Mohenjo-Daro city of the Indus Valley

The Harappan civilization, the world’s fourth great civilization after those of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China flourished in the valley of the Indus three thousand years ago. As yet little is known about it, but one enormous town - Mohenjo-Daro - has survived. This has been only partially excavated and has yielded just a few scraps of information which have provided the basis for some fanciful theories. Moenjodaro is located about 400 kilometres north of Karachi on the right bank of the Indus in the Province of Sind in Pakistan. It flourished for about 800 years during the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC. Centre of the Indus Civilization, one of the largest in the Old World, this 5,000-year-old city is the earliest manifestation of urbanization in South Asia. Its urban planning surpasses that of many other sites of the oriental civilizations that were to follow.

Mohenjo-daro, is an ancient planned city laid out on a grid of streets. An orthogonal street layout was oriented toward the north-south & east-east directions: the widest streets run north-south, straight through town; secondary streets run east-west, sometimes in a staggered direction. Secondary streets are about half the width of the main streets; smaller alleys are a third to a quarter of the width of the main streets.

Of massive proportions, Mohenjodaro comprises two sectors: a stupa mound that rises in the western sector and, to the east, the lower city ruins spread out along the banks of the Indus. The acropolis, set on high embankments, the ramparts, and the lower town, which is laid out according to strict rules, provide evidence of an early system of town planning.The stupa mound, built on a massive platform of mud brick, is composed of the ruins of several major structures - Great Bath, Great Granary, College Square and Pillared Hall - as well as a number of private homes. The extensive lower city is a complex of private and public houses, wells, shops and commercial buildings. These buildings are laid out along streets intersecting each other at right angles, in a highly orderly form of city planning that also incorporated important systems of sanitation and drainage. Both at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, houses were built of kiln-burnt bricks. At Lothal and Kalibangan, residential houses were made of sun-dried bricks. An average house had, besides kitchen and bath, four to six living rooms. Large houses with thity rooms and staircases suggest that there were large two or three storyed buildings. Most of the houses had wells within them and a drainage system carried the waste water to the main underground drain of the steet.Of this vast urban ruin of Moenjodaro, only about one-third has been reveal by excavation since 1922. The foundations of the site are threatened by saline action due to a rise of the water table of the Indus River.

Prepared Garments Mohenjodaro

Temple like palace MohenjodaroPashuptai Seal Mohenjodaro

Goddesses Mohenjodaro

Granery Mohenjodaro & Harappa

Bronze Female Dancer Mohenjodaro

 At its peak of development, Mohenjo-daro could have housed around 35,000 residents.The city had a central marketplace, with a large central well. Individual households or groups of households obtained their water from smaller wells. Some houses, presumably those of wealthier inhabitants, include rooms that appear to have been set aside for bathing, and one building had an underground furnace (known as a hypocaust), possibly for heated bathing. In 1950, Sir Mortimer Wheeler identified one large building in Mohenjo-daro as a "Great Granary". Certain wall-divisions in its massive wooden superstructure appeared to be grain storage-bays, complete with air-ducts to dry the grain. According to Wheeler, carts would have brought grain from the countryside and unloaded them directly into the bays. However, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer noted the complete lack of evidence for grain at the "granary", which, he argued, might therefore be better termed a "Great Hall" of uncertain function.Close to the "Great Granary" is a large and elaborate public bath, sometimes called the Great Bath. From a colonnaded courtyard, steps lead down to the brick-built pool, which was waterproofed by a lining of bitumen. The pool measures 12m long, 7m wide and 2.4m deep. It may have been used for religious purification. Other large buildings include a "Pillared Hall", thought to be an assembly hall of some kind, and the so-called "College Hall", a complex of buildings comprising 78 rooms, thought to have been a priestly residence.Mohenjo-daro had no circuit of city walls, but was otherwise well fortified, with guard towers to the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications to the south. Considering these fortifications and the structure of other major Indus valley cities like Harappa, it is postulated that Mohenjo-daro was an administrative center. Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share relatively the same architectural layout, and were generally not heavily fortified like other Indus Valley sites. It is obvious from the identical city layouts of all Indus sites, that there was some kind of political or administrative centrality, but the extent and functioning of an administrative center remains unclear.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 is divided into two parts, the so-called Citadel and the Lower City. Most of the Lower City is yet to be uncovered, but the Citadel is known to have public baths, a large residential structure designed to house 5,000 citizens, and two large assembly halls.

Town planningThe poorer dwellings on the outskirts of the thickly built areas ofHarappa and Moenjodaro have been distinguished as ‘workmen’squarters’. They may be so. as suggested by their uniformity ofplan. and the cramped spaces allotted to them. But this may beinterpreted as a viably economic solution of the housing problemsarising out of the flux of the working population towards largecities where urban land would have become substantially morecostly than in the rest of the countryside. On the whole, the citiesin the Indus Valley Civilization present from the social viewpointthe picture of a fairly egalitarian society.A remarkable feature of the large urban settlements of theIndus Valley Civilization is the regularity and order in the townplanning and consideration given to the civic amenities. the sewerage system and drainage. The main streets of the cities at both Harappa and Moenjodaro are generally oriented from north tosouth, with connecting streets running east to west.Dividing the cities into large rectangular or square blocks on a gridiron pattern. The main street running across the length of the lower city at Moenjodaro from north to south is a little over 9 metres in widthwhile the others measure 2 to 5 metres. The subsidiary lanes leading to the interior of the city blocks are much narrower, allowingnot more than two people to walk side by side. The subsidiary lanes are generally ‘dog-footed’. i.e. going straight for some distance in one direction, turning left or right round the comer of some building. turning again in the previous direction and ending up at some door front.

MAIN STREETS

Great care was taken in shaping the drainage within the built-up areas of cities. The water-discharge sluices from houses first collected the dirt and refuse in small cesspits lined with bricks at the base of the walls. from which the dirty water was led through conduits to the main drains running through the middle of the streets below pavement level and covered with flat stones and sturdy tile bricks. The system of covered drains was connected to the larger sewerage outlets also covered at the top which finallyled the dirty water outside the populated areas.

covered drain on the right hand side of the street

Almost every house had a bathroom, usually a fine sawn burnt brick pavement, often with a surrounding curb.

The average house in these ancient cities appears to have stood at least two storeys high as suggested by the thickness of the enclosing wall and by remnants of wide staircases where the steps and risers still survive to considerable height from the occupation level on the ground floor. The houses were built on plinths rising above the street level with flights of steps recessed in the wall atthe front door. The doors of the houses usually opened on to the side lanes rather than on to the main streets, which might havebeen considerably busy in the waking hours of the crowded cities.

The roofs of the houses appear to have been flat supported upon a framework of wooden beams and purlins, covered with terracotta brick tiles, and made waterproof by rammed earth and a further plaster of impervious clay. Though the timber work could not survive the ravages of white ants, terracotta brick tiles from the debris of the collapsed roofs and terracotta conduits for letting the rain-water out from the roof tops have been found in sufficient number.Most of the residential houses had their own wells in the courtyards for drawing water, There also seem to have been public wells near open squares for the benefit of those whose houses lacked this amenity. The wells were all lined with brickwork, and had protective revetments at their mouths to prevent children anddomestic animals from falling into them.In brief. the architectural features of these vestiges suggest something profoundly human-a love of comfort and collective welfare. The dilapidated townships of the mohenjo-daro might almost be the prototypes of modern and scientific town planning and therefore are of immense interest to students ofarchitecture and urban geography.

The general plan of the residential houses suggests a square or a slightly oblong courtyard open to the sky and surrounded by rooms and chambers. The entrance door normally led to an antechamber with passages towards the kitchen, pantry and livingrooms.

general plan of the residential houses