Mohenjo-Daro

From ArticleWorld

Mohenjo-Daro, or mound of the dead, excavated about 80 years ago was one of the foremost planned cities of the world that existed about 4500 to 3700 years ago. It is situated on the west bank of the River Indus, located some 80 kilometers southwest of Sukkur, in Sindh province of Pakistan and at a distance of 600 kilometers from Karachi, one of the most important metropolises of the Country and the capital of Sindh. It was excavated in the 1920’s by the British archaeologist Sir John Marshall and covers more than 80 hectares.

The city

The city of Mohenjo-Daro was a very well planned major city during the Bronze Age and excavations at the site have shown that it was architecturally brilliant and complex. It is made up of two mounds separated by an unoccupied area. The mound on the west was small and has been named the ‘citadel’. It housed several public buildings which may have been surrounded by a wall. These buildings have been identified by the excavators and historians to be a granary, college, a public bath and an assembly hall. The eastern mound was the larger of the two mounds and was made up of large blocks of brick buildings. The streets of the town were wide and in the formation of a grid, cutting each other at right angles. Spacious houses were built within the squares that the grids formed. The ancient city’s planning skills were well honed and it must have provided brisk business for architects.

Remarkably modern

Mohenjo-Daro was a very developed city and has left behind a wealth of pottery, jewelry, inscribed seals, houses, buildings and architecture for historians to piece together the civilization bit by revealing bit. The building and architectural details of this city are truly remarkable, with the structures being constructed out of baked bricks or sun-dried bricks and wood. The remarkable thing was that the city center and surrounding towns were built with brick that is consistent for miles around indicating that the Harrapans worked according to some building standards.

The mound of the dead

The city was destroyed due to flooding and rebuilt seven times. The reason why the Indus Valley Civilization was finally ruined is not very clear. It could be that the river changed its course and the civilization that was totally dependent upon it could not sustain itself after that. Another surmise is that some mystery illness swept the cities and wiped out the entire civilization.