Mohenjo-Daro
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.
Mohenjo-daro was built in the 26th century BCE. ... Mohenjo-daro was the most advanced city of its time, with remarkably sophisticated civil engineering and urban planning. When the Indus civilization went into sudden decline around 1900 BCE, Mohenjo-daro was abandoned.
General Knowledge:
10 Facts about Mohenjo-daro of Indus Valley Civilization
·
Mohenjo-daro was the largest site of the Indus Valley Civilization.
·
Mohenjo-daro was world's earliest major urban settlements.
· Mohenjo-daro was contemporary of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Crete, and Norte Chico civilizations.
Located on the bank of Indus River in the southern province of Sindh, Mohenjodaro was built around 2400 BC. It was destroyed at least seven times by the floods and rebuilt on the top of ruins each time. ... Five spurs built along the river banks at an average height of 6 metres protected the city during 1992 floods.
Just what ended the Indus civilization—and Mohenjo Daro—is also a mystery. Kenoyer suggests that the Indus River changed course, which would have hampered the local agricultural economy and the city's importance as a center of trade.
Mohenjo-Daro
Mohenjo-daro (/moʊˌhɛndʒoʊ ˈdɑːroʊ/; Sindhi: موئن جو دڙو, meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men'; Urdu: موئن جو دڑو [muˑənⁱ dʑoˑ d̪əɽoˑ]) is an archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2500 BCE, 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 civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoan Crete, and Norte Chico. Mohenjo-daro was abandoned in the 19th century BCE as the Indus Valley Civilization declined, and the site was not rediscovered until 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 site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.
|
History |
|
|
Founded |
26–25th century BCE |
|
Abandoned |
19th century BCE |
|
Cultures |
Indus Valley Civilisation |
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UNESCO World Heritage Site |
|
|
Official Name |
Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro |
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Criteria |
Cultural: ii, iii |
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Reference |
138 |
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Inscription |
1980 (4th Session) |
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Area |
240 ha |
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 Kukkutarma ("the
city [-rma] of the cockerel [kukkuta]"). According
to Mahadevan, an Indus seal has "recorded in the Indus script the original
Dravidian name of the city, corresponding to Indo-Aryan Kukkutarma."
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.
Mohenjo-daro, the modern name for the site, has been interpreted as "Mound of the Dead Men" 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 28 kilometres (17 mi) from the town of Larkana.
Historical
Context
Mohenjo-daro was built in the 26th century BCE. It was one of the largest cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, which developed around 3,000 BCE from the prehistoric Indus culture. At its height, the Indus Civilization 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. When the Indus civilization went into sudden decline around 1900 BCE, 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 1919–20 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 K. N. Dikshit in 1924–25, and John Marshall in 1925–26. 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 Hasan Dani. The last major series of excavations were conducted in 1964 and 1965 by George F. 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. 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. 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 organization. The city is divided into two parts, the
so-called Citadel and the Lower City. The Citadel – a mud-brick mound around 12
metres (39 ft) high – is 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. 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 12 metres (39 ft) long, 7 metres (23 ft) wide and 2.4 metres
(7.9 ft) 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
Mohenjo-daro had no
series of city walls, but was fortified with guard 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, it is postulated that Mohenjo-daro was an administrative
center. Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share relatively the same architectural
layout, and were generally not heavily fortified like 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 civilizations at the time, such as Egypt or Mesopotamia, and the quantity
of wells transcribes as one well for every three houses. Because 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
civilization, 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. For some archaeologists, it was believed that a final flood that helped engulf the city in a sea of mud brought about the abandonment of the site. 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. 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.
Pottery and
terracotta sherds have been recovered from the site, with many of the
pots having deposits of ash in them, leading archeologists to believe they were
either used to hold the ashes of a person or as a way to warm up a home located
in the site. These heaters, or braziers, were ways to heat the house while
also being able to be utilized in a manner of cooking or straining, while
others solely believe they were used for heating.
The finds from
Mohenjo-daro were initially deposited in the Lahore Museum, but later
moved to the ASI headquarters at New Delhi, where a new "Central Imperial
Museum" was being planned for the new capital of the British Raj, in which
at least a selection would be displayed. It became apparent that Indian independence
was approaching, but the Partition of India was not anticipated until
late in the process. The new Pakistani authorities requested the return of the
Harappan pieces excavated on their territory, but the Indian authorities
refused. Eventually an agreement was reached, whereby the finds, totalling some
12,000 objects (most sherds of pottery), were split equally between
the countries; in some cases this was taken very literally, with some necklaces
and girdles having their beads separated into two piles. In the case of the
"two most celebrated sculpted figures", Pakistan asked for and
received the Priest-king, while India retained the much
smaller Dancing Girl, and also the Pashupati seal.
Most of the objects from
Mohenjo-daro retained by India are in the National Museum of
India in New Delhi and those returned to Pakistan in
the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi, with many also in
the museum now established at Mohenjo-daro itself. In 1939, a small
representative group of artefacts excavated at the site was transferred to
the British Museum by the Director-General of the Archaeological
Survey of India.
Mother Goddess Idol
Discovered by John
Marshall in 1931, the idol appears to mimic certain characteristics that
match the Mother Goddess belief common in many early Near East
civilizations. Sculptures and figurines depicting women have been observed
as part of Harappan culture and religion, as multiple female pieces were
recovered from Marshall's archaeological digs. These figures were not
categorized correctly, according to Marshall, meaning that where they were
recovered from the site is not actually clear. One of said figures, pictured
below, is 18.7 cm tall and is currently on display at the National Museum
of Pakistan, in Karachi. The fertility and motherhood aspects on display
on the idols is represented by the female genitalia that is presented in an
almost exaggerated style as stated by Marshall, with him inferring that such
figurines are offerings to the goddess, as opposed to the typical understanding
of them being idols representing the goddess's likeness. Because of the
figurines being unique in terms of hairstyles, body proportions, as well as
headdresses and jewelry, there are theories as to who these figurines actually
represent. Shereen Ratnagar theorizes that because of their
uniqueness and dispersed discovery throughout the site that they could be
figurines of ordinary household women, who commissioned these pieces to be used
in rituals or healing ceremonies to help aforementioned individual women.
Dancing Girl
A bronze statuette
dubbed the "Dancing Girl", 10.5 centimetres (4.1 in)
high and about 4,500 years old, was found in 'HR area' of Mohenjo-daro in
1926; it is now in the National Museum, New Delhi. In 1973, British archaeologist Mortimer
Wheeler described the item as his favorite statuette:
She's about fifteen
years old I should think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the
way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly
confident of herself and the world. There's nothing like her, I think, in the
world.
John Marshall, another
archeologist at Mohenjo-daro, described the figure as "a young girl, her
hand on her hip in a half-impudent posture, and legs slightly forward as she
beats time to the music with her legs and feet." The
archaeologist Gregory Possehl said of the statuette, "We may not
be certain that she was a dancer, but she was good at what she did and she knew
it". The statue led to two important discoveries about the civilization:
first, that they knew metal blending, casting and other sophisticated methods
of working with ore, and secondly that entertainment, especially dance, was
part of the culture.
Priest-King
In 1927, a seated male soapstone figure was found in a building with unusually ornamental brickwork and a wall-niche. Though there is no evidence that priests or monarchs ruled Mohenjo-daro, archaeologists dubbed this dignified figure a "Priest-King". The sculpture is 17.5 centimetres (6.9 in) tall, and shows a neatly bearded man with pierced earlobes and a fillet around his head, possibly all that is left of a once-elaborate hairstyle or head-dress; his hair is combed back. He wears an armband, and a cloak with drilled trefoil, single circle and double circle motifs, which show traces of red. His eyes might have originally been inlaid.
Pashupati Seal
A seal discovered at the
site bears the image of a seated, cross-legged and
possibly ithyphallic figure surrounded by animals. The figure has
been interpreted by some scholars as a yogi, and by others as a
three-headed "proto-Shiva" as "Lord of Animals".
Seven-Stranded Necklace
Sir Mortimer Wheeler was especially fascinated with this artifact, which he believed to be at least 4,500 years old. The necklace has an S-shaped clasp with seven strands, each over 4 ft long, of bronze-metal bead-like nuggets which connect each arm of the "S" in filigree. Each strand has between 220 and 230 of the many-faceted nuggets, and there are about 1,600 nuggets in total. The necklace weighs about 250 grams in total, and is presently held in a private collection in India.
Conservation
and Current State
An initial agreement to
fund restoration was agreed through the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in Paris on 27
May 1980. Contributions were made by a number of other countries to the
project:
|
Country |
Contribution US $ |
|
Australia |
$62,650.00 |
|
Bahrain |
$3,000.00 |
|
Cameroon |
$1,000.00 |
|
Egypt |
$63,889.60 |
|
Germany |
$375,939.85 |
|
India |
$49,494.95 |
|
Iraq |
$9,781.00 |
|
Japan |
$200,000.00 |
|
Kuwait |
$3,000.00 |
|
Malta |
$275.82 |
|
Mauritius |
$2,072.50 |
|
Nigeria |
$8,130.00 |
|
Saudi Arabia |
$58,993.63 |
|
Sri Lanka |
$1,562.50 |
|
Tanzania |
$1,000.00 |
Preservation work for
Mohenjo-daro was suspended in December 1996 after funding from the Pakistani
government and international organizations stopped. Site conservation work
resumed in April 1997, using funds made available by the UNESCO. The 20-year
funding plan provided $10 million to protect the site and standing structures
from flooding. In 2011, responsibility for the preservation of the site
was transferred to the government of Sindh.
Currently the site is
threatened by groundwater salinity and improper restoration. Many
walls have already collapsed, while others are crumbling from the ground up. In
2012, Pakistani archaeologists warned that, without improved conservation
measures, the site could disappear by 2030.
2014 Sindh Festival
The Mohenjo-daro site was further threatened in January 2014, when Bilawal Bhutto Zardari of the Pakistan People's Party chose the site for Sindh Festival's inauguration ceremony. This would have exposed the site to mechanical operations, including excavation and drilling. Farzand Masih, head of the Department of Archaeology at Punjab University warned that such activity was banned under the Antiquity Act, saying "You cannot even hammer a nail at an archaeological site." On 31 January 2014, a case was filed in the Sindh High Court to bar the Sindh government from continuing with the event. The festival was held by PPP at the historic site, despite all the protest by both national and international historians and educators.
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