Impressions of Indus Life around a Well

Excavator Ernest Mackay wrote of this well-head in Mohenjo-daro: "Brick lined wells are a common feature, most of the larger buildings and houses having their own, to which the poorer people frequently had access. In the early days of the city it is probably that some of the wells were quite private, as their seems to be no means of reaching them from the street, but later on, as the population grew, they were thrown open to public use. The rooms within which the wells were situated were, as a rule, carefully paved, and the floor in many cases was marked with deep depressions where countless water jars had been set down (Image 1). Occasionally low brick platforms provided seats, and the sight of a knot of people gathered round a well waiting their turn to draw water and exchanging gossip meanwhile, must have been as common Mohenjo-daro as it is in the East today." (Mackay, The Indus Civilization, 1935, p. 50)