on lin guistic and geographical grounds. The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is unknown, a plausible relation would be to Proto-Dravidia n or Elamo-Dravidian.[14]The ruins of Harrappa were first described in 1842 by C harles Masson in his Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, and the Punjab, where locals talked of an ancient city extending "thirteen cosse s" (about 25 miles), but no archaeological interest would attach to this for nea rly a century.[In 1872 75 Alexander Cunningham published the first Harappan seal ( with an erroneous identification as Brahmi letters).[17] It was half a century l ater, in 1912, that more Harappan seals were discovered by J. Fleet, prompting a n excavation campaign under Sir John Hubert Marshall in 1921 22