Mohenjodaro : Mound of the Dead

Mohenjo-daro, also spelled Mohenjodaro or Moenjodaro, group of mounds and ruins on the right bank of the Indus River, northern Sindh province, southern Pakistan. It lies on the flat alluvial plain of the Indus, about 50 miles (80 km) southwest of Sukkur. The site contains the remnants of one of two main centres of the ancient Indus civilization (c. 2500–1700 bce), the other one being Harappa, some 400 miles (640 km) to the northwest in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

The name Mohenjo-daro is reputed to signify “the mound of the dead.” The archaeological importance of the site was first recognized in 1922, one year after the discovery of Harappa. Subsequent excavations revealed that the mounds contain the remains of what was once the largest city of the Indus civilization. Because of the city’s size—about 3 miles (5 km) in circuit—and the comparative richness of its monuments and their contents, it has been generally regarded as a capital of an extensive state. Its relationship with Harappa, however, is uncertain—i.e., if the two cities were contemporaneous centres or if one city succeeded the other. Mohenjo-daro was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980.

The city of Mohenjo-daro, now 2 miles (3 km) from the Indus, from which it seems to have been protected, in antiquity as today, by artificial barriers, was laid out with remarkable regularity into something like a dozen blocks, or “islands,” each about 1,260 feet (384 metres) from north to south and 750 feet (228 metres) from east to west, subdivided by straight or doglegged lanes. The central block on the western side was built up artificially to a dominating height of 20 to 40 feet (6 to 12 metres) with mud and mud brick and was fortified to an unascertained extent by square towers of baked brick. Buildings on the high summit included an elaborate bath or tank surrounded by a veranda, a large residential structure, a massive granary, and at least two aisled halls of assembly. It is clear that the citadel (for such it evidently was) carried the religious and ceremonial headquarters of the site. In the lower town were substantial courtyard houses indicating a considerable middle class. Most houses had small bathrooms and, like the streets, were well-provided with drains and sanitation. Brick stairs indicate at least an upper story or a flat, habitable roof. The walls were originally plastered with mud, no doubt to reduce the deleterious effect of the salts that are contained by the bricks and react destructively to varying heat and humidity.

There is no surviving evidence of architectural elaboration, though that may well have been confined to timberwork that has disintegrated. Stone sculpture, too, is scarce; some fragments, however, include the competent head and shoulders of a bearded man with a low forehead, narrowed and somewhat supercilious eyes, a fillet round the brow, and across the left shoulder a cloak carved in relief with trefoils formerly filled with red paste. Aesthetically the most notable work of figurative art from the city is a famous bronze of a young dancing girl, naked save for a multitude of armlets. Among innumerable terra-cottas the most expressive are small but vigorous representations of bulls and buffalo. Female figurines may wear elaborate headdresses, and occasional figurines of small, fat grotesques, male or female, betray what perhaps was a crude sense of humour.

The evidence suggests that Mohenjo-daro suffered more than once from devastating floods of abnormal depth and duration, owing not merely to the encroaching Indus but possibly also to a ponding back of the Indus drainage by tectonic uplifts between Mohenjo-daro and the sea. That evidence has led to speculation that Harappa may have succeeded—or at least outlasted—Mohenjo-daro.