Mohenjo-daro

Mohenjo-daro (Hindi:मोएन-जोदड़ो) was a city of the Indus Valley Civilization, some 80 km southwest of modern Sukkur, Sindh, Pakistan, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is better preserved than Harappa, and is a more informative source on its parent civilization. Mohenjo-daro is about 400 miles away from Harappa. It was built around 2600 BCE, and was abandoned around 1700 BCE, probably due to a change of course of the river which supported the civilization. It was rediscovered in the 1920s by archaeologists. The site has been jeopardised by rising groundwater from the nearby Indus River.

The language of the Indus Civilization has yet to be deciphered, and the real name of the city as of other excavated cities in Sindh, Punjab and Gujarat, is unknown. "Mohenjo-daro" is Sindhi for "Mound of the Dead." (The name is also seen with slight variants such as Moenjodaro.) Mohenjo-daro is a remarkable construction, considering its antiquity. It has a planned layout based on a grid of streets, with structures constructed of bricks of baked mud, sun dried bricks and burned wood. At its height the city probably had around 35,000 residents. It had an advanced drainage system, a variety of buildings up to two stories high and an elaborate bath area. The bath area was very well built and had a layer of natural tar, to keep it from leaking. Being an agricultural city, it also featured a large well, granary, and central marketplace. It also had a building with an underground furnace (hypocaust), possibly for heated bathing.

Mohenjo-daro was successively destroyed and rebuilt at least seven times. Each time, the new cities were built directly on top of the old ones. Flooding by the Indus is thought to have been the cause of destruction.

The city was divided into two parts, the Citadel and the Lower City. Most of the Lower City is yet uncovered, but the Citadel is known to have the public bath, a large residential structure designed to house 5,000 citizens and two large assembly halls.

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Ancient India | Archaeological sites in Pakistan | Bronze Age | Indus Valley sites | World Heritage Sites in Pakistan

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