When Egypt and Mesopotamia were ruled by ruthless emperors and harsh priests, the largest and most populous state in the world of the Bronze Age flourished in the Indus Valley. Its residents knew no wars, famine, or slavery. They didn’t build temples or palaces. Instead, they enjoyed baths and board games.

A man in a tree, sometimes sitting on a branch, sometimes suspended between two of them. This is one of the most common visual motifs, engraved in clay tablets, left behind by the Indus Valley civilization. If we understood its meaning, this culture, lost for over four thousand years, would maybe speak to us today. Unfortunately, to fully understand the man in the tree, is to decipher the accompanying inscriptions, and that might never happen.

However, even without comprehending the language of these ancient inhabitants, we can experience the unspoken part of their heritage in objects, houses, cities, to surmise who they were and how they lived. This paints a picture of a society that was a complete rarity in all of antiquity, living in a land of peace, while surrounded by a bloodthirsty world.

This extraordinary state emerged suddenly, as a result of the joint effort of the inhabitants of today’s Indian-Pakistani border. It disappeared abruptly, as well. And unlike the ancient societies of the Egyptians, Sumerians, Jewish people, Greeks, they left no cultural descendants. It is tempting to assume that if it were otherwise, human history might have taken a more peaceful course.

The language of the Indus Valley