--- title: Ancient India: the Indus cities and the first kingdoms — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Ancient India: the Indus cities and the first kingdoms», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: About 4,500 years ago, while the pyramids were being built, great cities stood by the river Indus, in today's Pakis --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Ancient India: the Indus cities and th… # Ancient India: the Indus cities and the first kingdoms Lesson 7 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 15 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/0/) — About 4,500 years ago, while the pyramids were being built, great cities stood by the river Indus, in today's Pakistan and northwest India: Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/1/) — They were planned like a modern town: straight streets in a grid, bricks all the same size, and houses with bathrooms and toilets joined to covered drains. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/2/) — Many towns in Europe had nothing like it for thousands of years. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/3/) — The Indus people wrote short signs on little stone seals with animals on them, but nobody can read their writing yet, like a locked diary with no key. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/4/) — The cities slowly emptied, probably as rivers changed course and the climate dried. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/5/) — Later, kingdoms grew along the Ganges, the Buddha taught about suffering and kindness, and the Maurya family built an empire across most of India. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/6/) — About 4,500 years ago great cities such as Harappa and Mohenjo-daro stood by the river Indus, in today's Pakistan and northwest India. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/7/) — The Indus cities had straight streets in a grid and houses of baked bricks all of the same size. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/8/) — Many Indus houses had bathrooms and toilets connected to covered drains along the streets, which carried dirty water away from people. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/9/) — Mohenjo-daro had a large waterproof pool called the Great Bath, probably used for washing in religious ceremonies. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/10/) — The Indus people used seals with short inscriptions and animal pictures, but nobody has yet worked out their writing. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/12/) — An old idea that invaders destroyed the Indus cities suddenly is now not believed; the decline was slow. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/13/) — The Vedas are very old sacred hymns, learned by heart and passed on by speaking for many centuries before being written down. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/14/) — Later many kingdoms grew up along the river Ganges, with cities, kings and markets. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/7-ancient-india-the-indus-cities-and-the-first-kingdoms/15/) — Siddhartha Gautama, a prince, left his palace about 2,500 years ago to understand why people suffer, and became known as the Buddha, the awakened one. - ← previous: [Ancient Egypt: pyramids, mummies and hieroglyphs](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/6-ancient-egypt-pyramids-mummies-and-hieroglyphs/) - next →: [Ancient India: Ashoka, zero and our numbers](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/8-ancient-india-ashoka-zero-and-our-numbers/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)