FATH: The ancient city of Mohenjo Daro is under threat

Article content

The devastating flood that submerged vast areas of Pakistan, uprooted millions and killed thousands, now threatens to destroy the remains of the 4,000-year-old city of Mohenjo-daro, the very birthplace of Indian civilization in Sindh province.

Article content

The ancient city of Mohenjo-daro, which literally means “mound of the dead”, was undocumented until 1919, when RD Banerjee, an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India, visited the site and identified what he believed to be a Buddhist stupa of the period 150–500 AD Later he discovered a flint scraper that convinced him of the site’s antiquity.

Article content

The large-scale excavation of Mohenjo-daro was led by British archaeologist Sir John Marshall in 1925. Marshall had previously spent 21 years excavating and documenting the Harappan civilization to the north, where the city of Taxila still stands.

In 1980, Mohenjo Daro was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Now, the Associated Press reports, the city that gave birth to the last remaining ancient civilizations on earth, ie. India, like the Indian subcontinent, is facing destruction, threatened by the torrential rains of the Indus coupled with incessant rainfall engulfing most of Sindh.

Article content

“Several large walls built nearly 5,000 years ago have collapsed due to the monsoon rains,” site curator Ahsan Abbasi told the AP this week. He said dozens of construction workers, under the supervision of archaeologists, had already begun repair work. “But conservation efforts in some parts of the site were put on hold as officials waited for the floodwaters to recede.”

RECOMMENDED VIDEO

Abbasi did not give an estimated cost to repair the damage at Mohenjo-Daro, or whether all the expected damage to the ruins could even be repaired.

Mohenjo-daro is only 3 km from the Indus River, from which it appears to have been protected, both in ancient times and today, by man-made barriers. The central block on the west side is artificially built to a commanding height of 20 to 40 feet with mud and mud bricks, and is fortified to an undetermined extent with square towers of baked brick.

Article content

For a 4,000-year-old city, Mohenjo-daro reflects an advanced society with homes with toilets and latrines and an elaborate bath or tank surrounded by a verandah, a large residential structure, a massive granary, and at least two assembly halls. . There was a citadel that housed a place for religious and ceremonial activities. In the lower town there were large courtyard houses showing a considerable middle class.

Most homes had small bathrooms and, like the streets, were well supplied with sewers and drains. Brick stairs indicate at least an upper floor or a flat, habitable roof. The walls were originally plastered with mud, no doubt to reduce the harmful effects of the salts contained in the bricks and reacting destructively to the fluctuating heat and humidity.

Article content

I had the good fortune to visit the site as a reporter traveling with international dignitaries who had the city on their itinerary. The last time I was there was with the crew of the Tiger led by Norwegian explorer Tor Heyerdahl of glory of the Kon-Tiki expedition, and his international crew of 11, including an Iraqi, an American, an Italian, a Mexican, a Dane, a Pole, a Japanese, and a scientist from the then-Soviet Union.

Heyerdahl’s 1977 expedition on his reed boat Tigris aimed to show that trade and migration may have linked Mesopotamia to the ancient Indus Valley Civilization based in Sindh. The crew docked at Karachi, Pakistan, then took the overland route to Mohenjo-Daro. All I heard from the international group of scientists was dead silence as they walked the streets where my ancestors may once have lived and who could die of human neglect due to climate change induced flooding with no one to save the city .

Article content

As far as Pakistan is concerned, no pre-Islamic structure is considered worth saving, as the Islamists who rule us claim that they have been ordered to destroy any signs that link us to pagan gods or deities. The current government may or may not make saving Mohenjo-Daro one of its priorities. Yet, for the rest of the world, particularly India, this ancient city connects us to the origins of human existence.

UNESCO, India and countries like Canada must step in to save the city that connects us to our ancestors, whether it is the Aryans who supposedly destroyed the city or those of us who realize that without honoring and learning from our collective past, we are unworthy of the short time we inhabit this tiny pearl that sustains us among the billions of galaxies that is the cosmos.