Mohenjo Daro An Ancient Indus Valley Metropolis

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 abov… >

"Citadel" Mound Excavations in the SD area of the "citadel" mound uncovered a large colonnaded building with a specially designed water tank usually referred to as the "Great Bath". Just to the south west of the Great Bath is the so-called "Granary," a massive building with solid brick foundations with sockets for a wooden super structure and doorways. The actual functio… >

Site Chronology The earliest occupation levels of the site currently lie buried below the water table and date to around 3500 BCE, during the Kot Diji phase of the Regionalization era (Chaolong 1990). These levels were first discovered in the small-scale excavations at the northwest corner of the western "citadel" mound by Wheeler in 1946 (Alcock 1986). The pottery from … >

Environs and Crafts (cont.) Although the Indus people did not bury their wealth with the dead, they did occasionally hide valuable ornaments in pots and bury these under the floors of a house. In the course of the early excavations, a few rare discoveries were made of gold and silver ornaments and silver vessels that provide evidence for a class of wealthy … >

Environs and Crafts (cont.) Towards the end of the Indus occupation a slightly different type of pottery, called Jhukar ware was used alongside the more standard Harappa pottery. New styles of geometric seals that did not have writing replace the inscribed seals that were characteristic of the Indus occupation. The transition from one culture to the next … >