April 30, 2018 • 28 mins
Mohenjo Daro is in the Indus river valley in present-day southern Pakistan. This ancient city has a unique identity in that we don’t know a lot about the people who lived there; most of the ideas of the cultural identity come from analysis of its ruins.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Okay, Tracy
and listeners. I sort of have to apologize because I
did not mean to do too ancient cities as topics
(00:23):
so close together. I think it's fine. We recently did Ephesus,
and so I was like, Okay, and you know, we've
talked about before how we try to cycle through things
so we're not doing the same topic over and over.
And I know I have definitely been guilty of doing
a lot of biographies lately. So this time I was like, Okay,
we did an ancient city. I want to do a
(00:44):
history mystery this time around. And that actually led me
to today's topic, which it turns out is another ancient city. Uh.
This city has a unique identity in that, in some
ways it kind of lacks identity. That is the mystery
of it. We don't know much about the people who
lived there because most of the ideas of the cultural
(01:05):
identity come from analysis of the ruins of the city itself,
and there are some gaps there about what the people
that lived there might have been. Like, uh, so we
are talking today about Mohenjo Daro. We've had some other
ancient cities that have a similar lack of knowledge about
what the people who lived there or didn't live there.
(01:26):
We're like, like, I remember when we talked about Poverty Point,
there was a lot of debate about how exactly that
space was used. Um, but yeah, there's just sort of
a a lot that we're gleaning from the side itself,
right which, and we'll talk about it more, but that
has led to some very different interpretations of the ruins
(01:50):
and the artifacts that have been found there. So it's
kind of an interesting examination of how it makes me
think a lot about how our current culture will be
misinterpreted by the archaeologists of the future, presumably from space.
So Mahenjo Daro is in the Indus River valley in
the Sinned province of present day southern Pakistan. It's it's
(02:14):
about two miles or three kilometers away from the Indus
River and the city was built around b c. E.
And so that means it's construction was happening at the
same time as the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The size,
organization and evidence of an industry of regulated trade have
all led archaeologists to believe that Mahenjo Daro was one
(02:34):
of the most important cities of the Indus Valley civilization,
also called the Harappan civilization. The other ancient Indus Valley
city you may have heard about is Harappa, which is
in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Mahenjo Daro is four
hundred miles it's about six hundred and forty kilometers southeast
of Harappa, and it's unclear whether Mahenjo Daro and Harappa
(02:57):
were active at the same time or whether one came
before the other, but Mahenjo Daro is one of the
first known urban centers, and it is the largest and
best preserved of the ancient Indus Valley civilization cities. The
name Mohenjo Daro you'll sometimes see written out a number
of different ways that vary in how they use spacing
and hyphen nation. Sometimes it's Mohendo with a hyphen, Sometimes
(03:20):
it's all together as one word. It means mound of
the dead. But that is of course not the name
that the city was called when it was inhabited. That's
the name that was given to it by archaeologists, and
we really don't know what people living there called it
while they were living there. One of the things that's
unique to Mahenjo Daro is its lack of governmental structures.
(03:41):
There is a marketplace, and there are trading spaces and
their public spaces, but there are no palaces. There is
no clear evidence of any sort of hierarchical leadership structure.
Based on its well organized and thoughtful layout and design,
Mohenjo Daro may have been a seat of power, but
we still can't quite figure out exactly with any certainty
(04:03):
how it was governed. The city covers two forty hectars,
which is nearly six hundred acres, so that makes it
about five times the size of the Vatican. Mahento Daro
has two districts which have been named the Citadel and
the Lower Town, and again these are names that archaeologists
have labeled them with. The tallest of the Mohino Daro
(04:24):
mounds is the home of the citadel. The Great Bath
is perhaps the most impressive structure of the citadel section
of the city. It is also probably the most famous
part of the city. This bath is massive. It is
thirty nine ft that's twelve meters by twenty three ft
that's seven ms and the depth of the pool is
eight feet, which is two point five ms. The bath
(04:47):
was constructed with bricks that were mortared with gypsum, and
then to make it water tight, the whole thing was
sealed with bitumen to enter an exit. There were stairs
for bathers on either end of the bath. This pool
at Mohando Daro predated Roman bath by about two hundred years,
but it was just as impressive as those later structures.
(05:08):
A nearby well supplied the bath with water and water
was discarded from the bath via a corbelled drain. Because
of its size and location in the citadel section of
the city, it is believed that the Great Bath was
used for group bathing, possibly as part of rituals, and this,
combined with the other advanced bathroom facilities and draining systems
of the city, have led to the conclusion that cleanliness
(05:31):
was deeply important to the culture of the city. While
the city had numerous gathering places, it lacked temples or
other obviously religious structures, and the Great Bath has sometimes
been suggested as a possible temple. But there's also a stupa,
which is a Buddhist structure and that shaped like a dome.
But the stupa at Mohando Daro was built long after
(05:54):
the city was abandoned. It's estimated that the structure was
added to the citadel mound as late as the or
two hundred. Yeah, we'll talk about the timeline of when
the city was no longer active, but that is long
after it. So basically like new structures were built on
top of ruins and that is how that stupa stands
so high. H The so called Lower Town of Mohenjo
(06:17):
Daro is based on a grid system, just like any
modern city. Really, it's sectioned off into blocks with barriers
constructed from baked mud bricks as well as mud bricks
that are made in the non big style, which is
like mud and straw, and then mud was also applied
to the brick walls to seal them and minimize erosion.
The lower Town section of the city may have supported
(06:38):
as many as twenty thousand to forty thousand residents. It
appears that the city enjoyed a certain level of egalitarian wealth. Ivory, gold,
and semi precious stones have been found all throughout Mohenjo Daro. Additionally,
most of the homes seem to have had the same
basic level of amenities. Just about every house had a
toilet and a bath that connected to the city's drainage system.
(07:02):
They are also stairs at most of the homes, suggesting
either a second story or a terrace roof. Yeah, there
are very few kind of what we would consider indicators
of like a lower class residents area. Uh. And some
of those again are in those those areas that are
(07:22):
built on top of other ruins, so it does seem
again very egalitarian. Uh. And there are also some theories
that that second story or terrorist roof may have been
part of an effort to avoid flooding. The record of
art in Mohenjo Daro is a little bit sparse. Any
decorative elements in the architecture are long gone, and there
(07:43):
isn't a whole lot of sculpture to indicate the values
of the people of the city in terms of their art.
There are a few examples, some of which we're going
to talk about in just a bit, but for the
most part, it has been small pieces like jewelry or
little you know, bits of sculpture that have survived. Mohenjo
Daro call lapsed as a center of civilization about six
hundred years into its life sometime around nine b C,
(08:06):
but the cause of that collapse is unknown. A shift
in the Indus River might have been to blame because
it would have really impacted the vitality of a city
that was depending on river transported trade. There have also
been theories that the city flooded due to the river shifting,
and that some of the technology that the city used
to control water flow actually caused standing water in the
(08:29):
city streets for a prolonged period of time. But again,
while there is evidence of some flood damage, this is
still speculative. We just don't have enough hard evidence, and
we do know that the entire Indus reverse civilization experienced
a steep decline around that the sort of landmark year
of nineteen hundred BC. Coming up, we will talk about
(08:50):
the excavation that uncovered Mohanzo Daro after thousands of years
uh shifting. Sands and soil had covered the site during
that time. But first we will have a little sponsor break.
As we mentioned before, we went to break over time,
(09:10):
Mohenjo Daro was covered with soil and it wasn't until
the early nineteen twenties that the city was rediscovered, and
at this time the city was first identified among a
series of mounds, again in the Indus River valley. The
mounds were mostly covering the city and really the citadel
was the part that was most apparent, and it wasn't
until nineteen twenty two, as those mounds started to be excavated,
(09:32):
that the significance and massiveness of this find was truly identified.
In the nineteen twenties, multiple excavations were conducted on Mohenjo Daro.
They were headed by the Archaeological Survey of India and
they were conducted by both British and Indian archaeologists. Excavations
continued up until the nineteen sixties when all the excavations
(09:53):
were shut down due to concern over the structures being damaged.
The weather was a factor, the that they had been
uncovered also exposed them to the elements more. There have
been approved excavations since that time. Those have been conducted
under careful scrutiny and have used non invasive techniques. The
Pakistani Antiquities Act ninety five put some protections in place
(10:17):
making it illegal to steal from or to face protected antiquities,
which included Mahenjo Daro, and the city actually became a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in nineteen eighty. So throughout the
many excavations that have gone on at Mohenjo Daro, thousands
of small artifacts have been recovered from the ruins, and
we're going to talk about two of the most famous
(10:38):
ones and some ongoing examination and theorizing about what they
mean and their origins and value. So the Dancing Girl
is probably the most important, certainly the most well known
artifact of those collected at the Mahenjo Daro site. It's
a small bronze figure. It's about ten and a half
inches tall, that's twenty six point seven cent meters, and
(11:01):
it depicts a woman who is nude save her jewelry.
And the figure has what appears to be curly hair
pulled back and a necklace which looks almost like a
shell on a chain or accord. On her right arm,
which is quite long and lithes are two bracelets, ones
it's just above the elbow and one at the wrist.
And in contrast, the left arm of the figure is
(11:22):
covered in what looked like bengals from just below the
shoulder all the way down to the wrist, and if
you count those little nubs that indicate Bengals, there twenty
five of them at all. Whether the Dancing Girl depicts
someone native to the Indus Valley or an African woman
has been part of the debate about the piece. There
are indications that there there may have been trade going
(11:43):
on between Africa and and this valley inhabitants a lot
of times when there was trade going on. There are
also people from the different places living there. But the
identity of the dancing girls inspirational woman is still an
issue that people don't agree on. There has been a
case made that her features, including her long limbs, more
(12:05):
resemble an African woman, but her adornmant her adornments and
her hairstyle echo more of Indian women throughout history. In
two sixteen, a controversial paper was published in Itti Haas,
which is the Hindi journal of the Indian Council of
Historical Research, and that paper, authored by Dakur Prasad Verma,
(12:26):
claims that the dancing girl is a representation of the
Hindu goddess Parvati, the goddess of love, fertility and strength,
and that is the first time that that idea has
been floated and it garnered a lot of press, but
it also got a lot of criticism. The primary driver
for his conclusion is that Shiva is also represented in
some pieces found at Mohenzo Daro, and that if images
(12:48):
of Shiva are present, it only makes sense for his
wife Parvati to also appear. But even that assertion that
those other images or Shiva has been contested. But that's
not the only recent controversy surrounding the Dancing Girl. The
other is one of ownership. In Pakistani lawyer jeff ed
Ikabal Jeffrey filed a motion insisting that the Dancing Girl
(13:10):
should be returned to Pakistan's Lahore Museum, and according to
this motion, the statue was on loan to the National
Arts Council of India and was never returned to Pakistan.
It's currently in the collection of the National Museum in
New Delhi. But the counter story is that the Dancing
Girl was moved before British India was partitioned into India
(13:33):
and Pakistan in the nineteen fifties. The partitioning is its
own complicated story um but that that assertion means that
Pakistan has no right to make the demand for its return.
There's not really been a lot of movement in uh
in this since that motion was originally filed. Yeah, if
(13:54):
there has, it really hasn't been published anywhere that I
could locate. The dancing girl was discovered in ninety six
by Indian archaeologist D. R. Sanni and since then her
meaning in terms of religious significance has been debated, and
that discussion continues to present day. Most statue artifacts recovered
from Mohenjo Daro are terra cotta and a handful or
(14:16):
carved stone, but this bronze figure is a rarity. She's
even more rare because while there are other cast metal
pieces in the area, they tends to be tools and
decorative adornments, so a cast sculpture stands out as significant.
To create any cast metal object, the Harapans would carve
(14:37):
it in wax and then place wet clay around the
carving to dry and create a mold. And then they
would heat the mold to melt the wax and pour
it out through carefully drilled holes. This would leave a
negative mold which would then be cast with an alloy,
and this was a one time use mold. They would
have to be broken to reveal the final piece. Another
(14:58):
important artifact from the city is a stone sculpture, which
was named the Priest King by archaeologists, even though there
is nothing to indicate that he was either of those things,
and this is a partial piece. It is just the
upper portion of the torso and one broken arm, and
the head is very stylized, featuring a face that is
proportionately large for the head and a beard sculpted with
(15:20):
deep vertical lines to create a representation of hair texture.
His hair on his head is slicked back, and an
ornamental headband encircles his head and then has a tiny
circle at the forehead like an ornamental piece. Over one
of the figures shoulders, there's a cloth drape and it's
sculpted with ornamental circle and trifoil motifs. The top of
(15:40):
the head appears to have been sliced flat, and the
flat area is uncarved with no detail, so people have
speculated that there may have been a head dress piece
that sat on top of it. Similar larger sculptures have
a bun that's on top of the head, so there's
also been theories that a similar hairstyle might have been
what was intended to sit on this flat portion of
(16:01):
the head. It's also possible that the back of the
head was intact initially and somehow it was sheared off
by accident. Yeah, there are also some holes drilled into
the uh the head on the sides that people have
suggested might be to place like a necklace or some
other type of like neck adornment. But I read one
(16:22):
interesting analysis that positive that it was actually those holes
were actually ways that whatever that ornamental piece that sat
on top was hooked to the head so it would
stay secure. It's an interesting piece. Like I said, not
everybody agrees on what what any of these things are
and what their their various details are about. The Priest King,
as I mentioned, is broken off just at the waist
(16:44):
or just above the waist, so the intact section is
just a little less than seven inches at seventeen point
seven centimeters tall, and he is part of the collection
of the National Museum of Pakistan at Karachi. We're about
to get into an interesting part of the modern mythology
around the Mohendo Daro sites, but first we will pause
for another quick word from sponsors. We have certainly mentioned
(17:14):
this already in this podcast, but in the case of
a site like this one where archaeologists and researchers find themselves.
Having to guess at the history of a civilization and
culture is pretty natural for competing theories to emerge. As
a side note, if you're wondering whether a system of
writing might help figure out the many issues of confusion
(17:34):
over Mohends history, the Harappan civilization did have one. We
think there are symbols on various excavated artifacts that do
look like they might represent a language. But this in
this script or Harappan script as it's known, has not
ever been deciphered. Yeah, there is again debate over whether
(17:55):
or not that's actually what it is, even if it
is a language. So the massacre myth of Mahenjo Daro
is one that began in its early excavations and it
persists to this day. It's kind of sensational, so people
like to keep it going. In the nineteen thirties, it
was widely publicized that something terrible had happened at Mahenjo
(18:16):
Daro because a number of skeletal remains were found that
appeared to have died gruesomely. The narrative put forth in
the first half of the twentieth century was at the
city of Mohenjo Daro was wiped out by Indo Aryan invaders.
There's not really evidence to support that idea. For one thing,
all of the bodies found during the early excavations were
(18:36):
in the lower city, not in the citadel, and it
seems like if people were running for cover or help,
they would have run to the citadel, not into the
lower city protection. There were no bodies at all found
in the citadel. No weapons of any kind have been
found to indicate that there was any sort of conflict. Yeah.
(18:57):
I mean, if you uh grow up almost anywhere in
the United States, like there are people always finding things
like arrowheads and like they're just if there is a battle,
stuff gets dropped. That's how it goes. Nothing of that
kind has been found in Mahenjo daro Uh. And there
is also a high likelihood that not all of these
(19:20):
remains are from the same time, and that was actually
debated even among the archaeologists who first uncovered these remains.
As you recall, we mentioned earlier that the city Stupa
was built long after the Harrabin civilization is believed to
have ended, so there were people making use of the
city even after it was largely abandoned, and all of
those time periods maybe coming into play here. Later theories
(19:43):
about the bodies that diverged from the idea of an
attack or a mask her put forth the idea that
the few people who remained after most of the city
was empty may have been caught in a flood or
a drought that was brought on by the shifting of
the Indus River, or some kind of pestilence. So later
theories about these bodies that diverged from the idea of
(20:04):
an attack or a massacre put forth the idea that
the few people who remained after most of the city
was empty might have been caught up in some kind
of flood or drought that was brought about by the
shifting of the Indus River, or maybe some kind of pestilence.
It's also possible that a series of floods overtook the
city over a prolonged period of decline. There's a high
(20:26):
likelihood that not all of the remains are even from
the same period, So it's also likely that there's no
one cause of death for all of these bodies. Yeah,
sometimes you'll see on kind of sensational sites the secrets
of the massacre at Mohenjo Daro, and they kind of
suggest there's some cover up of something nefarious, but really
(20:47):
it's it's just kind of one of those cases where
it's probably not as dramatic as we maybe think. In
the nineteen sixty four article titled the Mythical Massacre at
Mohenjo Daro, archaeologist George F. Dale's wrote, quote, the enemy
of the Hora Pans was nature, aided and embedded by
the hora Pans themselves, who accelerated the spoiliation of the
(21:09):
landscapes through improper irrigation practices and by denuding the watersheds
through overgrazing and deforestation. Just less glamorous and exciting than
a massacrer, but also makes a lot more sense given
the evidence we have. So there probably wasn't any sort
of mass attack on Mahenzo Daro. And the present day, though,
the site is in real danger and the threat once
(21:31):
again comes from the elements. Salt in the groundwater is
causing the bricks, which are really fragile, to erode very rapidly.
There are very wide shifts in the temperature that are
similarly robbing the masonry of its strength, and a lot
of the walls that were uncovered in the early party
the twentieth century are crumbling. The ongoing problem of water
(21:55):
has long been an irritant to researchers. Because of the
water table in the area, digging has always had challenges.
But water is a very real threat to the very
existence of the Mahenjo Daro site because, in addition to
the salinity issue uh and the water table, rainfall is
also breaking apart. The fragile brickwork in late monstones flooded Pakistan,
(22:19):
and Mohenjo Daro was severely impacted by those The stupid
developed cracks and the base of the citadel mound near
the Great Bath had several structural structural failures yeah it
started to collapse in a couple of places. One conservation
effort that has been attempted to save the city's ruins
involved the use of a mud slurry that was applied
(22:41):
to the delicate brickwork in the hopes that it would
protect it. But when that fresh mud dried and fell away,
it was often taking parts of the original structure with it.
In some cases, modern bricks have been slotted into spaces
where old ones have crumbled, creating a weird mishmash of
structural strength that is simply not up to conservation standards.
(23:01):
In recent years, it has even been suggested that the
whole site should be reburied to protect it from the elements.
After years of falling out of the Pakistani government's jurisdiction,
conservation and care for Mohenjo Daro is now in the
hands of sind provincial authorities and then under that stewardship,
a committee has been established to address the technical needs
(23:21):
of trying to preserve the site. Yeah, there was also
an instance in fourteen where as part of a cultural
um celebration, there were a lot of people there at
the site and it was really not good for it.
So even though they were trying to celebrate the long
history of it, the care was not taken to make
(23:43):
sure that that celebration did not have ramifications of damage. Uh.
And as we close out this look at Mohenjo Daro
and its ongoing mysteries, I wanted to include another passage
written by George F. Dales, and this time it's from
an article written the year after the previous one we quoted.
So this one is from nineteen sixty five and he
wrote quote one of the most intriguing aspects of archaeological
(24:04):
research is the constant ebb and flow of our knowledge
between fact and fiction. There is an ever present need
to re examine and reevaluate the scattered bits of evidence
with which we try to reconstruct the cultural framework of
mankind's climb to the modern world. It is not uncommon
to find that yesterday's fact is one of today's discarded theories,
(24:24):
or that what is merely a calculated guest today maybe
a verified historical maximum tomorrow. And I wanted to include
that because it's a good reminder that all of this
is uh based on the knowledge that we have, but
that knowledge can always change, particularly when you're dealing with
very ancient things, which, again, as He's put it, as
(24:45):
part of the excitement of it, also sometimes the frustration.
Do you also have listener mail for us? I do,
and this is another ancient city related one because it
is about our our ephesis episode. This is from our
listener Margaret, and she writes, greetings and salutations, History buffs.
I quite enjoyed your episode on emphasis because I have
(25:07):
personally been there and could imagine the sites while you
spoke of them. My husband and I got quite lucky
in timing our visit to Turkey in the summer of
there were terrorists attacks in Istanbul two days before we landed,
another one three days after we left, and two weeks
after we got home they had their military coup. The
group we traveled with has understandably suspended service in that country,
(25:28):
which is really unfortunate, both of the people who live
there because tourism augments their economy, and every tour guide
we spoke to emphasize their belief that you cannot let
the terrorists affect the way you live or else they
are winning, and more selfishly because it was my favorite
stop in the Mediterranean. Our visit in Ephesus started with
docking in the port of Kusadasi and taking a bus
(25:50):
up into the hills. We passed the original location of
the town and marveled at how the river Delta had
accumulated enough sediment to move the coastline almost three miles.
We disembarked at the ruins of the Basilica of St. John,
where our tour guide let us lead us to the
edge of the hill and asked, can you see that
column down there? That is all that remains of the
Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the
(26:11):
ancient world? And she talked a bit about the history
and significance, and then said, but then there was an
earth another earthquake, and things changed, so people took the
stones from the ruins and built the basilica. She talked
a little bit about the Basilica and then said, but
then there was another earthquake and things changed, so people
took the stones from the ruins and built that mosque,
which she indicated down on the other side of the hill.
(26:33):
I love the continuity of it. Your research indicated that
it is hard to be sure what really happened, but
I quite liked our guide's version of events. I do too,
That's quite charming. From there, we went to the House
of the Virgin Mary and then onto Ephesis proper, which
is amazing. It really is. You should keep it on
your bucket list. Ironically, it had not been on mine.
I was actually more excited to go to Istanbul and
(26:54):
the Hojia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. But Ephesus is
really lovely and much more pleasant and impressive to go
through than some other ruins I visited, including the Parthenon
and Pompeii. I'm not even kidding, uh. And she offers
to send us pictures, which of course I always love,
but I really like that firsthand account of what it
is like to go as a tourist to a place
like this, because we talk about them and how it's
(27:15):
important to remember history and and engage with it when
you can, but not everybody has the opportunity to travel
everywhere and and see all these great things. She seems
very well traveled and really has a grasp of the
importance of visiting historical sites. So thank you, thank you,
thank you, Margaret. That was awesome. Uh. If you would
like to email us, you can do so at History
Podcast at House of Works dot com. You can also
(27:37):
find us online at missed in History dot com, where
you will find all of the shows that have ever
existed of this podcast, including those way before Tracy and
I were ever on the scene, but for the ones
that Tracy and I worked on. You will also find
some show notes included, and we encourage you come and
visit us at missed in history dot com and we'll
all play in the History Fund zone together for more
(28:03):
on this and thousands of other topics. Isn't how Stuff
Works dot com. M
Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Holly Fry and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Okay, Tracy
and listeners. I sort of have to apologize because I
did not mean to do too ancient cities as topics
(00:23):
so close together. I think it's fine. We recently did Ephesus,
and so I was like, Okay, and you know, we've
talked about before how we try to cycle through things
so we're not doing the same topic over and over.
And I know I have definitely been guilty of doing
a lot of biographies lately. So this time I was like, Okay,
we did an ancient city. I want to do a
(00:44):
history mystery this time around. And that actually led me
to today's topic, which it turns out is another ancient city. Uh.
This city has a unique identity in that, in some
ways it kind of lacks identity. That is the mystery
of it. We don't know much about the people who
lived there because most of the ideas of the cultural
(01:05):
identity come from analysis of the ruins of the city itself,
and there are some gaps there about what the people
that lived there might have been. Like, uh, so we
are talking today about Mohenjo Daro. We've had some other
ancient cities that have a similar lack of knowledge about
what the people who lived there or didn't live there.
(01:26):
We're like, like, I remember when we talked about Poverty Point,
there was a lot of debate about how exactly that
space was used. Um, but yeah, there's just sort of
a a lot that we're gleaning from the side itself,
right which, and we'll talk about it more, but that
has led to some very different interpretations of the ruins
(01:50):
and the artifacts that have been found there. So it's
kind of an interesting examination of how it makes me
think a lot about how our current culture will be
misinterpreted by the archaeologists of the future, presumably from space.
So Mahenjo Daro is in the Indus River valley in
the Sinned province of present day southern Pakistan. It's it's
(02:14):
about two miles or three kilometers away from the Indus
River and the city was built around b c. E.
And so that means it's construction was happening at the
same time as the Great Pyramids of Egypt. The size,
organization and evidence of an industry of regulated trade have
all led archaeologists to believe that Mahenjo Daro was one
(02:34):
of the most important cities of the Indus Valley civilization,
also called the Harappan civilization. The other ancient Indus Valley
city you may have heard about is Harappa, which is
in the Punjab province of Pakistan. Mahenjo Daro is four
hundred miles it's about six hundred and forty kilometers southeast
of Harappa, and it's unclear whether Mahenjo Daro and Harappa
(02:57):
were active at the same time or whether one came
before the other, but Mahenjo Daro is one of the
first known urban centers, and it is the largest and
best preserved of the ancient Indus Valley civilization cities. The
name Mohenjo Daro you'll sometimes see written out a number
of different ways that vary in how they use spacing
and hyphen nation. Sometimes it's Mohendo with a hyphen, Sometimes
(03:20):
it's all together as one word. It means mound of
the dead. But that is of course not the name
that the city was called when it was inhabited. That's
the name that was given to it by archaeologists, and
we really don't know what people living there called it
while they were living there. One of the things that's
unique to Mahenjo Daro is its lack of governmental structures.
(03:41):
There is a marketplace, and there are trading spaces and
their public spaces, but there are no palaces. There is
no clear evidence of any sort of hierarchical leadership structure.
Based on its well organized and thoughtful layout and design,
Mohenjo Daro may have been a seat of power, but
we still can't quite figure out exactly with any certainty
(04:03):
how it was governed. The city covers two forty hectars,
which is nearly six hundred acres, so that makes it
about five times the size of the Vatican. Mahento Daro
has two districts which have been named the Citadel and
the Lower Town, and again these are names that archaeologists
have labeled them with. The tallest of the Mohino Daro
(04:24):
mounds is the home of the citadel. The Great Bath
is perhaps the most impressive structure of the citadel section
of the city. It is also probably the most famous
part of the city. This bath is massive. It is
thirty nine ft that's twelve meters by twenty three ft
that's seven ms and the depth of the pool is
eight feet, which is two point five ms. The bath
(04:47):
was constructed with bricks that were mortared with gypsum, and
then to make it water tight, the whole thing was
sealed with bitumen to enter an exit. There were stairs
for bathers on either end of the bath. This pool
at Mohando Daro predated Roman bath by about two hundred years,
but it was just as impressive as those later structures.
(05:08):
A nearby well supplied the bath with water and water
was discarded from the bath via a corbelled drain. Because
of its size and location in the citadel section of
the city, it is believed that the Great Bath was
used for group bathing, possibly as part of rituals, and this,
combined with the other advanced bathroom facilities and draining systems
of the city, have led to the conclusion that cleanliness
(05:31):
was deeply important to the culture of the city. While
the city had numerous gathering places, it lacked temples or
other obviously religious structures, and the Great Bath has sometimes
been suggested as a possible temple. But there's also a stupa,
which is a Buddhist structure and that shaped like a dome.
But the stupa at Mohando Daro was built long after
(05:54):
the city was abandoned. It's estimated that the structure was
added to the citadel mound as late as the or
two hundred. Yeah, we'll talk about the timeline of when
the city was no longer active, but that is long
after it. So basically like new structures were built on
top of ruins and that is how that stupa stands
so high. H The so called Lower Town of Mohenjo
(06:17):
Daro is based on a grid system, just like any
modern city. Really, it's sectioned off into blocks with barriers
constructed from baked mud bricks as well as mud bricks
that are made in the non big style, which is
like mud and straw, and then mud was also applied
to the brick walls to seal them and minimize erosion.
The lower Town section of the city may have supported
(06:38):
as many as twenty thousand to forty thousand residents. It
appears that the city enjoyed a certain level of egalitarian wealth. Ivory, gold,
and semi precious stones have been found all throughout Mohenjo Daro. Additionally,
most of the homes seem to have had the same
basic level of amenities. Just about every house had a
toilet and a bath that connected to the city's drainage system.
(07:02):
They are also stairs at most of the homes, suggesting
either a second story or a terrace roof. Yeah, there
are very few kind of what we would consider indicators
of like a lower class residents area. Uh. And some
of those again are in those those areas that are
(07:22):
built on top of other ruins, so it does seem
again very egalitarian. Uh. And there are also some theories
that that second story or terrorist roof may have been
part of an effort to avoid flooding. The record of
art in Mohenjo Daro is a little bit sparse. Any
decorative elements in the architecture are long gone, and there
(07:43):
isn't a whole lot of sculpture to indicate the values
of the people of the city in terms of their art.
There are a few examples, some of which we're going
to talk about in just a bit, but for the
most part, it has been small pieces like jewelry or
little you know, bits of sculpture that have survived. Mohenjo
Daro call lapsed as a center of civilization about six
hundred years into its life sometime around nine b C,
(08:06):
but the cause of that collapse is unknown. A shift
in the Indus River might have been to blame because
it would have really impacted the vitality of a city
that was depending on river transported trade. There have also
been theories that the city flooded due to the river shifting,
and that some of the technology that the city used
to control water flow actually caused standing water in the
(08:29):
city streets for a prolonged period of time. But again,
while there is evidence of some flood damage, this is
still speculative. We just don't have enough hard evidence, and
we do know that the entire Indus reverse civilization experienced
a steep decline around that the sort of landmark year
of nineteen hundred BC. Coming up, we will talk about
(08:50):
the excavation that uncovered Mohanzo Daro after thousands of years
uh shifting. Sands and soil had covered the site during
that time. But first we will have a little sponsor break.
As we mentioned before, we went to break over time,
(09:10):
Mohenjo Daro was covered with soil and it wasn't until
the early nineteen twenties that the city was rediscovered, and
at this time the city was first identified among a
series of mounds, again in the Indus River valley. The
mounds were mostly covering the city and really the citadel
was the part that was most apparent, and it wasn't
until nineteen twenty two, as those mounds started to be excavated,
(09:32):
that the significance and massiveness of this find was truly identified.
In the nineteen twenties, multiple excavations were conducted on Mohenjo Daro.
They were headed by the Archaeological Survey of India and
they were conducted by both British and Indian archaeologists. Excavations
continued up until the nineteen sixties when all the excavations
(09:53):
were shut down due to concern over the structures being damaged.
The weather was a factor, the that they had been
uncovered also exposed them to the elements more. There have
been approved excavations since that time. Those have been conducted
under careful scrutiny and have used non invasive techniques. The
Pakistani Antiquities Act ninety five put some protections in place
(10:17):
making it illegal to steal from or to face protected antiquities,
which included Mahenjo Daro, and the city actually became a
UNESCO World Heritage Site in nineteen eighty. So throughout the
many excavations that have gone on at Mohenjo Daro, thousands
of small artifacts have been recovered from the ruins, and
we're going to talk about two of the most famous
(10:38):
ones and some ongoing examination and theorizing about what they
mean and their origins and value. So the Dancing Girl
is probably the most important, certainly the most well known
artifact of those collected at the Mahenjo Daro site. It's
a small bronze figure. It's about ten and a half
inches tall, that's twenty six point seven cent meters, and
(11:01):
it depicts a woman who is nude save her jewelry.
And the figure has what appears to be curly hair
pulled back and a necklace which looks almost like a
shell on a chain or accord. On her right arm,
which is quite long and lithes are two bracelets, ones
it's just above the elbow and one at the wrist.
And in contrast, the left arm of the figure is
(11:22):
covered in what looked like bengals from just below the
shoulder all the way down to the wrist, and if
you count those little nubs that indicate Bengals, there twenty
five of them at all. Whether the Dancing Girl depicts
someone native to the Indus Valley or an African woman
has been part of the debate about the piece. There
are indications that there there may have been trade going
(11:43):
on between Africa and and this valley inhabitants a lot
of times when there was trade going on. There are
also people from the different places living there. But the
identity of the dancing girls inspirational woman is still an
issue that people don't agree on. There has been a
case made that her features, including her long limbs, more
(12:05):
resemble an African woman, but her adornmant her adornments and
her hairstyle echo more of Indian women throughout history. In
two sixteen, a controversial paper was published in Itti Haas,
which is the Hindi journal of the Indian Council of
Historical Research, and that paper, authored by Dakur Prasad Verma,
(12:26):
claims that the dancing girl is a representation of the
Hindu goddess Parvati, the goddess of love, fertility and strength,
and that is the first time that that idea has
been floated and it garnered a lot of press, but
it also got a lot of criticism. The primary driver
for his conclusion is that Shiva is also represented in
some pieces found at Mohenzo Daro, and that if images
(12:48):
of Shiva are present, it only makes sense for his
wife Parvati to also appear. But even that assertion that
those other images or Shiva has been contested. But that's
not the only recent controversy surrounding the Dancing Girl. The
other is one of ownership. In Pakistani lawyer jeff ed
Ikabal Jeffrey filed a motion insisting that the Dancing Girl
(13:10):
should be returned to Pakistan's Lahore Museum, and according to
this motion, the statue was on loan to the National
Arts Council of India and was never returned to Pakistan.
It's currently in the collection of the National Museum in
New Delhi. But the counter story is that the Dancing
Girl was moved before British India was partitioned into India
(13:33):
and Pakistan in the nineteen fifties. The partitioning is its
own complicated story um but that that assertion means that
Pakistan has no right to make the demand for its return.
There's not really been a lot of movement in uh
in this since that motion was originally filed. Yeah, if
(13:54):
there has, it really hasn't been published anywhere that I
could locate. The dancing girl was discovered in ninety six
by Indian archaeologist D. R. Sanni and since then her
meaning in terms of religious significance has been debated, and
that discussion continues to present day. Most statue artifacts recovered
from Mohenjo Daro are terra cotta and a handful or
(14:16):
carved stone, but this bronze figure is a rarity. She's
even more rare because while there are other cast metal
pieces in the area, they tends to be tools and
decorative adornments, so a cast sculpture stands out as significant.
To create any cast metal object, the Harapans would carve
(14:37):
it in wax and then place wet clay around the
carving to dry and create a mold. And then they
would heat the mold to melt the wax and pour
it out through carefully drilled holes. This would leave a
negative mold which would then be cast with an alloy,
and this was a one time use mold. They would
have to be broken to reveal the final piece. Another
(14:58):
important artifact from the city is a stone sculpture, which
was named the Priest King by archaeologists, even though there
is nothing to indicate that he was either of those things,
and this is a partial piece. It is just the
upper portion of the torso and one broken arm, and
the head is very stylized, featuring a face that is
proportionately large for the head and a beard sculpted with
(15:20):
deep vertical lines to create a representation of hair texture.
His hair on his head is slicked back, and an
ornamental headband encircles his head and then has a tiny
circle at the forehead like an ornamental piece. Over one
of the figures shoulders, there's a cloth drape and it's
sculpted with ornamental circle and trifoil motifs. The top of
(15:40):
the head appears to have been sliced flat, and the
flat area is uncarved with no detail, so people have
speculated that there may have been a head dress piece
that sat on top of it. Similar larger sculptures have
a bun that's on top of the head, so there's
also been theories that a similar hairstyle might have been
what was intended to sit on this flat portion of
(16:01):
the head. It's also possible that the back of the
head was intact initially and somehow it was sheared off
by accident. Yeah, there are also some holes drilled into
the uh the head on the sides that people have
suggested might be to place like a necklace or some
other type of like neck adornment. But I read one
(16:22):
interesting analysis that positive that it was actually those holes
were actually ways that whatever that ornamental piece that sat
on top was hooked to the head so it would
stay secure. It's an interesting piece. Like I said, not
everybody agrees on what what any of these things are
and what their their various details are about. The Priest King,
as I mentioned, is broken off just at the waist
(16:44):
or just above the waist, so the intact section is
just a little less than seven inches at seventeen point
seven centimeters tall, and he is part of the collection
of the National Museum of Pakistan at Karachi. We're about
to get into an interesting part of the modern mythology
around the Mohendo Daro sites, but first we will pause
for another quick word from sponsors. We have certainly mentioned
(17:14):
this already in this podcast, but in the case of
a site like this one where archaeologists and researchers find themselves.
Having to guess at the history of a civilization and
culture is pretty natural for competing theories to emerge. As
a side note, if you're wondering whether a system of
writing might help figure out the many issues of confusion
(17:34):
over Mohends history, the Harappan civilization did have one. We
think there are symbols on various excavated artifacts that do
look like they might represent a language. But this in
this script or Harappan script as it's known, has not
ever been deciphered. Yeah, there is again debate over whether
(17:55):
or not that's actually what it is, even if it
is a language. So the massacre myth of Mahenjo Daro
is one that began in its early excavations and it
persists to this day. It's kind of sensational, so people
like to keep it going. In the nineteen thirties, it
was widely publicized that something terrible had happened at Mahenjo
(18:16):
Daro because a number of skeletal remains were found that
appeared to have died gruesomely. The narrative put forth in
the first half of the twentieth century was at the
city of Mohenjo Daro was wiped out by Indo Aryan invaders.
There's not really evidence to support that idea. For one thing,
all of the bodies found during the early excavations were
(18:36):
in the lower city, not in the citadel, and it
seems like if people were running for cover or help,
they would have run to the citadel, not into the
lower city protection. There were no bodies at all found
in the citadel. No weapons of any kind have been
found to indicate that there was any sort of conflict. Yeah.
(18:57):
I mean, if you uh grow up almost anywhere in
the United States, like there are people always finding things
like arrowheads and like they're just if there is a battle,
stuff gets dropped. That's how it goes. Nothing of that
kind has been found in Mahenjo daro Uh. And there
is also a high likelihood that not all of these
(19:20):
remains are from the same time, and that was actually
debated even among the archaeologists who first uncovered these remains.
As you recall, we mentioned earlier that the city Stupa
was built long after the Harrabin civilization is believed to
have ended, so there were people making use of the
city even after it was largely abandoned, and all of
those time periods maybe coming into play here. Later theories
(19:43):
about the bodies that diverged from the idea of an
attack or a mask her put forth the idea that
the few people who remained after most of the city
was empty may have been caught in a flood or
a drought that was brought on by the shifting of
the Indus River, or some kind of pestilence. So later
theories about these bodies that diverged from the idea of
(20:04):
an attack or a massacre put forth the idea that
the few people who remained after most of the city
was empty might have been caught up in some kind
of flood or drought that was brought about by the
shifting of the Indus River, or maybe some kind of pestilence.
It's also possible that a series of floods overtook the
city over a prolonged period of decline. There's a high
(20:26):
likelihood that not all of the remains are even from
the same period, So it's also likely that there's no
one cause of death for all of these bodies. Yeah,
sometimes you'll see on kind of sensational sites the secrets
of the massacre at Mohenjo Daro, and they kind of
suggest there's some cover up of something nefarious, but really
(20:47):
it's it's just kind of one of those cases where
it's probably not as dramatic as we maybe think. In
the nineteen sixty four article titled the Mythical Massacre at
Mohenjo Daro, archaeologist George F. Dale's wrote, quote, the enemy
of the Hora Pans was nature, aided and embedded by
the hora Pans themselves, who accelerated the spoiliation of the
(21:09):
landscapes through improper irrigation practices and by denuding the watersheds
through overgrazing and deforestation. Just less glamorous and exciting than
a massacrer, but also makes a lot more sense given
the evidence we have. So there probably wasn't any sort
of mass attack on Mahenzo Daro. And the present day, though,
the site is in real danger and the threat once
(21:31):
again comes from the elements. Salt in the groundwater is
causing the bricks, which are really fragile, to erode very rapidly.
There are very wide shifts in the temperature that are
similarly robbing the masonry of its strength, and a lot
of the walls that were uncovered in the early party
the twentieth century are crumbling. The ongoing problem of water
(21:55):
has long been an irritant to researchers. Because of the
water table in the area, digging has always had challenges.
But water is a very real threat to the very
existence of the Mahenjo Daro site because, in addition to
the salinity issue uh and the water table, rainfall is
also breaking apart. The fragile brickwork in late monstones flooded Pakistan,
(22:19):
and Mohenjo Daro was severely impacted by those The stupid
developed cracks and the base of the citadel mound near
the Great Bath had several structural structural failures yeah it
started to collapse in a couple of places. One conservation
effort that has been attempted to save the city's ruins
involved the use of a mud slurry that was applied
(22:41):
to the delicate brickwork in the hopes that it would
protect it. But when that fresh mud dried and fell away,
it was often taking parts of the original structure with it.
In some cases, modern bricks have been slotted into spaces
where old ones have crumbled, creating a weird mishmash of
structural strength that is simply not up to conservation standards.
(23:01):
In recent years, it has even been suggested that the
whole site should be reburied to protect it from the elements.
After years of falling out of the Pakistani government's jurisdiction,
conservation and care for Mohenjo Daro is now in the
hands of sind provincial authorities and then under that stewardship,
a committee has been established to address the technical needs
(23:21):
of trying to preserve the site. Yeah, there was also
an instance in fourteen where as part of a cultural
um celebration, there were a lot of people there at
the site and it was really not good for it.
So even though they were trying to celebrate the long
history of it, the care was not taken to make
(23:43):
sure that that celebration did not have ramifications of damage. Uh.
And as we close out this look at Mohenjo Daro
and its ongoing mysteries, I wanted to include another passage
written by George F. Dales, and this time it's from
an article written the year after the previous one we quoted.
So this one is from nineteen sixty five and he
wrote quote one of the most intriguing aspects of archaeological
(24:04):
research is the constant ebb and flow of our knowledge
between fact and fiction. There is an ever present need
to re examine and reevaluate the scattered bits of evidence
with which we try to reconstruct the cultural framework of
mankind's climb to the modern world. It is not uncommon
to find that yesterday's fact is one of today's discarded theories,
(24:24):
or that what is merely a calculated guest today maybe
a verified historical maximum tomorrow. And I wanted to include
that because it's a good reminder that all of this
is uh based on the knowledge that we have, but
that knowledge can always change, particularly when you're dealing with
very ancient things, which, again, as He's put it, as
(24:45):
part of the excitement of it, also sometimes the frustration.
Do you also have listener mail for us? I do,
and this is another ancient city related one because it
is about our our ephesis episode. This is from our
listener Margaret, and she writes, greetings and salutations, History buffs.
I quite enjoyed your episode on emphasis because I have
(25:07):
personally been there and could imagine the sites while you
spoke of them. My husband and I got quite lucky
in timing our visit to Turkey in the summer of
there were terrorists attacks in Istanbul two days before we landed,
another one three days after we left, and two weeks
after we got home they had their military coup. The
group we traveled with has understandably suspended service in that country,
(25:28):
which is really unfortunate, both of the people who live
there because tourism augments their economy, and every tour guide
we spoke to emphasize their belief that you cannot let
the terrorists affect the way you live or else they
are winning, and more selfishly because it was my favorite
stop in the Mediterranean. Our visit in Ephesus started with
docking in the port of Kusadasi and taking a bus
(25:50):
up into the hills. We passed the original location of
the town and marveled at how the river Delta had
accumulated enough sediment to move the coastline almost three miles.
We disembarked at the ruins of the Basilica of St. John,
where our tour guide let us lead us to the
edge of the hill and asked, can you see that
column down there? That is all that remains of the
Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the
(26:11):
ancient world? And she talked a bit about the history
and significance, and then said, but then there was an
earth another earthquake, and things changed, so people took the
stones from the ruins and built the basilica. She talked
a little bit about the Basilica and then said, but
then there was another earthquake and things changed, so people
took the stones from the ruins and built that mosque,
which she indicated down on the other side of the hill.
(26:33):
I love the continuity of it. Your research indicated that
it is hard to be sure what really happened, but
I quite liked our guide's version of events. I do too,
That's quite charming. From there, we went to the House
of the Virgin Mary and then onto Ephesis proper, which
is amazing. It really is. You should keep it on
your bucket list. Ironically, it had not been on mine.
I was actually more excited to go to Istanbul and
(26:54):
the Hojia Sophia and the Blue Mosque. But Ephesus is
really lovely and much more pleasant and impressive to go
through than some other ruins I visited, including the Parthenon
and Pompeii. I'm not even kidding, uh. And she offers
to send us pictures, which of course I always love,
but I really like that firsthand account of what it
is like to go as a tourist to a place
like this, because we talk about them and how it's
(27:15):
important to remember history and and engage with it when
you can, but not everybody has the opportunity to travel
everywhere and and see all these great things. She seems
very well traveled and really has a grasp of the
importance of visiting historical sites. So thank you, thank you,
thank you, Margaret. That was awesome. Uh. If you would
like to email us, you can do so at History
Podcast at House of Works dot com. You can also
(27:37):
find us online at missed in History dot com, where
you will find all of the shows that have ever
existed of this podcast, including those way before Tracy and
I were ever on the scene, but for the ones
that Tracy and I worked on. You will also find
some show notes included, and we encourage you come and
visit us at missed in history dot com and we'll
all play in the History Fund zone together for more
(28:03):
on this and thousands of other topics. Isn't how Stuff
Works dot com. M
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