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The standard view about Mohenjo-daro is that, in ancient times it was most likely one of the administrative centres of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization. It was the most developed and advanced city in South Asia, and perhaps the world, during its peak. The planning and engineering showed the importance of the city to the people of the Indus valley. Now the time has come that this view had to be properly reconsidered. No such big cities existed at that time period in any part of the world. Indians live in such clumsy, squalid towns even today, which shows that such a metro would have resulted in outbreak of diseases and death in large numbers. Because of the reason of unhygienic conditions, many of the villages did not grow beyond the population of few thousands. At the maximum a town could have with stood a population of 10,000 not more than that. But the archaeologist estimate that nearly 50,000 to 1, 00,000 people would have lived in the city of Mohenjo daro and Harappa would have sustained equal number. Such huge density was possible because there were only dead bodies kept in those houses not living persons. It was a necropolis not a metropolis. Drainage system Much is being said about the drainage system of the two cities. No doubt that experts dealing with those places, believed that sustaining such huge population was possible because it had such a good drainage system. A closer look at the photographs presented in website Harappa.com shows that the drainage is 6 feet tall and it is a cobbled passage way. Indian cities do not have a drainage pipe more than 2 feet even today at modern times. How could it be possible for Indus people to build such a drainage system consisting of 6 feet high passage ways? No doubt, they were passage ways, but not for cleaning the blocked drains but they were passage ways to enter the tombs, and the inner burial chambers or the burial rooms. The passage ways were closed after the placing mummified bodies. The closed passage ways are clearly visible in the photos of Harappa.com. These closed passage ways gives the false impression that later day occupants have blocked the drainage and built new houses.
We are not able to correlate this passage way to the entry passage of a tomb because the roof of the tomb / burial chamber has fallen down. The dead bodies were placed in nominal construction like a room which has not survived the time. Naturally the roofs have fallen down, and the passage may exist but there is no burial room. In that condition we are not able to visualize that it could have been a tomb. When the facts are not connected together, and interpreting only the passage way has resulted in wrong conclusions. What is needed is that a dramatic 3D visualisation of the past, how such a room could have existed, and what could have been the use of that room. At this juncture, we should remember the life and work of Henreich Schliemann who located the remains of real Troy. (City of Helen, Paris and Trojan horse)) Even though he was not a trained archaeologist, yet the greatest discovery of archaeology was made by him. He was such a romantic person who believed in every word of Homer and finally found Troy. He had an objective that one day he should locate Troy and prove the world that Homer was right and was describing about a city which really existed. His visualization should have been phenomenal, because of his ability to visualize, such a difficult goal of him had been realised. We should also use such visualization to interpret the archaeological evidences. The plat forms
(Photos courtesy Harappa.com) This hall has been named as Dyer's workshop. From the picture, we can assume that huge pots would have been kept in those circular platforms which created a depression in the middle. It is very clear that some kind utensils were kept in those platforms, which had round bottoms. I doubt the conclusion that it was a potters yard because generally flat bottom metal vessels called "vats" will be used for such a purpose, and pots will not fit into that role. But, now consider my new theory, these platforms were used for keeping "pithois" (Funeral pots with dead body inside), then the above said platforms perfectly fit such a purpose. In addition to that note that there are three or four such round platforms are clustered together in a narrow space in both places, the so called dyer's work shop a well as granary.(Photos courtesy from Harappa.com)
The usage for the plat form is still not clear. If the above said view that the rooms were actually burial chambers, then the use of plat form will also fall into place. The plat forms were built to keep the funeral pithoi over them; such a huge pot containing mummified body would have required a stable plat form. At present these platforms are being described as plat forms for grinding grains. The picture of platform in the Harappa.com web site shows that three or four such plat forms exist in a single room. If so many platforms were used for grinding grains, then Mohenjo daro should have been an industrial centre consisting of many grain-milling factories beating all other civilizations of that time. The new interpretation on the platform is that the platforms were used for keeping funeral pithoi. Granary The public buildings of these cities also suggest a high degree of social organization. The so-called great granary at Mohenjo-daro as interpreted by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1950 is designed with bays to receive carts delivering crops from the countryside, and there are ducts for air to circulate beneath the stored grain to dry it. However, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer has noted that no record of grain exists at the "granary." Thus Kenoyer suggests that a more appropriate title would be "Great Hall." Great bath:
Close to the granary, there is a building similarly civic in nature - a great public bath, with steps down to a brick-lined pool in a colonnaded courtyard. The elaborate bath area was very well built, with a layer of natural tar to keep it from leaking, and in the centre was the pool. Measuring 12m x 7m, with a depth of 2.4m, it may have been used for religious or spiritual ceremonies. Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. Some of the houses included rooms that appear to have been set aside for bathing; waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes. A variety of buildings were up to two stories high. Being an agricultural city, it also featured a large well, and central marketplace. It also had a building with an underground furnace (hypocaust), possibly for heated bathing. Mohenjo-daro was not a fortified city. Lacking actual city walls, it did have towers to the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications to the south. Considering these fortifications and the structure of other major Indus cities like Harappa, lead to the question of whether Mohenjo-daro was an administrative centre. Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share relatively the same architectural layout, and were generally not heavily fortified like other Indus Valley sites. It is obvious from the identical city layouts of all Indus sites, that there was some kind of political or administrative centrality, however the extent and functioning of an administrative centre remains unclear. Mohenjo-daro was successively destroyed and rebuilt at least seven times. Each time, the new cities were built directly on top of the old ones. Flooding by the Indus is thought to have been the cause of destruction. The city was divided into two parts, the so-called Citadel and the Lower City. Most of the Lower City is yet to be uncovered, but the Citadel is known to have the public bath, a large residential structure and two large assembly halls. Artifacts
The "Dancing girl" found in Mohenjo-daro is an artefact that is some 4500 years old. The 11cm long bronze statue of the dancing girl was found in 1926 from a house in Mohenjo-daro. She was British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler's favourite statuette. She has an African face with pouting lips and insolent looks in her eyes. She's about fifteen years old, and she stands with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. Mortimer Wheeler describes her as a perfect girl of the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. Wheeler romantises the girl as perfect example of the moment, but it looks like that these kinds of girls are associated with some religious ceremony associated with death. The “goat seal” shows that some human sacrifice had been done and seven such girls are standing in the front as if they had performed a ritual dance. Many burial pot shreds found in Tamil Nadu shows such a figure of women keeping her left hand in the hips. It shows that she is somehow associated with burial ceremony and associated rituals. There is another artefact which has become a symbol for the Indus, Seated male sculpture (18cm tall), the so-called "Priest King" (even though there is no evidence that either priests or kings ruled the city). Archaeologists discovered the sculpture in Lower town at Mohenjo-daro in 1927. It was found in an unusual house with ornamental brickwork and a wall niche and was lying between brick foundation walls which once held up a floor. The statue of the so-called "Priest King" wears a shawl covering his left shoulder. This statue is dated around 2500 BC and is at present displayed in the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi. This bearded sculpture wears a fillet around the head, an armband, and a cloak decorated with trefoil patterns that were originally filled with red pigment. The two ends of the fillet fall along the back and though the hair is carefully combed towards the back of the head, no bun is present. The flat back of the head may have held a separately carved bun as is traditional on the other seated figures, or it could have held a more elaborate horn and plumed headdress. Two holes beneath the highly stylized ears suggest that a necklace or other head ornament was attached to the sculpture. Eyes are deeply incised and may have held inlay. The upper lip is shaved and a short combed beard frames the face. The large crack in the face is the result of weathering or it may be due to original firing of this object.
Goat seal. Human sacrifice
The Indus goat seal shows the priest in a typical Indus sacrifice scene. Some historians interpret that the object on the stool in front of the priest is a human head, seal no.M-1186 (Parpola, 2000)(page: 260, Fig: 14.35)). This evidence of human sacrifice has come from the seal shown in the website of Jonathan Mark Kenoyer. (Kenoyer J. M., Harappa.com). Even though the seal shows human sacrifice, the main purpose behind the seal is an astronomical event, which is of religious significance. The details are given in an elaborate manner under the chapter “Interpretation of Indus symbols”. Criticism The name Mohenjo Daro itself means the mound of the dead, it is self explanatory, but archaeologists are going to various lengths to prove otherwise. It was a necropolis not a metropolis as imagined by various archaeologists. Necropolis means city of burial, not city meant for living persons. This new interpretation that it was a necropolis would substantially alter various other interpretations in current usage. For example the standard view is that nearly 50,000 people were living in mohenjo daro and the prime of its existence. This is not an acceptable view, because 50,000 dead bodies can be kept in such a congested condition, but not 50,000 living people. Such a large number of people to live in an insanitary condition will result in outbreak of epidemics and massive number of deaths. The structure identified as granary is doubtful as per American history professor Kenoyer; he states that it is simply a big hall. Careful observation of the pictures available at the web site (Harappa.com) shows that it looks more like a brick kiln than a big hall. Note that large numbers of bricks were used in construction of these burial tombs. For such a large scale consumption of bricks, bricks should have been manufactured on industrial scale. Mohenjo Daro and Harappa were important places of those times, and it is likely that the mortuary business was carried out in industrial scale at that time. Note that the bricks extracted from these two places were used as ballast for the considerable length of the railway line during British
period. The industry which survived here was funeral industry and business was mummification. Further, Kenoyer says that some ventilation pipe like structure exists which lead to the conclusion that it was a granary. The ventilation structure is essential in a brick kiln for proper burning of bricks, the granary depiction in various reconstructed pictures looks more like a brick kiln rather than a granary. Storing grains in such large scale is a difficult job, the grains should be properly dried or it will rot within days of storage. Large scale insect attack will occur in granaries and control of rats will be next to impossible task in such large scale storage of grains, considering all these factors it can be safely concluded that the structure was definitely not a granary. In addition to that there is another doubtful factor that whether Indus people had any such huge surplus production of grains to store in such big granaries. This interpretation may raise a doubt that no evidence for mummification is seen so far in the Indus valley artefacts. There is no evidence of mummies because the mummies crumble on exposure to light, and the grave robbers had played a significant role in robbing these mortuary temples. Eric Wunderlich gives a detailed account on this issue, why no such mummies have been found in the palace structure at Crete. Arthur Evans had also wrongly concluded the Minoan funeral parlour as a “palace” because of the same reason that no mummies were found at the time of excavations. In this regard the explanations given by Eric Wunderlich are informative and enlightening and are applicable to the situation in Indus sites also. The photo of blocked drain in the web site (Harappa.com) shows that it is simply an entrance to the tomb. It is highly impossible that such huge drains of man’s height would have been built during those times. Even as on today, Indian cities are having one or two feet diameter drainage pipes, in such a situation building six feet high drainage channels are absolutely ill-logical and without any requirement for such a facility. Most probably Harappans were using open toilets as is practice in rural India even today. Not sophisticated toilet as imagined by some archaeologists.
Photograph of the well shows that the parapet wall is starting from ground level and goes up to two storey level of the nearby building. (See the figure given here and compare the level of well and nearby wall (Kenoyer J. M., Harappa.com)).The well is not going down into earth, instead of that it is growing up towards sky. Most probably it is a circular burial tomb (or Shaft burial), but it looks like a well. Or simply it was the passage for the tombs in the lower level. Some wells are oval shaped some are heart shaped (Photos of Kenoyer in Harappa.com). I am yet to see an oval shaped parapet wall of a well construction in any of the existing wells in India. See the heart shaped parapet wall has been built over a brick platform. The wall is hardly two feet in height and there is no well below. Then, what is the purpose of this construction, It is simply a grave . Most probably a man would have built this grave for his dead young wife showing his love and affection by the heart shape.
The potteries are also tailor made for funeral purpose, some of them show a protruding tube, meant for funnelling the sacrificial blood into ground. The “toilets” described by archaeologists seem to be “ordinary holes” meant for pouring blood into underground to nourish the dead in the underground burial chambers. Majority of Indus seals illustrate bull as the logo theme. It is probable that the animals depicted in the seals were sacrificed and as a proof the tokens were made. The tokens would have been attached to the mummies, so that the dead person’s soul can produce that evidence before the God of underworld (God of the dead); ensuring that deceased person’s soul received a good treatment in the other world. The current explanation that the seals were used as some kind token of identity of ownership of goods exchanged in trade does not seem to be accurate. Indus seals generally depict the date and month in which a person died. Some other seals show the date and month in which an important sacrifice or ritual was carried out. (Further details are under the chapter Astronomy and Calendar)
See the mound of broken pottery (images of Asia web-site)
The picture shows enormous amount of broken pottery. Such a scenario is not possible in ordinary site. These sites at Mohenjo daro and Harappa are necropolis and for centuries ancient Indians have carried out their funeral ceremonies here. That explains the large amount of broken pottery seen here. Many theories about decline of IVC are also wrong, because it never declined at all. Many of the cultural ideas depicted in Indus seals are still being practiced as on today. It looks like that as if Indus culture had declined, because of the deserted nature of excavation sites. The sites were looking deserted because they were burial places not living places, and those sites were meant as a shelter for ghosts of dead persons. A living place is a valuable real estate and it will never be deserted, generation after generation it will be rebuilt, this place was not rebuilt because it was a haunting place of ghosts and no one wants to live in such a place. The culture of building elaborate house of dead vanished with the arrival of Indo-Europeans, who were tomb raiders not tomb makers. At this juncture, a relevant question will definitely be raised, why no human bones are lying around, if these places were cemeteries? No bones are being found because the tombs were raided by later day invaders, when mummies and bones were exposed to light and heat they get pulverized within days. But still there are lots of evidences of skeletons for a living city. (Figure 9.1. page 160 of the book “The Indus civilisation”, (L.Possehl, 2003). This location map shows that skeletons are strewn around all over the place, not restricted to any small location as normally expected. This shows that entire place was used as a burial ground and not merely a small enclosure within the site. The Great bath is the only structure which had been properly identified so far. It is place for carrying out religious rituals. But only clarification required is that probably this great bath was used for funeral ceremony and not for other ceremonies. As per prevailing Hindu custom any funeral ceremony is conducted around a water body like sea shore, river or a pond. During the course the ceremony the person making sacrifices to the dead person is required to take bath frequently. He has to wash himself clean at the beginning of the ceremony, middle of the ceremony and finally at the end of the ceremony. Finally the offering is made to crow, and remaining offerings are thrown into water; final ashes of cremated body is washed into a water body. This great bath might have served such a purpose. It is likely that mummification would have been carried in this place. Mummifications would have brought lot of revenue to those professional physicians. Further as long as the mummy existed, it would have required regular poojas and animal sacrifices supposedly to sustain the mummies. All these activities would have sustained the mortuary temples of this place. Even though there is no evidence of mummification in Hindu culture as on today, but the
remnants of that practice can be seen in present day rituals for the dead. After cremation of the body, the final ceremony is held only on 40th day, till then mourning period continues. How this period of 40 days of mourning is arrived at? It is simply because of the fact that it requires 40 days for a proper mummification of a body. Verifying the data available with Egyptian mummification techniques will show that it took exactly 40 days to properly preserve the body. Beating the breast to show their grief is a common practice in the cultures of Dravidians, Egyptians, and Minoans. It is likely that the same was followed in Indus valley also. Circular platforms; originally explained as grinding plat forms are really meant as platforms for keeping the funeral jars (Pithoi) for safe keeping and everlasting journey into eternity. Decline of Indus civilisation So many theories have been propounded to explain the decline of Indus culture, but none of the explanation is satisfactory, because it never declined actually. Imagine the situation that Indus people were using those places as necropolis and later came grave robbers with scant respect for those buried in those places. Because their main attraction was to extract, some valuables like gold, or some metal out of the utensils or weapons buried along with the deceased persons. Later entirely new culture came, they were the people who burnt the body, to outsmart the grave robbers, this cremation practice became more prominent and old practice of burial declined, resulting in burning of all funeral materials. It is not only that to avoid grave robbery, our ancestors have resorted to burning of dead bodies, there is also another important reason. The practice of “Black magic” requires the body parts of some deceased persons. The magician will make a “magic portion” out of body parts and the soul of the dead person will be controlled by the Magician. That is a recurring theme in all the magic stories of India. Practically also, black magic is being practiced even today. To avoid such a fate of soul ending in the hands of magicians, our ancestors preferred to burn the dead body. This is a strong reason for the shift in funeral practice in Indus Culture. This has resulted in a scene where it gives an impression that these places were occupied by culture less people. Cultured people were very much there and Indus culture never declined in a proper sense, which explains the re- emergence of all cultural ideas of Indus people in the later period. Similar situation existed in the Greek culture also after the fall of Minoan palace culture, there is a dark period in which no evidence of culture is seen. Later, it reemerges after a period of 500 years. Wunderlich correctly observes that, it is wrong to conclude that no cultured people existed during that period. Only mistake of those people was that they were practicing burning of corpses instead of burial. The situation narrated by Wunderlich on Greek culture is very similar to the scenario
presented in Indus valley. There is no proof that Aryans came in large scale and destroyed Indus culture. If Indo Europeans entered into India, it was only in trickle drops and not in large scale migration (around 1500BC) as pictured by some historians. There is evidence of high percentage of M-17 marker genes all over north India, (Spencer Wells) but source of this M-17 marker need not be from the supposed to be Aryans entering India around 1500BC. The source of this marker could be from the large scale incursions which occurred in the later periods. This gene might have got introduced during the periods of invasions of Greeks, Huns (Kushans), Sakas, Parthians and Islamic kings (Medieval period). All the theories propound by Spencer Wells in his classic book “The journey of man- A genetic odyssey” have been accepted in this book, except the above mentioned point. Spencer Wells concludes that Invasion of India by Indo Europeans happened around 1500BC and has been confirmed by the presence of M-17 marker in high percentages in North India. This theory of spencer wells has been negated by discussion in the earlier paragraph that the source of M-17 gene may be from later day invaders and not necessarily from invaders of 1500BC. Only detailed genetic study of Indian population along with additional genetic markers will clarify this issue. There is a possibility that such a study can be carried out and proper conclusions are arrived at. Re-emergence of IVC ideas Many of the ideas of IVC have re-emerged later and are surviving as on today. The idea that invading Indo-Europeans have totally destroyed earlier culture seems to be incorrect. Some of the cultural ideas which are still surviving today are like Shiva and mother goddess worship along with worship of bull, which are the main theme in many Indus seals. The same practices are still alive and kicking as on today. As said in earlier paragraph the IVC never declined at all, hence the concept of reemergence of IVC ideas is misnomer. However some important cultural ideas which are still widely being followed are reproduced here for the sake of clarifying this concept. Bull fighting
The above depiction has been taken out of a seal from Indus site and it shows that bull fighting had been an integral part of Indus Valley culture. The remnants of this culture survive only in the southern most part of India. Bull fighting is still being practiced and it is an important cultural event in Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The scene of bull fighting depicted in this seal resembles very much like the bull leaping scene painted in the walls of Knossos of Cretan civilisation. Worship of bull is an integral part of present day Hindu culture, which also happened to have been practiced by Indus people. Asherah pole
This Indus seal depicts a pole of Ficus religiosa (Pipal Tree), on which some cloth is tied around. The cloth rounding up is something like women tying a sari. This pole is identified with the goddess Inanna and there by the Auriga constellation. The square with the wheel in the right side lower corner is the symbol of sun calendar (as per Benght Hemtun). Over all this seal depicts the beginning of the year as well as planting season.
An Asherah pole is a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honour the Ugaritic mother-goddess Asherah. (Wikipedia) This worship looks like the worship of Inanna (Mother goddess- Kali) by a priest in the goat seal. The constellation Auriga seems to be an important one and is shown as the tree of heaven. Most likely the religious idea is that Inanna lives within that tree. Most probably this constellation was visible at the time of heliacal rising of rainy season at some point of time; it may not be relevant now. That tree is symbolically planted during the marriage ceremony of the agricultural communities even now in India. This shows the importance given to this constellation because it signaled the arrival of monsoon season and starting of agricultural season which is very important in the life of any agricultural community.  Necropolis means a city of the dead; a name given by the ancients to their cemeteries, and sometimes applied to modern burial places; a graveyard.  African: The word African is being used in this book in place of Negroid, because of racist connotation of the word Negroid.
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