Mohenjo-daro
The largest and best-preserved Indus city, 'the mound of the dead', with the Great Bath and some seven hundred wells.
Mohenjo-daro stands on the Indus in Sindh, some 600 kilometres south-west of Harappa. At its height it covered about 250 hectares and may have held 30,000 to 60,000 people, one of the largest cities in the world of its time.
Its citadel mound carries the Great Bath, a pillared hall and a large building once called the granary; the lower town is laid out in blocks along wide streets, with houses of fired brick, private wells and bathrooms, and covered drains. The city was rebuilt many times as floods buried earlier levels. The Priest-King and the Dancing Girl were found here.
R. D. Banerji began excavating in 1922, followed by Marshall, Mackay and Wheeler. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, and its unbaked brick now crumbles under salt and rising groundwater.
More from the Indus
The type site of the civilisation, on an old course of the Ravi: 150 hectares and perhaps 23,500 people at its height.
Perhaps the largest Indus city, on the old Drishadvati plain east of the Punjab, whose skeletons gave the first Indus DNA.
The Indus city of the salt desert, with rock-cut reservoirs and a signboard of ten giant signs.
A small port town near the Gulf of Khambhat with a great brick basin, a bead factory and an ivory scale.
The town of 'black bangles' on the dry Ghaggar, with the oldest ploughed field ever excavated and rows of fire altars.
Indian Punjab's own Indus town, on the Sutlej where it leaves the Shivalik hills.
Where farming began on the edge of the Indus plain, the deep root of the cities.
In the world's museums
9 objects
Two cornelian beads and four terracotta beads, from Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan)British Museum, London · photo Zunkir (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA ↗
Shell bangles, from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, Harappan civilisation, Mature Period (cBritish Museum, London · photo Zunkir (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA ↗
Terracotta triangular cakes, from Mohenjo-daro and HarappaBritish Museum, London · photo Zunkir (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA ↗
Terracotta dice, from Mohenjo-daro (Pakistan)Ashmolean Museum, Oxford · photo Zunkir (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA ↗
Dices, found at Mohenjo-daroWikimedia Commons · Saqib Qayyum · CC BY-SA ↗
Mohenjo-daro museum relicsWikimedia Commons · Saqib Qayyum · CC BY-SA ↗
Mohenjo-daro museum showcaseWikimedia Commons · Saqib Qayyum · CC BY-SA ↗_of_Mohenjo-daro.jpg)
Priest King (Sculpture) of Mohenjo-daro in Kolkata Museum.Indian Museum, Kolkata · photo Ganesh Mohan T (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA ↗
Swastika Seal, of steatite stone, from Mohenjo-daro, Indus Valley CivilizationBritish Museum, London · photo Wikimedia Commons (Wikimedia Commons) · CC BY-SA ↗