Who built Mohenjo-daro?

A planned city

Mohenjo-daro looks surprisingly modern on a map. Its streets run in a neat grid, and its buildings use standard-sized fired bricks. Most houses had their own bathing areas, and covered drains carried wastewater along the streets, a level of sanitation rare until modern times.

The city was split into two parts:

The Great Bath

The Great Bath is a watertight pool about 12 m × 7 m, sealed with bitumen and fine bricks, with steps leading down at each end. Archaeologists think it was used for ritual bathing.

A civilization of many cities

The Indus Valley Civilization spread across much of today’s Pakistan and northwest India, a larger area than ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia. Other major sites include Harappa, Dholavira and Lothal, which had a dockyard.

Mysteries that remain

• The script: Indus people used short inscriptions on seals, but their writing has never been deciphered.
• Rulers: No palaces or royal tombs have been found, so no one knows how the cities were governed.
• Decline: The cities faded after about 1900 BC, possibly because of climate change, shifting rivers and weakening trade.

Name and discovery

Mohenjo-daro means “mound of the dead men” in Sindhi, a later name; its original name is unknown. Indian archaeologist R. D. Banerji identified its importance in 1922.

Famous finds include the bronze “Dancing Girl” statuette and the stone “Priest-King” bust.

For other early civilizations, see the first writing system from Mesopotamia, which traded with the Indus cities.