Mohenjo-Daro

“An Ancient Indus Valley Metropolis”

The name of Mohenjo-Daro is widely recognized as

one of the most important early cities of South Asia and the Indus Civilization and yet most publications rarely provide more than a cursory overview of this important site. Many publications still state that Mohenjo-Daro is located in India (presumably referring to ancient India) but since the creation of Pakistan in 1947, the site has been under the protection of theDepartment of Archaeology and Museums,Government of Pakistan. 

Discovery and Major Excavations

Mohenjo-Daro was discovered in 1922 by R. D. Banerji, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India, two years after major excavations had begun at Harappa, some 590 km to the north. Large-scale excavations were carried out at the site under the direction of John Marshall, K. N. Dikshit, Ernest Mackay, and numerous other directors through the 1930s.

Although the earlier excavations were not conducted using stratigraphic approaches or with the types of recording techniques employed by modern archaeologists they did produce a remarkable amount of information that is still being studied by scholars today

The last major excavation project at the site was carried out by the late Dr. G. F. Dales in 1964-65, after which excavations were banned due to the problems of conserving the exposed structures from weathering.

Site Location

The site is located in the semi-arid region of Sindh province, Pakistan, and situated on a Pleistocene ridge that sits like an island in the flood plain of the Indus River.

Although the ridge is now deeply buried by the annual flooding that inundated the plain, it may have been more prominent in the prehistoric period, with the early city standing out above the surrounding plain.

The site appears to have been located in a central position between the two vast river valleys, the Indus on the west and the Ghaggar-Hakra on the east that would have flowed to the east of the Rohri hills. 

Today the Indus flows to the east of the site and the Ghaggar-Hakra riverbed is dry. The drying up of one river and the shifting of the Indus across the site were undoubtedly major factors contributing to the decline of the ancient city.

Site Organization/Settlement Planning

Mohenjo Daro is by far the largest of the Indus cities, extending over 250 hectares with widespread mounds and outlying habitation areas.It is one of the best-preserved urban centers of the Indus Civilization (2600-1900 BCE) and the only other comparable site is Dholavira, Kutch, India.

The buildings of Mohenjo-daro are made primarily of fired brick, though some structures do include mud brick and timbers.

Mohenjo-daro was spared the looting of bricks that destroyed Harappa and most sites in the Punjab because the main railroad line was constructed along the east bank of the Indus and crushed rock from the Rohri hills was easily accessible for constructing the rail bed.

"Citadel" Mound

"Lower Town"

Architecture and urban infrastructure

Mohenjo-daro is a remarkable construction, considering its antiquity. It has a planned layout based on a grid of streets, which were laid out in perfect patterns. At its height the city probably had around 35,000 residents. The buildings of the city were particularly advanced, with structures constructed of same-sized sun dried bricks of baked mud and burned wood.

The public buildings of these cities also suggest a high degree of social organization. The so-called Great Granary at Mohenjo-daro as interpreted by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1950 is designed with bays to receive carts delivering crops from the countryside, and there are ducts for air to circulate beneath the stored grain to dry it. However, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer has noted that no record of grain exists at the "granary." Thus Kenoyer suggests that a more appropriate title would be "Great Hall."

Close to the granary, there is a building similarly civic in nature - a great public bath (sometimes called the Great Bath), with steps down to a brick-lined pool in a colonnaded courtyard. The elaborate bath area was very well built, with a layer of natural tar to keep it from leaking, and in the centre was the pool. Measuring 12m x 7m, with a depth of 2.4m, it may have been used for religious or spiritual ceremonies.

Being an agricultural city, it also featured a large well, and central marketplace. It also had a building with an underground furnace (hypocaust), possibly for heated bathing.

Mohenjo-daro was a well fortified city. Lacking actual city walls, it did have towers to the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications to the south. Considering these fortifications and the structure of other major Indus valley cities like Harappa, lead to the question of whether Mohenjo-daro was an administrative centre. Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share relatively the same architectural layout.

Mohenjo-daro was successively destroyed and rebuilt at least seven times. Each time, the new cities were built directly on top of the old ones. Flooding by the Indus is thought to have been the cause of destruction.

The city was divided into two parts, the so-called Citadel and the Lower City. Most of the Lower City is yet to be uncovered, but the Citadel is known to have the public bath, a large residential structure designed to house 5,000 citizens and two large assembly halls.

Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and their civilization, vanished without trace from history until discovered in the 1920s. It was extensively excavated in the 1920s, but no in-depth excavations have been carried out since the 1960s.

Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. Some of the houses included rooms that appear to have been set aside for bathing, and waste water was directed to covered drains lining the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes. A variety of buildings were up to two stories high.

Environs and Crafts (Artifacts) 

The "Dancing girl" found in Mohenjo-daro is an artifact that is some 4500 years old. The 10.8 cm long bronze statue of the dancing girl was found in 1926 from a house in Mohenjo-daro. 

"The Dancing girl" artifact found in Mohenjo-daro

The artistry of this statuette is recognizable today and tells of a strange, but at least fleetingly recognizable past. As the archaeologist Gregory Possehl says, "We may not be certain that she was a dancer, but she was good at what she did and she knew it". The statue could well be of some queen or other important woman of the Indus Valley Civilization judging from the authority the figure commands.

Seated male sculpture, the so-called "Priest King" (even though there is no evidence that either priests or kings ruled the city). This 17.5 cm tall statue is another artifact which has become a symbol for the Indus valley civilization. Archaeologists discovered the sculpture in Lower town at Mohenjo-daro in 1927. It was found in an unusual house with ornamental brickwork and a wall niche and was lying between brick foundation walls which once held up a floor.

This bearded sculpture wears a fillet around the head, an armband, and a cloak decorated with trefoil patterns that were originally filled with red pigment.

The "Priest-king" statue’s

The two ends of the fillet fall along the back and though the hair is carefully combed towards the back of the head, no bun is present. The flat back of the head may have held a separately carved bun as is traditional on the other seated figures, or it could have held a more elaborate horn and plumed headdress.

Two holes beneath the highly stylized ears suggest that a necklace or other head ornament was attached to the sculpture. The left shoulder is covered with a cloak decorated with trefoil, double circle and single circle designs that were originally filled with red pigment. Drill holes in the centre of each circle indicate they were made with a specialized drill and then touched up with a chisel.

Eyes are deeply incised and may have held inlay. The upper lip is shaved and a short combed beard frames the face. The large crack in the face is the result of weathering or it may be due to original firing of this object.

Current UNESCO status

Preservation work for Mohenjo-daro was suspended in December 1996 after funding from the government and international organisations stopped.

However, in April 1997 the U. N. Educational, Scientific and Culture Organization (UNESCO) funded a $10 million project to be conducted over two decades to protect the standing structures and the site from flooding.

Thank you…