Harrapan Civilisation

The Harappans and Sumerians are distinctly different politically. While the Sumerians developed the world's first monarchy, the Harappans may have developed the first democracy. Very little evidence has been found of a king in the Indus Valley, only one white priest-king idol and a silver crown; not enough to establish that the "royalty" were the rulers. Instead the empire was divided into regions with half a dozen cities functioning as capitals and was governed by a group of people. Archeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyed has speculated that the Harappan rulers were merchants, ritual specialists and individuals controlling important resources, instead of just one social group controlling the rest. From the construction of the cities however it does appear there were some social classes, as the citadel is usually 20 feet higher than the middle and lower town. The Sumerians, on the other hand, developed into city-states ruled by a priest-king. The king led the military, administered trade, judged disputes and performed certain important religious ceremonies. The king also had a bureaucracy, which consisted mostly of priests, who assisted him in governing. To justify the authority of the priest-kings the Sumerians declared that the king was divinely selected, but later this changed and eventually they asserted that the king himself was divine and worthy of worship. So while the Sumerians worshiped their king the Harappans chose not to glorify any particular person and were instead ruled by ordinary people.
The economies of the Harappan and Sumerian civilizations were very similar. Both civilizations relied heavily on trade; in fact they appear to have traded extensively with one another. In records found in Mesopotamia there is mentioned a civilization they traded with in the area of the Indus valley and many Indus seals, for which they are well known, have been found in Mesopotamia. The Sumerians exported mostly textiles and crops, while the Harappans traded in lumber,