The most important Characteristics of Indus civilizations are listed below:
1.The excavated areas reveal that the structures were built after a rectangular or at times, parallelogram raised platform was constructed with mud bricks, filling this to a height of 20 ft to 30 ft. This rose dominating and overlooking area is called the citadel.
2.There are series of rooms built along the length of a rectangular lake called the great bath, constructed along one side of the citadel. These rooms have separate and individual stairs leading to the bath.
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The backyard of these rooms joins with a huge structure which is believed to be the granary. Towards the southern side of the citadel occurs a huge hall-like structure without any post-holes for supporting the roof.
3.Further, south is the cemetery form where a large collection of skeletons has been made.
4.A separate mound in the east shows the evidence of a line of small rooms apparently for labourers or soldiers and large pounding platforms with burnt wheat. Surrounding this complex of buildings. There is found the defence wall with two entrances.
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5.The river flows just below the granary from the north-west side of the excavated region.
6.The living quarters or villages are found in another corner separated from the main citadel complex but within the defence wall.
7.All the above structures are erected with burnt bricks of same size and in the same pattern of binding all over and repeated identically in all metropolitan centres.
8.The residential area shows considerable variation in the size of dwelling. There are houses which are single roomed ones and there are others which have more than dozen rooms with passages, courtyard and bathrooms with individual boundary walls.
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Drains were covered and led to lanes outside which in turn were connected to soakage pits. Many of these houses are provided with stairways indicating an upper floor. Some of these rooms are as big as 20 ft x 23 ft in size. In many houses private wells have been dug with 3-4 ft circular mouth.
9.A separate mound occurs in most of these sites where a line of small rooms apparently for labourers or soldiers, is found.
10.Some of the most significant objects found in these sites are a large number of seals, beads, naturalistic statues chess-boards, weights and measures, terracotta figurines, metal utensils and weapons, stone axes and chart blades. The weights seem to have 1:6 fragment systems.
11.The measuring rod shows that the unit of length was 13.2 inches and perhaps the lowest fraction was 0.367 inches.
12. Terracotta figurines include some toys, wheeled carts and some grotesque human forms which might be used as some form of folk-cult objects.