Mohenjo-daro preserves the most complete surviving city plan of the Indus Valley Civilization, its brick streets, drains and the Great Bath still legible on the ground three and a half thousand years after it was built and later abandoned.
At a glance
Mohenjo-daro, whose name in Sindhi means Mound of the Dead, is the most important and best-preserved urban site of the Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, which flourished roughly between 3300 and 1300 BCE. The city covers about 250 hectares and at its height, around 2500 to 2000 BCE, is thought to have held some 40,000 people, placing it among the largest urban settlements of its time, comparable in scale to Memphis in Egypt and Ur in Mesopotamia.
The site is divided into two principal mounds: the raised Citadel Mound to the west, which held public buildings including the Great Bath, the Granary platform, the Assembly Hall and the so-called College of Priests, and the Lower Town, the residential and commercial quarter laid out on a precise grid of straight streets meeting at right angles.
Key facts
- Civilization: Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilization, c. 3300-1300 BCE
- Location: Sindh Province, Pakistan, Larkana District
- Key structure: the Great Bath, a brick-lined pool roughly 12m by 7m and 2.4m deep, thought to be the oldest known public water tank
- Script: the Indus script, undeciphered, with about 400 distinct symbols recorded on roughly 4,000 inscribed objects
- Recognition: UNESCO World Heritage Site, inscribed 1980
- Coordinates: 27.3244° N, 68.1378° E
History
Mohenjo-daro belongs to the mature phase of the Indus Valley Civilization, which developed from an earlier urban tradition beginning around 3300 BCE and went into gradual decline after about 1900 BCE. The city was founded around 2600 BCE on virgin alluvial land beside the Indus River; no earlier settlement has been found beneath it. Because the river repeatedly flooded the site, the city was rebuilt at least nine times on the same spot, each new phase raised on the ruins of the last, which is why the Citadel Mound now stands some 12 metres above the surrounding plain.
The city was abandoned between roughly 1900 and 1700 BCE. The causes are debated and may include a shift in monsoon patterns that made the region drier, or a change in the course of the Indus that undermined the agricultural base the city depended on, or a combination of both. The older idea that Indo-Aryan invaders destroyed the Harappan cities has been largely discredited, since the archaeological evidence points to a gradual abandonment rather than violent destruction.
The site’s significance was recognised in 1922 and 1923 by R.D. Banerji of the Archaeological Survey of India, after which John Marshall, the Survey’s Director-General, led the first major excavations between 1922 and 1927.
What you see
The Citadel Mound is the most accessible and rewarding part of the site to explore. Its centrepiece is the Great Bath, a brick-lined pool waterproofed with bitumen mortar and set within a colonnaded pavilion of square brick pillars roughly four metres tall. The pool has an inlet at one end and a drain at the other; its exact function, whether ritual, civic or purely practical, remains a matter of debate among archaeologists. Nearby stand the Granary Platform, a massive brick structure of uncertain purpose, and the Assembly Hall, a large open space.
The Lower Town shows the city’s residential grid at close quarters: streets around ten metres wide, some still showing their original stone-lined drains, and individual house plans, many with their own bathroom connected to the covered drainage system that ran beneath the streets, and some with private wells. The same standard-sized fired brick, in a consistent 1:2:4 ratio, appears throughout the site and at Harappa, some 640 kilometres to the northeast, suggesting a shared building standard across the wider civilization.
An on-site museum holds two of the civilization’s best-known objects: the Priest-King, a small soapstone figurine of a man in a decorated robe with half-closed eyes, whose title is a modern and speculative label rather than a known fact; and a cast of the Dancing Girl, a small bronze figurine whose original is held in the National Museum of India in Delhi.
Practical information
- Access: the site can be reached by domestic flight to Mohenjo Daro Airport from Karachi, or by flying to Sukkur and continuing by road
- By rail: Pakistan Railways runs trains from Karachi to Larkana, the nearest major town, from where the site is a short drive away
- On site: a museum displays finds including the Priest-King figurine and a Dancing Girl cast; check current visiting arrangements with the site authority before travelling
Getting there
Mohenjo-daro lies in Larkana District, Sindh Province. Visitors typically fly into Karachi and continue either by a short domestic flight to the site’s own small airport or by flying to Sukkur and travelling on by road, or reach Larkana by train and complete the final stretch by taxi.
Nearby
- Larkana — the nearest major town, roughly 30 km away, and the main transport hub for reaching the site
- Harappa — around 640 km to the northeast, the other principal city of the Indus Valley Civilization, built with the same standardised brick
Sources
- Archaeological Survey of India
- UNESCO
- National Museum of India
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