Mohenjodaro, Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan

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Mohenjodaro, Larkana District, Sindh, Pakistan
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View from Stupa towards Great Bath, Mohenjo-daro
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The Great Bath, Mohenjo-daro
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Indus Valley Street with Covered Drain,
Mohenjo-daro, Sindh
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Ancient Indus Valley City Well, Mohenjo-daro,
Sindh
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Buddhist Stupa View, Mohenjo-daro
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Ancient Indus Street, Mohenjo-daro
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0ther animal motifs appearing on seals found
primarily at the largest cities include dangerous
wild animals like the rhinoceros, the water
buffalo, the gharial (crocodile) and the tiger.
All of these animals would have been familiar to
people living at the edge of the thick jungles
and swampy grasslands of the Indus plain and they
were revered as totemic animals, closely
associated with important myths and legends.
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Cubical weights in graduated sizes. These weights
conform to the standard Harappan binary weight
system that was used in all of the settlements.
The smallest weight in this series is 0.856 grams
and the most common weight is approximately 13.7
grams, which is in the 16th ratio. In the large
weights the system become a decimal increase
where the largest weight is 100 times the weight
of the 16th ratio in the binary system. These
weights were found in recent excavations at
Harappa and may have been used for controlling
trade and possibly for collecting taxes.
Harappa Archaeological Research Project.
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This collection of gold and agate ornaments
includes objects found at both Mohenjo-daro and
Harappa. At the top are fillets of hammered gold
that would have been worn around the
forehead.The other ornaments include bangles,
chokers, long pendant necklaces, rings, earrings,
conical hair ornaments, and broaches. Such
ornaments were never buried with the dead, but
were passed on from one generation to the next.
These ornaments were hidden under the floors in
the homes of wealthy merchants or goldsmiths.
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Three sided molded tablet. One side shows a flat
bottomed boat with a central hut that has leafy
fronds at the top of two poles.
The Indus cities were connected with rural
agricultural communities and distant resource and
mining areas through strong trade systems. They
used pack animals river boats and bullock carts
for transport. There was also external trade with
Central Asia, the Arabian Gulf region and the
distant Mesopotamian cities, such as Susa and Ur.
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Although earlier scholars thought that the Indus
civilization disappeared around 1700 B.C., recent
excavations in Pakistan and western India
indicate that the civilization gradually became
fragmented into smaller regional cultures
referred to as Late or post-Harappan cultures.
The ruling classes and merchants of the major
urban centers were no longer able to control the
trade networks that served to integrate such a
vast geographical area. The use of standardized
weights, writing and seals became unnecessary as
their social and political control gradually
disappeared. The decline of the major urban
centers and the fragmentation of the Indus
culture can be attributed in part to changing
river systems that disrupted the agricultural and
economic system.
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Around 1700 B.C. the tributaries of the
Hakra-Nara River became diverted to the Indus
system in the west and the Jamuna River to the
east. As the river dried up people migrated to
the central Indus valley, the Ganga-Yamuna Valley
or the fertile plains of Gujarat in western
India. The Indus river itself began to change its
course, resulting in destructive floods. Certain
distinguishing hallmarks of the Indus
civilization disappeared. Others, such as writing
and weights, or aspects of Indus craft
technology, art, agriculture and possibly social
organization, continued among the Late and
post-Harappan cultures. These cultural
traditions eventually became incorporated in the
new urban civilization that arose during the
Early Historical period, around 600 B.C.
Jonathan Mark KenoyerUniversity of Wisconsin,
MadisonSeptember 11, 1996
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http//www.harappa.com/indus/indus1.html