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Mohenjo-Daro, Pakistan’s Mysterious Ancient Civilization
South Asia’s ancient Indus Valley civilization, which lasted from 2600 to 1900 BC, is one of the four earliest urban Old World civilizations. Unlike Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China’s Yellow River civilization, however, the Indus Valley civilization remains mysterious because linguists have not yet deciphered the 400 symbols of the Indus script that cover seals, amulets and pottery vessels found in the ruins of Indus Valley civilization cities, such as Harappa (Punjab province, Pakistan) and Mohenjo-Daro (Sindh province, Pakistan).
Indus Valley civilization anthropologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Ph.D., notes, “Archaeologists do not know the language for which the script was developed, but [the script] was probably used for writing more than one language, as was the case in Mesopotamia [i.e., cuneiform]. We will never know for sure until someone discovers some form of bilingual tablet (an Indus Rosetta stone) that will help scholars break the code of the writing system.” (1)
. The Indus Valley civilization is named after Pakistan’s mighty Indus River, which flows from its source in the Himalayas to its mouth on the Arabian Sea. Modern Europeans first learned of the Indus Valley civilization in 1826 when British Army deserter Charles Masson (also known as James Lewis) stumbled upon heavy adobe bricks of a large ruined city near modern-day Harappa, from which the archeological site received its name. In 1842, Charles Masson published his Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and the Punjab, which describes his findings. (2) The Harappa site is about six miles distant from the Ravi River, which 100 miles upstream waters Lahore, Punjab province, Pakistan. (3) The Ravi River joins the Chenab River, which joins the Indus River on its way to the sea. Europeans named the entire Indian subcontinent “India,” after the Greeks’ name for the Indus River--“Indo.”
Between 1856 and 1872, Sir Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893), director of the Archaeological Survey of India, performed some small excavations at the Harappan site while looking for settlements visited by Chinese pilgrims in the Buddhist period. (4-5) He had no idea about the age or importance of the Harappa ruins. Entrepreneurial humans (brick robbers) reused the site’s heavy adobe brick to build houses and other structures, such as 100 miles of track ballast for the Karachi-Lahore railroad under construction in 1865. In 1914, Sir John Marshall (1876-1958), also a director of the Archaeological Survey of India, surveyed Harappa, identifying a high citadel 50 feet above the lower Harappa city, a great waterproofed tank or bath, and a granary. Seven years later in 1921, he initiated Harappa’s systematic excavation, finding six levels of occupation belonging to a complex contained within a three-mile circumference. Sir Marshall also worked on the Mohenjo-Daro site (“Mound of the Dead”, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, 1980), (6) the largest of all the 1,500 known cities and hamlets of the Indus Valley civilization. (1) Mohenjo-Daro is located 350 miles south of Harappa in the Indus River flood plain of southern Pakistan’s Sindh province. R.D. Banerji, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India, first discovered Mohenjo-Daro in 1921-1922 while studying an overlying Buddhist stupa--a simple mound of mud or clay to cover supposed relics of the Buddha. (7) Sir Marshall wrote about Mr. Banerji’s discovery of Mohenjo-Daro in his 1931 book entitled Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization: The site had long been known to district officials in Sindh, and had been visited more than once by local archaeological officers, but it was not until 1922, when Mr. R.D. Banerji started to dig there, that the prehistoric character of its remains was revealed. This is not greatly to be wondered at; for the only structures then visible were the Buddhist Stupa and Monastery at the north-west corner of the site, and these were built exclusively of brick taken from the older ruins, so that it was not unnatural to infer that the rest of the site was referable to approximately the same age as the Buddhist monuments, viz, to the early centuries of the Christian era. Indeed, when Mr. Banerji himself set about his excavations here, he had no idea of finding anything prehistoric. His primary object was to lay bare the Buddhist remains, and it was while engaged on this task that he came by chance on several seals inscribed with legends in an undecipherable script which had long been known to us from the ruins of Harappa in the Panjab [sic]. As it happened, the excavation of Harappa itself had at my instance been taken up in the year previous by Rai Bahaur Daya Ram Sahni, and enough had already been brought to light to demonstrate conclusively that its remains, including the inscribed seals, were referable to the Chalcolithic Age [Copper Stone Age, 4500-3300 BC]. (8) Thus, Mr. Banerji’s find came at a singularly opportune moment, when we were specially eager to locate other sites of the same early age as Harappa. Mr. Banerji himself was quick to appreciate the value of his discovery, and lost no time in following it up…With the hot season rapidly approaching, Mr. Banerji’s digging was necessarily very restricted, and it is no wonder, therefore, that his achievements have been put in the shade by the much bigger operations that have since been carried out. This does not, however, lessen the credit due to him. His task at Mohenjo-daro [sic] was far from being as simple as it may now appear. Apart from the discoveries at Harappa, which he had not personally seen, nothing whatever was then known of the Indus civilization. (9)
Sir Marshall published an illustration in Illustrated London News in 1924 of one of the seals (impressions on clay) discovered at Mohenjo-Daro, which University of Chicago archaeologist Ernest MacKay read with great interest, realizing immediately that the seal in the photo was identical to a seal he had discovered under the foundation of a temple at Kish in Mesopotamia. Dr. MacKay’s exciting discovery was the first hint of the antiquity of the ruins at Mohenjo-Daro. Ernest MacKay, K.N. Dikshit, and numerous other directors excavated bountiful Mohenjo-Daro through the 1930s.(90) The richest grain-lands of Sindh province in the days before modern irrigation, wrote Sir John Marshall, were the broad plains surrounding Larkana, a 300-year-old city on the west bank of the Indus river. (10) Larkana’s altitude is about 160 feet. “Round Larkana itself the country is known as the Garden of Sind, and compared with many parts of the [Sindh] Province, it may well be likened to a garden,” says Sir Marshall. At the best, however, the term is a relative one. For in spite of its natural advantages, there are still many patches of salt wilderness or stretches of unreclaimed jungle interrupting the cultivation.” (10) Mohenjo-Daro lies about 25 miles from Larkana on a small patch of barren salty land, which is a problem for the preservation of the ruins. Sir Marshall continues, “The mounds which hide the remains of the ancient city [of Mohenjo-Daro], or rather series of cities (since there are several of them superimposed one upon the other) are conspicuous from afar in the riverine flat, the highest of them, near the northwest corner, rising to a height of some 70 feet, the others averaging from 20 to 30 feet above the plain. The actual area covered by the mounds is now no more than about 240 acres, but there is little doubt, as we shall presently see, that floods and erosion have greatly diminished their extent, and that the deep alluvium deposited by the river [Indus] has covered all the lower and outlying parts of the city. “Floods, too, and erosion, accelerated by the extreme aridity of the climate, have worked much havoc in the mounds that have survived, cutting them up into hillocks, furrowing their sides, and widening and deepening the long depressions that make the lines of the ancient streets. The salts also which permeate the soil of Sind have hastened the decay of the site. With the slightest moisture in the air, these salts crystallize on any exposed surface of the ancient brickwork, causing it to disintegrate and flake away, eventually reducing it to powder. So rapid is their action that within a few hours after a single shower of rain newly excavated buildings take on a mantle of white rime like freshly fallen snow. The desolation that thus distinguished this group of mounds is shared by the plain immediately around them, which for the most part is also white with salt and sustains little besides the dwarf tamarisk and the babul, the camel-thorn, and tussocks of coarse kanh grass.” (10) The climate of Sindh’s Larkana district is brutal, ranging from between below freezing to 120 degrees Fahrenheit. “There are bitterly cold winds in winter, frequent dust storms in summer” and the average rainfall is not more than 6 inches, but occasionally (as in 1929) varied by torrential downpours.” “Clouds of sandflies and mosquitoes increase the discomforts of life—and it hard to picture a less attractive spot than Mohenjo-daro is today.” (11) It is wrong to assume, however, that the conditions were the same 5,000 years ago, when Mohenjo-Daro was a prosperous city. “On the contrary,” says Sir Marshall, “there are reasons for believing that both the climate and physical aspects of the country have undergone material changes since then. Thus, that the rainfall used to be substantially heavier than it is at present, may be inferred from the universal use of burnt instead of sun-dried bricks (used in Mesopotamia) for the wall of dwelling houses and other buildings…Had the climate been as dry and the rainfall as scanty as it is today, it can hardly be doubted that they would have used sun-dried bricks (which are far cheaper than burnt ones)…Another piece of evidence…is furnished by the class of animals engraved on the seal amulets. Apart from cattle and fabulous creatures, these animals are such as are commonly found in damp, jungly country—namely, the tiger, rhinoceros, and elephant; the lion, which notoriously prefers a dry zone, is conspicuous by its absence.” (12) The Indus River system including its affluents and branches waters Sindh, including Mohenjo-Daro. Sir Marshall postulates that the residents of Mohenjo-Daro lived in ever-present dread of the river, because of its annual inundation. The inundation, however, was also the source of the fertility of the region. The builders of Mohenjo-Daro took great pains to provide their edifices with “preternaturally solid basements” and “raised them aloft on artificial terraces which time and again were heightened in order to place them out of reach of the floods.” (13) The annual flooding of the Indus River also brought with it massive amounts of silt, which caused the level of the riverbed and alluvial plain to continuously rise. The builders of Mohenjo-Daro had to keep up with this rise in the river level by elevating the city’s buildings over the centuries. Sir Marshall notes that the amount of silt carried down by the Indus River at nearby Sukkur during the monsoon season was nearly a million tons per day The builders of Mohenjo-Daro aligned their buildings along a grid system with straight streets. Burnt brick about the same size as bricks today was the major material used to build vertical walls whose inner faces were covered with clay plaster or “brought to a fine finish by rubbing down the bricks.” (15) Foundations of the larger buildings were laid with great care, while smaller buildings often rested on broken-up burnt clay pieces, which often gave way. “Floors were made of brick either flat or on edge, the latter method being almost invariable in the case of bathrooms and common wherever the flooring was exposed or subjected to excessive wear and tear.” Ground-floor rooms, which are the only rooms that have survived at Mohenjo-Daro, received their light and air through doorways and sometimes through slits in the outer walls. Stairways leading to the upper stories of the buildings are universal, writes Sir Marshall, “the treads generally, though not always, being steep and narrow.” Each building had its own well built of brick in the round. Bathrooms were connected to a street drainage system and existed on upper floors as well as the ground floor. Garbage chutes or flues descended to openings on the street where garbage collectors picked up the garbage. Besides private garbage chutes were public garbage cans provided at convenient spots at the sides of the streets. Where did the drainage systems drain? “It is not a little surprising to find that the street drains merely discharged into soak-pits in the open thoroughfares, and that no attempt was made to carry them outside the limits of the town.” (15) Roofs were probably flat. They probably rested on timbers covered with planking and beaten earth, with a protective course of brick, matting, or other material between them, notes Sir Marshall. Three categories of buildings at Mohenjo-Daro are dwelling houses, buildings whose purpose has not yet been determined and public baths, which may have had either a religious or secular character. The houses varied in size, from two room affairs to huge homes that could be ranked “almost as palaces.” One house has a frontage of 85 meet and a depth of 97 feet. Its walls are 4 to 5 feet in thickness. The entrance leads to the entrance hall, on the opposite of which is the porter’s lodge. The walls of the entrance hall were finished in clay plaster, a large patch of which still adheres to one wall. “It is about ¾ in. thick, and composed of mud and chopped grass, finished off with a finer wash of clay.” (16) To the right of the porter’s lodge is a hallway leading to the interior courtyard, surrounded by ground and upper floors. The upper floors provided the family’s living and sleeping areas; a steep staircase provided access. A second house is grander than the first, with three entrances, four fair-sized courts, three staircases, a porter’s lodge, and a well chamber.
The Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro, astonishingly well preserved and measuring 180 feet north to south and 108 feet east to west, is a “vast hydropathic establishment and the most imposing of all the remains unearthed at Mohenjo-Daro,” opines Sir Marshall. (17) “Its plan is simple: in the centre, an open quadrangle with verandahs on its four sides, and at the back of three of the verandahs various galleries and rooms; on the south, a long gallery with a small chamber in each corner; on the east, a single range of small chambers, including one with a well; on the north a group of several halls and fair-sized rom. In the midst of the open quadrangle is a large swimming-bath, some 39 feet long by 23 feet broad and sunk about 8 feet below the paving of the court, with a flight of steps at either end, and at the foot of each a low platform for the convenience of bathers, who might otherwise have found the water too deep. The bath was filled from the well…, and the waste water was carried off through a covered drain…The Great Bath had a least one upper storey,” as evidenced by a stairway. A large amount of timber, possibly richly carved, must have gone to the building of the upper storey, judging from the quantities of charcoal and ashes found in the course of excavation, notes Sir Marshall. The outer walls of the Great Bath measure between 7 and 8 feet in thickness. The earliest occupation levels at Mohenjo-Daro are below the water table and date to about 3,500 BC, says Kenoyer. The majority of the structures visible today date to the final occupation of the city, which date to 2,200-1,900 BC, according to two radiocarbon dates. (19) Sculpture and burial skeletons provide some information about the appearance of the residents of the Indus Valley Civilization. A skeleton recovered at Harappa (see below) indicates “the body may have been wrapped in a shroud, and was then placed inside a wooden coffin, which was entombed in a rectangular pit surrounded with burial offerings in pottery vessels. The man was buried wearing a long necklace of 340-graduated steatite beads and three separate pendant beads made of natural stone and three gold beads. A single copper bead was found at his waist. The most prominent pendant bead is made of a rare variety of onyx with natural eye designs in alternating shades of red, white, tan and green. Gold beads were placed at each end to frame this important ornament. The other two stone beads were made of banded jasper and turquoise, with a single gold bead at one end of the turquoise bead.” (20)
Another burial site reveals a woman and infant from Harappa. “This burial was disturbed in antiquity, possibly by ancient Harappan grave robbers. Besides the fact that the body is flipped and the pottery disturbed, the left arm of the woman is broken and shell bangles that would normally be found on the left arm are missing. The infant was buried in a small pit beneath the legs of the mother.” (21)
The famous “priest king” statue from Mohenjo-Daro shows a “fillet or ribbon headband with circular inlay ornament on the forehead and similar but smaller ornament on the right upper arm. 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 center 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.” (22)
The “dancing girl” bronze statuette is 10.8 centimeters tall. British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler described her in this way: “There is her little Baluchi-style face with pouting lips and insolent look in the eye. 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.” Sir John Marshall said of her, “A vivid impression of the 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...” Author 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.” (23) Europeans have known about the existence of the great ancient Indus Valley civilization, Chalcolithic period (4500-3300 BC), for less than a century. The Indus Valley script has not been deciphered by linguists, placing limits on what is known about this mysterious civilization. Notes:
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