The land of five waters gave the world its first cities, its saints and its songs. Broken by every empire that crossed it, it is still ours to remember, and to make whole again.

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PUNJAB WIKIਪੰਜਾਬپنجابAges
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Land & Ages

The LandRivers, doabs, Harappa and the first cities, seasons, numbersAgesEight ages of the Punjab, from the Soan to todayTimelineEvery dated event on one lineAtlasEvery place on one map, age by agePlacesCities, ancient sites, temples, mosques and gurdwaras, battlefieldsLanguage & scriptsPunjabi, its dialects, Gurmukhi and Shahmukhi

People & Faiths

PeopleSaints and teachers, poets and singers, rulers, rebels, the people of both PunjabsPeople of the landJats, Rajputs, Arains, Khatris, Dalit communities and more, across every faithFaithsHindu traditions, Islam and the Sufis, Sikhi, and the Punjab's other faiths

Kingdoms & Struggles

Kingdoms & WarsWho ruled the Punjab, the Kingdom of Lahore, and the battles fought over itWho ruled the PunjabEvery ruling power, 518 BCE to todayWars & BattlesFrom the Hydaspes to BasantarStruggles & Partitions1849, 1919, 1947, 1966, 1984, 2020

Culture & Museum

CulturePoets, qisse, songs, music, dance, festivals, foodMuseumSculpture, coins, manuscripts, painting, arms, buildings, and where to see themChronicles & ProphecyThe poetry of the old chroniclesAboutWhat this atlas is, its sources, and every word explainedHelp maintain this siteCorrections, pictures, sources and new entries
Punjab WikiAges
Age I · 600,000 BP – 1900 BCE

Stone and the first cities

Stone tools on the Soan, the first farmers below the Bolan, and the brick cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.

Unknown · Wikimedia

The story begins on the terraces of the Soan river, where early humans left pebble tools hundreds of thousands of years ago, and at Mehrgarh below the Bolan Pass, where around 7000 BCE people began to grow barley and wheat and herd zebu cattle.

From those villages grew the Indus civilisation. Between 2600 and 1900 BCE Harappa on the Ravi and Mohenjo-daro on the Indus were among the largest cities on earth: planned in grids, drained and watered better than any city for two thousand years, trading carnelian and cotton with Sumer, and writing in a script no one can read. As the rivers shifted and the monsoon weakened, the cities emptied and their people dispersed into villages across the plain.

Where it happened

What happened

8 events
  1. c. 500,000 years ago
    Stone tools on the Soan

    Early humans leave pebble tools along the Soan river on the Pothohar plateau.

  2. c. 7000 BCE
    First farmers

    Farming villages appear in the hills west of the Indus at sites such as Mehrgarh, ancestors of the Indus cities.

  3. c. 3300 BCE
    Marks on the pots of Harappa

    Potters of the Ravi phase at Harappa scratch signs on their pots that may be the first steps towards the Indus script.

  4. c. 2800 BCE
    Walled towns: the Kot Diji phase

    Towns with walls of mud brick, standard brick sizes and shared pottery styles spread across the Indus plains.

  5. c. 2600 BCE
    Harappa at its height

    The Indus Valley Civilisation builds planned brick cities with drains and granaries along the Ravi and Indus.

  6. c. 2500 BCE
    The Great Bath of Mohenjo-daro

    On the citadel of the largest Indus city, builders line a sunken pool with fitted brick and bitumen.

  7. c. 2600 – 1900 BCE
    Ropar, the Indus city on the Sutlej

    A Harappan town on the Sutlej at the foot of the Shivaliks, the first Indus site excavated in independent India.

  8. c. 2000 BCE
    Trade with Meluhha

    Sumerian texts speak of ships from Meluhha, almost certainly the Indus, bringing carnelian, timber and ivory.

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