🤯 Did You Know (click to read)
Indus bricks were so standardized that archaeologists call them 'the first modular building blocks.'
Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were marvels of urban planning around 2500 BCE. Streets ran in grids, drainage systems were advanced, and public baths were sophisticated. Archaeologists suspect a centralized guild or council of engineers orchestrated these feats. There is no written record of their methods, implying the knowledge was restricted to an elite group. Construction techniques and material selection seem uniform across cities, hinting at controlled knowledge transmission. The society may have relied on secret professional networks to maintain this standard. Outsiders or lower-status residents likely had minimal input. In essence, urban mastery was a guarded privilege.
💥 Impact (click to read)
The secrecy may have preserved consistency and efficiency across vast cities. Centralized control could prevent experimentation that might fail catastrophically. Yet it also limited broader dissemination of architectural innovation. The Indus Valley’s decline may have partly stemmed from losing these knowledge custodians. Their hidden expertise kept entire cities functioning flawlessly. The invisible hand of the architect ensured a standard unseen elsewhere in the ancient world.
Modern engineers are still baffled by some Indus features, such as standardized brick sizes and sewage efficiency. The hidden guild model demonstrates the advantage—and fragility—of tightly controlled knowledge. When only a few hold the keys, civilization flourishes but risks collapse if the secrets vanish. Urban planning, it seems, once relied as much on confidentiality as skill. The secret architects built legacies etched in stone and mud.
Source
Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization
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