Mohenjo Daro (Mound of Dead)

Mohenjo-Daro, or "Mound of Dead" is an ancient valley civilization city site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. The city's original name is unknown. it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major urban settlements, It Flourished between 2600 and 1900 BC. It was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major urban settlements.

Mohenjo Daro ((Courtesy GOOGLE IMAGES)

Mohenjo-daro is located in Larkana District on the right bank of the Indus River in Sindh, Pakistan, on a Pleistocene ridge in the middle of the flood plain of the Indus River Valley, around 28 kilometres from the town of Larkana. The ridge was prominent during the time of the Indus Valley Civilization, allowing the city to stand above the surrounding plain, but the flooding of the river has since buried most of the ridge in deposited silt. The site occupies a central position between the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra River. The Indus still flows to the east of the site, but the riverbed of the Ghaggar-Hakra on the western side is now dry.

Map (Courtesy GOOGLE IMAGES)

The ruins of the city remained undocumented for around 3,700 years until R. D. Banerji, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India, visited the site in 1919-20, identifying the Buddhist stupa  to be there and finding a flint scraper which convinced him of the site's antiquity. This led to large-scale excavations of Mohenjo-daro led by Kashinath Narayan Dikshit in 1924-25, and John Marshall in 1925-26.  In the 1930s, major excavations were conducted at the site under the leadership of Marshall, D. K. Dikshitar and Ernest McKay. Further excavations were carried out in 1945 by Ahmad Hasan Dani and Mortimer Wheeler. The last major series of excavations were conducted in 1964 and 1965 by Dr. George F. Dales. After 1965 excavations were banned due to weathering damage to the exposed structures, and the only projects allowed at the site since have been salvage excavations, surface surveys, and conservation projects. However, in the 1980s, German and Italian survey groups led by Dr. Michael Jansen and Dr. Maurizio Tosi used less invasive archaeological techniques, such as architectural documentation, surface surveys, and localized probing, to gather further information about Mohenjo-Daro.