Indus Valley Civilization

circa 2600-1900 BCE.

The Indus Valley Civilization was a vast empire, centered at Mohenjo-daro.

Indus Valley Civilization may have had both a caste society and relative material equality.

Mohenjo-daro had a street grid, uniform bricks, and a clear division between the upper and lower city.

The upper city features a massive public bath, and streets too narrow for ox-pulled carts. It may have been populated with a Brahmin-like upper class that prioritized purity, including both cleanliness and abstention from worldly duties.

The lower city may have been richer. All evidence of gems, art, metal, commerce, writing, standard weights, and politics comes from the lower city.

There might have been a caste, but the first mention is in the Rig Veda, from 1200 BCE. It's risky to infer backwards 1000 years. And there weren't any signs of Kshatriyas, the heroic warrior-aristocrats of the Rig Veda.

The Indus Valley is known as a "faceless" civilization because there are no monuments to famous leaders, and no elaborate burials.