You're Dead to Me - Indus Civilization

Episode Date: December 23, 2025

Join historian Greg Jenner for a snappy, silly and seriously fascinating journey into the Indus Civilisation - one of the world’s earliest urban societies, and one that deserves way more hype. This episode of Dead Funny History is packed with jokes, facts and sound effects that bring ancient history to life for families and Key Stage 2 kids.From Minecraft-worthy city planning and elephant-wide streets to private indoor toilets and artisan craft markets, the Indus people were ahead of their time. They built over 1,400 towns and cities across what is now Pakistan, India and Afghanistan, all connected by shared writing, pottery and beads. But despite leaving behind thousands of texts, we still can’t read their script.Greg explores the mystery of their faceless society, the unicorn obsession, and their surprisingly bougie diet of beef, mango and turmeric. There’s also a deep dive into their plumbing prowess, some historians say their sanitation systems weren’t matched until Victorian Britain. Expect musical numbers, sketch comedy, and a quiz to test what you’ve learned. It’s history with heart, humour and high production value. Perfect for curious kids, families, and fans of You’re Dead To Me.Written by Gabby Hutchinson Crouch, Athena Kugblenu and Dr Emma Nagouse Host: Greg Jenner Performers: Mali Ann Rees and John-Luke Roberts Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse Associate Producer: Gabby Hutchinson Crouch Audio Producer: Emma Weatherill Script Consultant: Dr Danika Parikh Production Coordinator: Liz Tuohy Production Manager: Jo Kyle Sound Designer: Peregrine AndrewsA BBC Studios Production

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm David Soucher, and from the Noiser podcast network comes Charles Dickens' ghost stories. This Christmas, I'll be reading a selection of the author's most chilling short works, brought to life with sound design and original music. But first, Dickens' most beloved ghost story of all, a Christmas carol. Charles Dickens' Ghost Stories, available wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to Dead Funny History. I'm Greg Jenner. I'm a historian and I want to tell you about something really cool. The ancient Indus civilization, a fascinating society that doesn't get the hype it deserves.

They're the bastile of ancient societies. The Indus civilization existed between 4,700 and 4,000 years ago in what is now modern Pakistan and India, and with another known site also in Afghanistan. It was one of the world's first known urban civilizations, which means they had city planning, drainage systems and all sorts of clever stuff. The Indus people would be amazing at Minecraft. Some people refer to the Indus civilization as a faceless civilization

as a faceless society because it's really hard for archaeologists to find or identify individual people like we can with Egyptian pharaohs or Roman emperors. And even though they left behind lots of writing, we still haven't been able to translate or decode any of it. Why couldn't they leave behind a duolingo or something? Oh, do you have five minutes for a quick indescript lesson? But there's over 4,000 surviving pieces of text. We have no idea what any of them say. Fine. Say goodbye to your streaks sucker.

Hoo-hoo! But the Indus civilization did leave behind lots of other stuff, from which we can learn that, like Bastille, they deserve to be celebrated. Across the Indus civilization, we found over 1,400 towns and cities. Even though they were hundreds of kilometres apart, the people who lived in them clearly used similar things, pottery, beads, figurines, and a shared form of writing. It connected them, just like how in our society, everywhere, has a Café Nero.

There were some really big cities, like Harappa and Mahenjadaro, where thousands of people lived. These ancient cities were very sophisticated. Welcome back to a place in another civilization. Bronze Age Dave is with me in the absolutely luscious end of city. rapper and we're looking at properties in the 300 kly sheep range first up we have this stunning and modern two-story property made of solid baked bricks a lovely little courtyard private bathroom transportation to the nearest town is nearby and wait until you see this the granary We called it that even though we don't know what it's for,

but it is within walking distance. And you know you're in an Indus city as the whole place is built on a huge platform of mudbrick. They were amazing urban planners way before the first Roman emperor was even born and their main streets were almost 10 metres wide, enough for elephants to pass each other. Oh, do you learn how to drive an elephant?

Yesterday is a test to indicate. And their streets used a grid system, much like a Bronze Age New York. Harappa, harapper, it's a hell of a town. But we've also found remains of smaller country towns. You may assume that the country bunkins were all about farming. Who are? Yes, agriculture was important, but archaeologists have also found fancy goods, like beads, ornaments and bangles.

Sometimes with semi-precious stones or gold, imported from hundreds of miles away, like what you'd find at an artisan craft market. Welcome to the Indus Valley Rural Goods Fair. Feel free to peruse our handmade beads and jewelry. We've got little terracotta nudie men, little terracotta nudie women, little terracotta nudie people who are neither. We accept a surprisingly wide range of contemporary Asian currency. Sadly, there is no overpriced coffee stand, as it hasn't been invented yet. For that, please try 15th century Yemen. But one of the most impressive things about the Indus towns was Sanitation.

Drain's connected up to most buildings, meaning many people could use toilets in their homes, sending the waste down the drains and far from where they lived. They didn't just have plumbing. They had individual toilets for ordinary homes. Are you tired of this happening? Oh, hello. Looks like you're trying to do a poo.

Go away Just being friendly Surely there must be a better way There is Here in the Indus civilisation We've invented the private poo Wow Pooh in the privacy of your own home

Perfect for midnight poos Emergency Poos Sharp poohs Slow poohers And people who just don't want to get their bum out In front of half the town Private poos, the sweetest relief is solitude. You'd probably have had a more pleasant poop in Bronze Age Pakistan than at Glastow.

That's like finding out there was a Bronze Age Wi-Fi back there. The Indus people didn't have Bronze Age Wi-Fi. But imagine if they did. Yeah, so our bespoke craft items are also available online. I'll ping you the link on your tablet. My tablet's made of clay. The only thing they didn't have in their toilets was plug in. air fresheners. It's been said by some historians that such widespread plumbing wasn't seen again

in major cities anywhere in the world until the 1890s when Victorian Britain embraced indoor toilets and big sewer systems. Talk about being late to the poo party. There were possibly more baths and wells in the Indus civilization than in Bath and Wells now. Yeah, the Indus was definitely more exciting than you think. Indus! You did PR, Pronto. What's your brand? What's your vibe? Uh, with a civilisation of clean water and drains. Water?

Egypt has the pyramids. Romans will have amphitheaters. What's exciting about clean, accessible running water? We're just big fans of not getting diarrhoea? Oh, but I don't see Ridley Scott making a movie about not getting diarrhoea. The next question, of course, is what did Indus people eat? Well, zuo archaeology, which is the study of how humans interacted with animals, has found that around half of the animal bones used for food were from cows,

so they probably ate a lot of beef. Time to present the showstoppers on the great Indus beef off. And we've got beef cake, beef pie, beef pizza and beef meringue. Lovely. But you also probably ate some sheep. pig and goat, as well as things like dairy products, wheat, pulses, fruits, seeds, even ginger, turmeric and mango. They also seem to have eaten locally and with the seasons.

How bougie! You'd never get Gordon Ramsey shouting at this lot. What are you? You're a silly sausage. Those fancy artisan beads and bangles made in their Indus craft workshops have been found as far west as Iraq. So we think that the Indus people were trading as far afield. as Bronze Age Mesopotamia.

Oh yeah, I do deliveries. It might take a while, though. I can't guarantee this terracotta nudie man will get to Sumeria in time for your cousin's birthday. But archaeologists have also found loads of seals. Not those seals. No, small clay tablets with stuff on them. Some of these have traces of what might have been rope on them,

so maybe they've been used to seal containers or fasten bundles of Indus merch. Though we can't read the writing, next to it were often pictures of animals. Some of them real animals like elephants and tigers, but loads of them are unicorns. We have no idea why they liked unicorn so much, but we do know that the unicorn has been symbolic of that region for a very long time.

Harappa, harappa, what a magical town. Our unicorn marked, merch is renowned, we may be gone, but unicorns still abound. Did we see them as gods? I just think they were sound. No one knows. We're a mystery town. Speaking of mysteries, we haven't found many graves for Indus people, which is tricky because graves can teach us a lot about people's lives. Also, the lack of graves is ironic,

considering one of the main discovered cities, Mahenjo Darrow, means Mound of the Dead. It's the most disappointingly named place since the Isle of Dogs. Dear Mr. Jenner, I understand your dismay that the Isle of Dogs is not entirely populated by dogs with Labrador bus drivers and pool or traffic wardens. But as mayor of London, I have more important things on my plate. Please stop writing. Sorry. The burials we have found in ancient Indus civilization were found in wooden coffins with very simple knick-knacks, like bits of pottery and bangles. This may explain why

even though Westerners knew about the work of local archaeologists like Rakul Das Banerji in the early 20th century. The reaction to the Indian Indus civilization was very much... So what if they had toilets? Where's the bling? Where's the bodies? Where's the stuff I can nick? Two famous indes skeletons are that of a man in his 30s or 40s

buried alongside a woman in her 20s. They're called the Raki Guri lovebirds because they're next to each other. The man is facing the woman, but she is facing away. Maybe she wasn't into him, and he was just really annoying. Can I have one of your grave bangles?

No. How about now? No. How about now? We are literally both dead. Oh, how about now? We also don't know much about who, if anyone, was in charge of these Indus cities. Nobody seems to have been particularly richer or poorer than the others.

Archaeologists have tried to decode Indus religion from their little figurines of people and animals. But is that the best way to learn about a civilisation's faith? What will experts think about us in a world? a few hundred years time. We think the goddess Barbie was worshipped alongside the god Ken. And Barbie was the god of flight attendants, doctors, mechanics and jet skin. There's nothing goddess Barbie couldn't do. Definitely risky to rely on dolls too much.

So no one knows for sure how or why this great civilization ended. But there are a lot of theories. You have reached the end of Indus adventure. Choose your method of destruction. Climate catastrophe. Could be. A lot of the cities are near now dried up rivers, so the water could have run out. Population boom.

Maybe they were victims of their own success. Too many people, not enough beef. Military destruction. AKA too much beef. Again, it's possible, but there isn't much evidence for violence. Aliens. It was not aliens. Warning!

Warning! to us. Get Greg Jenner. Repeat. Get Craig Jenner. Did you hear something? Anyways, basically, we're not sure how or why this amazing Indus civilization came to an end. But there was a slow process of transition until all of these well-plumbed and well-beafed cities and towns were abandoned by 1,600s BCE. If we were ever able to read the thousands of written materials, the Indus people left behind, we might find the answer. So how much do you remember from today's speedy history lesson? Let's find out.

Pencils at the ready. Question one. What surprising thing did most Indus houses have? A private plummet in indoor loo. Question two. Zuo archaeology tells us that Indus people probably ate which kind of meat the most. Beef. And question three, Mahenjo Daro is one of the best known sites of the Indus civilization, but what does Mahenjo Daro mean?

Mound of the Dead! Well done, join us next time for another snappy history lesson. And if you're a grown-up and want to learn more about the Indus civilization, listen to our episode of You're Dead to Me with Dr. Danicaa Paric. Thank you for listening. Bye! This was a BBC Studios audio production for Radio 4. Dead Funny History was written by Gabby. Hutchison Crouch, Athenia Cabernu, and Dr. Emma Noghous. It was hosted by me, Greg Jenner, and performed by Malianne Rees and John Luke Roberts.

The script consultant was Dr. Danica Parig. I'm David Soucher, and from the Noiser Podcast Network comes Charles Dickens' ghost stories. This Christmas, I'll be reading a selection of the author's most chilling short works, brought to life with sound design and original music. But first, Dickens' most beloved ghost story of all, A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens' ghost stories, available wherever you get your podcasts.