Mohenjo-Daro Primary History

I'm Amna, these are all my friends, and we live in Pakistan.

The whole of Pakistan and parts of India,

are home to one of the oldest civilisations in the world.

The Indus Civilisation is over 4,500 years old.

So, that means...

If I'm standing in the present day,

then he must be standing in the time of the Tudors.

And she is standing where Roman Britain was.

He is standing where our prophet Muhammad was born.

Further back was the birth of Jesus Christ.

Even further back is the Indus Civilisation.

The Indus Civilisation was huge.

It spread over 1,000,000 square kilometres.

4,500 years ago, there weren't the same borders.

If you look at a map today,

the Indus Civilisation stretches from Afghanistan,

across the foothills of the Himalayas,

and then down past the deserts of northern India.

'I live in Larkana, a big town near the Indus river.

'In 2500 BC, the major city of this area was Mohenjo-daro...

'..a bit further away from Larkana, on the Indus river.'

The local people had named it "Mound Of The Dead."

Archaeologists estimated that in 2500 BC,

Mohenjo-daro was a city full of 35,000 people.

It was a planned city.

With an Upper...

..and a Lower Town.

A huge Great Bath...

..and with an advanced drainage system.

The river Indus gives the region its name,

and it's also the life-blood of the area.

It's a large river,

a great natural resource from which people can find food,

and earn a living.

As people also did 4,500 years ago.

Five separate rivers have their source

in the Himalayan mountain range.

Travelling towards the valley floor,

these five rivers then become the Indus river.

The whole region is an alluvial plane.

The river brings nutrient-rich sediment down from the mountains,

which helps to fertilise the land.

It's possible that the Indus people stored the water,

in order to irrigate the fields during the dry season.

GENERATOR RUMBLES

In modern times, a large barrage has been built.

This regulates the flow of water, channelling it down canals,

so that it can be used for irrigation.

The river water is now controlled.

The area is known as the bread basket for the whole of Pakistan.

Wheat is grown here, as it was in 2500 BC.

People have settled here

for the same reasons as they did 4,500 years ago - for food.

It's a fertile land with good access to water.

Let's take a closer look at what it was like in 2500 BC.

Mohenjo-daro has a really big main street,

that seems to go all the way through the city.

The street is large enough for lots of traffic to go -

bullocks and carts, people and traders.

With many small streets running off the main street.

All the side streets are exactly the same width.

The main street is 10m wide.

Is this evidence to show that someone sat down

and thought about planning this city?

It looks as though the streets and the drainage systems

were laid out first.

Then blocks of houses and buildings were built around them.

It works like any modern, planned city -

like Milton Keynes, or New York.

This is my favourite bit of the city.

It's the Great Bath.

The Great Bath is in the city's Upper Town.

The archaeologists think that people used this great, deep pool

for important religious ceremonies.

It had a water supply coming in.

There is a slope to drainage area,

which makes it easy to release the water.

It could be possible that the city rulers came here to worship,

as cleanliness is considered very important to many religions.

The Indus people were very civilised.

In 2500 BC, they had toilets.

This is a 4,500 year old loo.

They also had drainage systems

to carry away all the waste.

Keeping clean was very important to the Indus people.

The house I live in is just like a house of a family in Mohenjo-daro.

My house is built around a courtyard.

This is my parents' bedroom,

this is the servants' living area,

and this is my lounge.

I like my courtyard house,

because I can play there safely,

and we can sleep out in the summer.

This house in Mohenjo-daro was also built like my house -

around a courtyard.

This home - house 8 - was built with two storeys.

Every house - big or small - had a bathroom,

and access to a well,

whether nearby or in their own home.

The Indus people had the technology to make wedged-shaped fired bricks,

to create these 15m deep round wells.

When Mohenjo-daro was first excavated

by Sir John Marshall and a team of Indian archaeologists in the 1920s,

they revealed to the world a vast, buried, forgotten city.

A major find for Mohenjo-daro was a stone statue -

the Priest King.

Archaeologists have suggested that he could have been a ruler,

or a religious leader,

or even a resident foreign dignitary.

He has a headband which looks similar to gold ones

found elsewhere in the region.

So, we know they had access to precious metals,

and the skills and technology necessary to work the metals.

There have been lots of artefacts found at Mohenjo-daro,

which can help to build up a picture of how people lived.

What do these artefacts tell you?

In Pakistan today, they still use bullocks for farming,

and they also use tractors.

Bullocks don't tend to break down,

and don't pollute the atmosphere.

But a tractor is much more efficient for modern-day Pakistan.

At Mohenjo-daro, they've found carbonised - or burnt - wheat.

It's 4,500 years old.

This means that the Indus people farmed wheat,

just as they do today.

But the job is now mechanised, rather than by hand.

So many of the things which people invented,

and were good at, 4,500 years ago,

still happen in modern Pakistan.

Amna's mother is making chapattis from wheat.

It's a staple part of people's diet in the region.

Archaeologists have found the bones of animals and fish.

What does that tell YOU about their diet in 2500 BC?

Larkana, where Amna lives,

is the nearest major town to the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro.

It has a population of 300,000 people.

It is a bustling market town with shops and traders,

similar to how Mohenjo-daro must have been.

It is considered to have been the biggest city

within the Indus civilisation.

So, how do we know that all these sites are linked together?

They have found similar artefacts at different locations.

They have found bullocks and carts in Mohenjo-daro, Harappa,

and down in India, Dholavira.

And most of the important sites are built out of bricks,

which have the same proportions.

They can be different sizes of bricks,

but the length is always twice the width, which is twice the height.

Other artefacts which link the sites are seals.

These have been found all over the civilisation.

This evidence helps us to conclude that they are all linked together.

These images were carefully carved onto these small, stone seals,

sometimes used to stamp on clay to seal a parcel or pot.

Some of the seals show real animals,

and some might be mythological creatures like unicorns.

On each is writing in the Indus script.

This is still a mystery, as no-one has worked out how to read it.

What do you think it all means?

The signs might represent whole words,

or part of a word like a syllable.

Some might represent sounds,

or be a picture symbol of an object or an idea.

The Indus people were very accurate when they traded with others.

They had scales and stone weights and measures.

These weights and measures have been found all over the Indus region,

and every weight is exactly the same.

So, it was a very fair system.

The scales are as accurate today as they were in 2500 BC.

In Pakistan, we are so proud of the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro,

that we even have it on our 10 Rupee notes.

The archaeologists have only excavated a small part of Mohenjo-daro.

There is still so much to find.

Mohenjo-daro is an ancient city,

but some cities in the world aren't as advanced today,

as Mohenjo-daro was 4,500 years ago.

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