Mohenjo-daro

Mohenjo-daro is an archaeological site in Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan. Built c. 2500 BCE, it was the largest settlement of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, and one of the world's earliest major cities, contemporaneous with the civilizations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoan Crete, and Norte Chico.

Quotes

• There is nothing that we know of in pre-historic Egypt or Mesopotamia or anywhere else in Western Asia to compare with the well-built baths and commodious houses of the citizens of Mohenjo-daro. In those countries, much money and thought were lavished on the building of magnificent temples for the gods and on the palaces and tombs of kings, but the rest of the people seemingly had to content themselves with insignificant dwellings of mud. In the Indus Valley, the picture is reversed and the finest structures are those erected for the convenience of the citizens.
  • Marshall, John, (ed.), Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, Arthur Probsthain, London, 1931, 3 vols, several Indian reprints, vol. I, p. vi. in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• Mohenjo-daro, whose population has been estimated at 40,000 to 50,000, was probably the most extensive city; its total area, a fifth of which has been excavated, is generally stated to be between 150 and 200 ha (hectares), although the German archaeologist Michael Jansen, who conducted a detailed research on the city’s urbanism, leans towards 300 ha,17 which would make it possibly the largest city of the ancient world. Harappa was about half that size.
  • Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• Mohenjo-daro’s acropolis, measuring about 200 x 400 m, is majestic by any standard. It boasts the famous complex of the ‘great bath’ with its central pool used for ritual ablutions, a huge ‘college’, a ‘granary’, an ‘assembly hall’ (or ‘pillared hall’), and wide streets carefully aligned along the cardinal directions. We may allow ourselves to conjure up the ruler or rulers meeting in some of those spacious halls along with officials, traders and, perhaps, on special occasions, representatives of the main craft traditions : builders, potters, seal makers, metal workers or weavers.
  • Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.

• There is continuity in the survey and planning tradition from Mohenjodaro to Sirkap and Thimi . . . The planning modules employed in the Indus city of Mohenjodaro, Sirkap of Gandhara, and Thimi of Kathmandu Valley are the same.
  • Pant, Mohan & Shuji Funo, ‘The Grid and Modular Measures in the Town Planning of Mohenjodaro and Kathmandu Valley’, in Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.