The center of a powerful ancient civilization, Mohenjo Daro was one of the world’s earliest cities — a Bronze Age metropolis boasting flush toilets, and a water and waste system to rival many in modern Pakistan.
About 5,000 years on archeologists believe the ruins could unlock the secrets of the Indus Valley people, who flourished in about 3,000 BC in what is now India and Pakistan before mysteriously disappearing.
However, they warn, if nothing is done to protect the ruins — already neglected and worn by time — Mohenjo Daro will fade to dust and obscurity, never taking its rightful place in history.
Photo: AFP
“Everybody knows Egypt, nobody knows Mohenjo Daro, this has to be changed,” said Michael Jansen, a German researcher working at the sun-baked site on the banks of the Indus River in Pakistan’s southern Sindh Province.
Jansen is at the forefront of a new effort to promote the site internationally while finding ways to protect what is left.
In summer temperatures can soar above 46°C.
“There is enormous thermo-stress,” said Jansen, adding that salt from the underground water table is also damaging the ruins.
However, it is more than just the weather and time. Pakistan’s bloody fight against militancy has also raised the specter of destruction by a Muslim group, much like the Islamic State group destroyed the ruins in Palmyra, Syria.
Most horrifying is the wanton disregard for Mohenjo Daro — or “mound of the dead” — by ordinary citizens. In 2014, police stood atop the main stupa as hundreds of people swarmed the site to, ironically, commemorate Pakistan’s cultural heritage — complete with scaffolding, dancing, fireworks, heavy spotlights and lasers.
Sindh Minister of Culture Sardar Ali Shah has vowed never to let such a thing happen again.
“It’s like you are jumping on the bed of a 5,000-year-old ailing patient,” he said.
Yet today curious visitors still roam the remains with impunity, many leaving rubbish in the once-pristine streets and wells.
Jansen and his Friends of Mohenjo Daro society aim to promote the site internationally, with plans to recruit Pakistanis around the world for conferences, seminars and debates.
Kaleem Lashari, lead consultant to the Pakistani government over Mohenjo Daro, said they plan to digitally archive the Indus script — which has never been deciphered — in hopes that making it accessible will increase the site’s profile.
At the site itself, technical reviews are being held to examine the water logging issue and other ways to shore up the ruins, while exploring new, modern technology that allows researchers to ascertain what lies beneath the surface in the portions of the city not yet excavated, he said.
Perhaps the biggest challenge remains Pakistan’s international image, tarnished by extremism, corruption, poverty and insecurity, Lashari said.
“Foreigners are afraid to visit Pakistan and the site because of the chronic issue of law and order,” he said.
The issues he cites underscore unsettling differences between modern day Pakistan and the civilization found among the ruins.
At their peak during the Bronze Age, the Indus Valley people are believed to have numbered up to 5 million, with Mohenjo Daro their largest and most advanced settlement.
Clay and metallic seals, coins, standardized weighing stones, gold and bronze ornaments, toys and whistles — the bric-a-brac of ancient lives have revealed volumes about thriving Indus trade and commerce.
The layout of the city suggests an egalitarian people more concerned with cleanliness than hierarchy, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer of the University of Wisconsin said.
“In Mesopotamia, the streets went from the city to the palace ... whereas in [Indus] cities all the streets were organized to allow access to the whole city,” he said.
Mohenjo Daro had a complex water and waste management system, which observers have wryly noted was better than in many parts of Pakistan today.
Only a small portion of the site has been excavated properly, but the most important building appears not to have been a palace or a place of worship, but a massive public bath.
Houses had tiled bathrooms and their own cylindrical brick wells, sometimes raised to the second floor to allow for a flush system.
However, none of this has yet explained why such a powerful, advanced and flourishing civilization disappeared so abruptly in about 1900 BC.
Currently, there is no bid to excavate further among the plans being laid by Lashari and Jansen.
“It is actually preserved when it is buried,” Richard Meadow, of Harvard University said.
However, Jansen said the “best way to learn information is to excavate.”
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
RSS