Mohenjo Daro

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

In the 1960s, hydrologist Robert L Raikes and archaeologist George F Dales put forward the theory that a series of catastrophic floods in the Indus around c. 1800 BC had wiped out the great urban centres of the Harappan civilization. 

Recently Pakistan’s Department of Archaeology warned that heavy rainfall in the Sindh province threatened the World Heritage status of Mohenjo Daro, one of the largest of Indus Valley Civilization sites.

Mohenjo Daro

• The prehistoric antiquity of Mohenjo Daro, which flourished on the right (west) bank of the Indus river in the 3rd millennium BC was established by Rakhal Das Banerji of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1922. 
• The ruins of the sprawling city of unbaked (burnt) brick 510 km north-east of Karachi and 28 km from Larkana in Sindh were recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980.
• Mohenjo-daro, which means ‘mound of the dead’, was one of the oldest cities of the world.
• It is on the right bank of the Indus River.

Mound of the Dead