Believed to have been inhabited by at least 40,000 people, Mohenjo-daro prospered from 2500 to 1700 BC. It was destroyed at least seven times by the floods and rebuilt on the top of ruins each time.
Archaeologists first visited Mohenjo Daro in 1911. Several excavations occurred in the 1920s through 1931. Small probes took place in the 1930s, and subsequent digs occurred in 1950 and 1964.
Mohenjo-Daro was a sophisticated settlement of traders, fishermen and farmers. It had a written language and complex religious cults.
In Mohenjo-daro, concealed toilets and covered drains were everywhere. Since excavations began, more than 700 wells have been recovered, in addition to a system of private baths, including a 12m x 7m "Great Bath" for communal use.
A well-planned street grid and an elaborate drainage system hint that the occupants of the ancient Indus civilization city of Mohenjo Daro were skilled urban planners with a reverence for the control of water. Since the city was located just west of the Indus River, the inhabitants of Mohenjo-daro built impressive flooding defense platforms and drainage systems to protect themselves from annual floods.
Archaeologists and historians believe that cities of the Indus Valley Civilization such as Mohenjo-Daro had begun to decline and started to be abandoned due to a change in course by river Indus and the impact of climate change in the area which curtailed rainfall during the monsoon seasons.
The lost city of Mohenjo-daro
