Mohenjo-daro (; ; ) is an archaeological site in the Larkana District of Sindh, Pakistan. Built , it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, and one of the world's earliest major cities, contemporaneous with the civilisations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoa, and Norte Chico.Mohenjo-Daro (archaeological site, Pakistan) on Encyclopedia Britannica website Retrieved 25 November 2019
With an estimated population of at least 40,000 people, Mohenjo-daro prospered for several centuries, but by had been abandoned, along with other large cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation.
The site was rediscovered in the 1920s. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, the first site in South Asia to be so designated. The site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.
Etymology The city's original name is unknown. Based on his analysis of a Mohenjo-daro seal, Iravatham Mahadevan speculates that the city's ancient name could have been Kukkuṭārma ("the city [-rma] of the cockerel [kukkuta]").Iravatham Mahadevan. "'Address' Signs of the Indus Script" (PDF). Presented at the World Classical Tamil Conference 2010. 23–27 June 2010. The Hindu. Cock-fighting may have had ritual and religious significance for the city. Mohenjo-daro may also have been a point of diffusion for the clade of the domesticated chicken found in Africa, Western Asia, Europe and the Americas.Poultry Breeding and Genetics. R. D. Crawford (1990). Elsevier Health Sciences. pp. 10–11, 44.
Mohenjo-daro, the modern name for the site, has been interpreted as "Mound of the Dead" in Sindhi.
Location
Mohenjo-daro is located off the right (west) bank of the lower Indus river in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan. It lies on a Pleistocene ridge in the flood plain of the Indus, around from the town of Larkana.
Historical context Mohenjo-daro was built around 2500 BC.Ancientindia.co.uk. Retrieved 2 May 2012. It was one of the largest cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, also known as the Harappan Civilisation, which developed from the prehistoric Indus culture. At its height, the Indus Civilisation spanned much of what is now Pakistan and North India, extending westwards to the Iranian border, south to Gujarat in India and northwards to an outpost in Bactria, with major urban centers at Harappa, Mohenjo-daro, Lothal, Kalibangan, Dholavira, and Rakhigarhi. Mohenjo-daro was the most advanced city of its time, with remarkably sophisticated civil engineering and urban planning.A H Dani (1992). "Critical Assessment of Recent Evidence on Mohenjo-daro". Second International Symposium on Mohenjo-daro, 24–27 February 1992. When the Indus civilisation went into sudden decline , Mohenjo-daro was abandoned.
Rediscovery and excavation
The ruins of the city remained undocumented for around 3,700 years until R. D. Banerji, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India, visited the site in 1919–1920 identifying what he thought to be a Buddhist stupa (150–500 CE) known to be there and finding a flint scraper which convinced him of the site's antiquity. This led to large-scale excavations of Mohenjo-daro led by Kashinath Dikshit in 1924–1925, and John Marshall in 1925–1926. In the 1930s, major excavations were conducted at the site under the leadership of Marshall, D. K. Dikshitar and Ernest Mackay. Further excavations were carried out in 1945 by Mortimer Wheeler and his trainee, Ahmad Dani and F. A. Khan. The last major series of excavations were conducted in 1964 and 1965 by George Dales. After 1965, excavations were banned due to weathering damage to the exposed structures, and the only projects allowed at the site since have been salvage excavations, surface surveys, and conservation projects. In the 1980s, German and Italian survey groups led by Michael Jansen and Maurizio Tosi used less invasive archeological techniques, such as architectural documentation, surface surveys, and localized probing, to gather further information about Mohenjo-daro. A dry core drilling conducted in 2015 by Pakistan's National Fund for Mohenjo-daro revealed that the site is larger than the unearthed area.
Architecture and urban infrastructure
Mohenjo-daro has a planned layout with rectilinear buildings arranged on a grid plan.Mohan Pant and Shjui Fumo, "The Grid and Modular Measures in The Town Planning of Mohenjodaro and Kathmandu Valley: A Study on Modular Measures in Block and Plot Divisions in the Planning of Mohenjodaro and Sirkap (Pakistan), and Thimi (Kathmandu Valley)"; Journal of Asian Architecture and Building Engineerng 59, May 2005. Most were built of fired and mortared brick; some incorporated sun-dried mud-brick and wooden superstructures. The covered area of Mohenjo-daro is estimated at 300 hectares.T.S. SUBRAMANIAN, Harappan surprises. 13 June 2014 – www.frontline.in The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History offers a "weak" estimate of a peak population of around 40,000.
The sheer size of the city, and its provision of public buildings and facilities, suggests a high level of social organisation. The city is divided into two parts, the so-called Citadel and the Lower City. The Citadela mud-brick mound around highis known to have supported public baths, a large residential structure designed to house about 5,000 citizens, and two large assembly halls. The city had a central marketplace, with a large central well. Individual households or groups of households obtained their water from smaller wells. Waste water was channeled to covered drains that lined the major streets. Some houses, presumably those of more prestigious inhabitants, include rooms that appear to have been set aside for bathing, and one building had an underground furnace (known as a hypocaust), possibly for heated bathing. Most houses had inner courtyards, with doors that opened onto side-lanes. Some buildings had two stories.
Major buildings
In 1950, Sir Mortimer Wheeler identified one large building in Mohenjo-daro as a "Great Granary". Certain wall-divisions in its massive wooden superstructure appeared to be grain storage-bays, complete with air-ducts to dry the grain. According to Wheeler, carts would have brought grain from the countryside and unloaded them directly into the bays. However, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer noted the complete lack of evidence for grain at the "granary", which, he argued, might therefore be better termed a "Great Hall" of uncertain function.Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (1998). “Indus Cities, Towns and Villages”, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Islamabad: American Institute of Pakistan Studies. p. 65.
Close to the "Great Granary" is a large and elaborate public bath, sometimes called the Great Bath. From a colonnaded courtyard, steps lead down to the brick-built pool, which was waterproofed by a lining of bitumen. The pool measures long, wide and deep. It may have been used for religious purification.
Other large buildings include a "Pillared Hall", thought to be an assembly hall of some kind, and the so-called "College Hall", a complex of buildings comprising 78 rooms, thought to have been a priestly residence.
Fortifications
Archaeologists have identified the foundations of eroded mud-brick walls that surrounded Mohenjo-daro.Jonathan M. Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 51. It was also fortified with guard towers to the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications to the south. Based on these fortifications and the structure of other major Indus Valley cities such as Harappa, scholars have postulated that Mohenjo-daro was an administrative center. Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share a similar architectural layout and were generally not as heavily fortified as other Indus Valley sites. It is obvious from the identical city layouts of all Indus sites that there was some kind of political or administrative centrality, but the extent and functioning of an administrative center remains unclear.
Water supply and wells The location of Mohenjo-daro was built in a relatively short period of time, with the water supply system and wells being some of the first planned constructions. With the excavations done so far, over 700 wells are present at Mohenjo-daro, alongside drainage and bathing systems. This number is unheard of when compared to other civilisations at the time, such as Egypt or Mesopotamia, and the quantity of wells transcribes as one well for every three houses. Because of the large number of wells, it is believed that the inhabitants relied solely on annual rainfall, as well as the Indus River's course remaining close to the site, alongside the wells providing water for long periods of time in the case of the city coming under siege. Due to the period in which these wells were built and used, it is likely that the circular brick well design used at this and many other Harappan sites are an invention that should be credited to the Indus civilisation, as there is no existing evidence of this design from Mesopotamia or Egypt at this time, and even later. Sewage and waste water for buildings at the site were disposed of via a centralized drainage system that ran alongside the site's streets. These drains that ran alongside the road were effective at allowing most human waste and sewage to be disposed of as the drains most likely took the waste toward the Indus River.
Flooding and rebuilding The city also had large platforms perhaps intended as defense against flooding. According to a theory first advanced by Wheeler, the city could have been flooded and silted over, perhaps six times, and later rebuilt in the same location.George F. Dales, "Civilization and Floods in the Indus Valley", Expedition Magazine, July 1965. Some archaeologists believed that the site was abandoned after a final flood engulfed the city in a sea of mud. Gregory Possehl was the first to theorize that the floods were caused by overuse and expansion upon the land, and that the mud flood was not the reason the site was abandoned. Instead of a mud flood wiping part of the city out in one fell swoop, Possehl coined the possibility of constant mini-floods throughout the year, paired with the land being worn out by crops, pastures, and resources for bricks and pottery spelled the downfall of the site.
Notable artefacts
Numerous objects found in excavation include seated and standing figures, copper and stone tools, carved seals, balance-scales and weights, gold and jasper jewellery, and children's toys.Mohenjo-daro Tools and Artifacts Photo Gallery. Archaeology Online; retrieved 8 April 2012. Many bronze and copper pieces, such as figurines and bowls, have been recovered from the site, showing that the inhabitants of Mohenjo-daro understood how to utilize the lost wax technique. The furnaces found at the site are believed to have been used for copperworks and melting the metals as opposed to smelting. There even seems to be an entire section of the city dedicated to shell-working, located in the northeastern part of the site. Some of the most prominent copperworks recovered from the site are the copper tablets which have examples of the untranslated Indus script and iconography. While the script has not been deciphered yet, many of the images on the tablets match another tablet and both hold the same caption in the Indus language, with the example given showing three tablets with the image of a mountain goat and the inscription on the back reading the same letters for the three tablets.