- The historical city’s original name is not Mohenjo Daro. Nobody knows what the real name is, as the Harrappan scripture has still not been deciphered
- The words ‘Mohenjo Daro’ literally translate to ‘the mound of the dead’. The city of Harappa and other important Indus Valley sites were found on a series of mounds over 250 acres of land, hence such a name
- The urban planning and architecture have mesmerised thousands of architects and archaeologists. The 5,000-year-old city could host a population of 40,000. It had a meticulous road plan with rectilinear buildings, channeled sanitisation, a huge well that served as a public pool to bathe, a ‘Great Granary’, and many more amazing designs on buildings
- It is also fascinating that multi-storeyed buildings were found at the site of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro
- There are signs that prove that the Indus Valley Civilisation had no monarchy. It was probably governed by an elected committee
- There are around 1,500 sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation and no sign of warfare or weapons have been found. This implies that the Indus natives were peaceful in nature, which might have made it vulnerable to foreign invaders
- The cities of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa were built in around 2,500 BC. The civilisation itself would be another five hundred years old. Archaeologists first visited the Mohenjo Daro site in 1911. Several excavations occurred in the 1920s through 1931. Small probes took place in the 1930s, and subsequent digs occurred in 1950 and 1964
- One of the earliest human civilisations, the Indus Valley site is situated at the Larkana district in the Sindh province in modern day Pakistan
- The Indus Valley Civilisation was vast. It spanned from Iran to Gujarat and went North till Bactria
- The lifestyle and faith of the people of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro are still under doubt. Some artefacts, such as the Pashupati Seal, suggest that the people would worship an ‘animal deity’, who would protect them from wild beasts.
- The discovery of the site was very dramatic. Bengali architect Rakhaldas Bandopadhyay, an officer at the Archaeological Survey of India, went to the site in 1919-20 to identify a Buddhist stupa. There, he found a flint scraper that was much older than the stupa itself. This discovery led to a large scale excavation led by Kashinath Narayan Dikshit in 1924-25 and John Marshall in 1925-26, and the rest is history
- The reason behind the decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation is still unknown. Many cite the Aryan invasion, drought and deluge as probable reasons but none of those have been proved.
