Sindh's first known village settlements date as far back as 7000 BCE. Permanent settlements at Mehrgarh to the west expanded into Sindh. This culture blossomed over several millennia and gave rise to the Indus Valley Civilization around 3000 BCE. The Indus Valley Civilization rivaled the contemporary civilizations of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia in both size and scope, numbering nearly half a mil
lion inhabitants at its height with well-planned grid cities and sewer systems. The Indus Valley civilization is the farthest known outpost of archaeology in prehistoric times. Evidence of a new element of pre-Harappan culture has been traced here. When the primitive village communities in Balochistan were still struggling against a difficult highland environment, a highly cultured people were trying to assert themselves at Kot Diji. This was one of the most developed urban civilizations of the ancient world. It flourished between the 25th century BC and 1500 BC in the Indus valley sites of Moenjodaro and Harappa. The people had a high standard of art and craftsmanship and a well-developed system of quasi-pictographic writing which remains un-deciphered despite ceaseless efforts. The remarkable ruins of the beautifully planned towns, the brick buildings of the common people, roads, public baths and the covered drainage system suggest a highly organized community.[7] According to some accounts, there is no evidence of large palaces or burial grounds for the elite. The grand and presumably holy site might have been the great bath, which is built upon an artificially created elevation.[8] This indigenous civilization collapsed around 1700 BC. The cause is hotly debated, and may have been a massive earthquake, which dried up the Ghaggar River. Skeletons discovered in the ruins of Mohen Jo Daro ("mount of dead") indicate that the city was suddenly attacked and the population was wiped out.[9]
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Sindh finds mention in the Hindu epic Mahabharatha as being part of Bharatvarsha. Sindh was conquered by the Persian Achaemenid Empire in the sixth century BC. In the late 300s BC, Sindh was conquered by a mixed army led by Macedonian Greeks under Alexander the Great. The region remained under control of Greek satraps for only a few decades. After Alexander's death, there was a brief period of Seleucid rule, before Sindh was traded to the Mauryan Empire led by Chandragupta in 305 BC. During the rule of the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka, the Buddhist religion spread to Sindh. Mauryan rule ended in 185 BC with the overthrow of the last king by the Sunga Dynasty. In the disorder that followed, Greek rule returned when Demetrius I of Bactria led a Greco-Bactrian invasion of India and annexed most of northwestern lands, including Sindh. Demetrius was later defeated and killed by a usurper, but his descendants continued to rule Sindh and other lands as the Indo-Greek Kingdom. Under the reign of Menander I many Indo-Greeks followed his example and converted to Buddhism. In the late 100s BC, Scythian tribes shattered the Greco-Bactrian empire and invaded the Indo-Greek lands. Unable to take the Punjab region, they seized Sistan and invaded South Asia through Sindh, where they became known as Indo-Scythians (later Western Satraps). By the first century AD, the Tocharian Kushan Empire annexed Sindh. Though the Kushans were Zoroastrian due to their former contacts with Persians, they were tolerant of the local Buddhist tradition and sponsored many building projects for local beliefs. Ahirs were also found in large numbers in Sindh.[10] Abiria country of Abhira tribe was located in southern Sindh.[11][12] The Kushan Empire was defeated in the mid 200s AD by the Sassanid Empire of Persia, who installed vassals known as the Kushanshahs. These rulers were defeated by the Kidarites in the late 300s. It then came under Gupta Empire after dealing with the Sassanids. By the late 400s, attacks by Hephthalite tribes known as the Indo-Hephthalites or Hunas (Huns) broke through the Gupta Empire's north-western borders and overran much of northwestern India. Later, Sindh came under the rule of Emperor Harshavardhan, then the Rai Dynasty around 478 AD. The Rais were overthrown by Chachar of Alor around 632. The Brahman dynasty ruled a vast territory that stretched from Multan in the north to the Rann of Kutch, Alor was their capital.
