Research Notes

On Indus Valley city planning

Uniform brick sizes across distant cities suggest shared standards.

This feels less like coincidence and more like cooperation.

On Vedic oral traditions

The use of rhythm, repetition, and melody wasn’t decorative, it was functional.

Sound was a tool for accuracy.

On archaeology and interpretation

Two archaeologists can look at the same object and tell different stories.

This makes history feel less fixed and more human.

On everyday artefacts

Small objects survive not because they were important, but because they were common.

That might be exactly why they matter.

Why did the Indus Valley script remain undeciphered for so long?

Despite thousands of seals, the script is still not fully understood.

Is it because we’re missing key context or because we expect it to behave like modern writing?

How much of early history is lost simply because it wasn’t written down?

If entire traditions were oral, how much knowledge disappeared when memory chains broke?

Were children taught differently in ancient societies?

With learning happening through imitation, listening, and repetition, what did “education” actually look like without schools?

Did everyday life matter more than rulers?

If a civilisation left behind drains, tools, toys, and homes but no named kings what does that say about what they valued?

How do we decide what counts as historical “evidence”?

Is an object less important than a text? Or does it speak differently, not less?

Why did Indus Valley cities care so much about drains?

Almost every house in the Indus Valley had access to covered drains. This suggests that cleanliness and water management were everyday concerns, not luxuries for the rich.

It makes me wonder: was hygiene a social rule, a habit, or simply practical engineering that everyone followed?

Toys tell us what adults valued

Many Indus Valley toys look like real-life objects—carts, animals, wheels.

This feels less like “just play” and more like practice for adult life.

Were children learning skills through play, even thousands of years ago?

If knowledge was sung, memory mattered more than writing

During the Vedic Age, important ideas were passed on through chants and hymns.

This means memory wasn’t accidental it was trained.

It raises a question: do we underestimate how skilled people were at remembering before books existed?

Everyday objects feel closer than kings and battles

Beads, seals, pots, tools these objects don’t tell us who ruled, but they show how people lived.

I find these details more helpful than timelines, because they make history feel human instead of distant.

Not everything old is simple

It’s easy to assume ancient societies were “basic.”

But planned cities, precise brick sizes, musical traditions, and complex rituals suggest otherwise.

Maybe the real mistake is judging the past using modern shortcuts.