Mohenjo-Daro

/moh hen"joh dahr"oh/, n.

an archaeological site in Pakistan, near the Indus River: six successive ancient cities were built here.

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▪ archaeological site, Pakistan

 group of mounds on the right bank of the River Indus, in Sind province, southern Pakistan. The name signifies “the mound of the dead.”

      The archaeological importance of Mohenjo-daro was first recognized in 1922, and subsequent excavations revealed that the mounds contain the remains of what was once the largest city of the Indus civilization (q.v.). Because of the city's size—about 3 miles (5 km) in circuit—and the comparative richness of its monuments and their contents, it has been generally regarded as a capital of an extensive state.

      The city of Mohenjo-daro, now 2 miles (3 km) from the Indus, from which it seems to have been protected, anciently as today, by artificial barriers, was laid out with astonishing regularity into something like a dozen blocks, or “islands,” each about 1,260 feet (384 m) from north to south and 750 feet (228 m) from east to west, subdivided by straight or doglegged lanes. The central block on the western side was built up artificially to a dominating height of 20–40 feet (6–12 m) with mud and mud brick and was fortified to an unascertained extent by square towers of baked brick. Buildings on the high summit included an elaborate bath or tank surrounded by a veranda, a large residential structure, a massive granary, and at least two aisled halls of assembly. It is clear that this citadel (for such it evidently was) carried the religious and ceremonial headquarters of the site. In the lower town were substantial courtyard houses indicating a considerable middle class. Most houses had small bathrooms and, like the streets, were well-provided with drains and sanitation. Brick stairs indicate at least an upper story or a flat, habitable roof. The walls were originally plastered with mud, no doubt to reduce the deleterious effect of the salts that are contained by the bricks and react destructively to varying heat and humidity.

      There is no surviving evidence of architectural elaboration, though this may well have been confined to perished timberwork. Stone sculpture, too, is scarce; some fragments, however, include the competent head and shoulders of a bearded man with low forehead, narrowed and somewhat supercilious eyes, a fillet round the brow, and across the left shoulder a cloak carved in relief with trefoils formerly filled with red paste. Aesthetically the most notable work of figurative art from the city is a famous bronze of a young dancing girl, naked save for a multitude of armlets. Among innumerable terra-cottas the most expressive are small but vigorous representations of bulls and buffalo. Female figurines may wear elaborate headdresses, and occasional figurines of small, fat grotesques, male or female, betray a crude sense of humour.

      The evidence suggests that Mohenjo-daro suffered more than once from devastating floods of abnormal depth and duration, owing not merely to the encroaching Indus but possibly also to a ponding back of the Indus drainage by tectonic uplifts between Mohenjo-daro and the sea.

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