No. 71

Mohenjo-daro

On land South & Central Asia

A view of the Buddhist stupa in the background located in the higher settlement to the west, generally referred to as the citadel mound, and it is mostly comprised of the ruins of ancient administrative buildings constru — Saqib Qayyum, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Where: Pakistan
Built by: Indus Valley civilization
Era: 2500-1900 BCE
Known for: Grid streets, covered drains and the Great Bath.
How it ended: Monsoons weakened and rivers shifted; its script is still unread.

The major sites of the Indus Valley Civilization fl 2600–1900 BCE in Pakistan, India and Afghanistan — US Federal Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Public domain

Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro (Pakistan) — Junhi Han, CC BY-SA 3.0 igo

Mohenja-daro excavations in 1924 — Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain

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Background

Mohenjo-daro (; Sindhi: موهن جو دڙو, lit. 'Mound of the Dead Men'; Urdu: موئن جو دڑو [muˑənⁱ dʑoˑ d̪əɽoˑ]) is an archaeological site in the Larkana District of Sindh, Pakistan. Built c. 2500 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, and one of the world's earliest major cities, contemporaneous with the civilisations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoa, and Norte Chico.

With an estimated population of at least 40,000 people, Mohenjo-daro prospered for several centuries, but by c. 1700 BCE had been abandoned, along with other large cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

The site was rediscovered in the 1920s. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, the first site in South Asia to be so designated. The site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.

Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.