Dig It!                  Unlocking the Secrets of Mohenjo-Daro             Page 9

By: Archeologist Nick Pryor

          One of the world’s biggest mysteries is what happened to India’s city, Mohenjo-Daro. One of the world’s best and oldest civilizations, Harappa, just went away along with its biggest city, Mohenjo-Daro. Even though many people had been there before and had shown me the artifacts they found I wanted to see what they looked like in person. When we were excavating we found many old stone seals, and other artifacts from Mohenjo-Daro. They are now able to be viewed at the public at many places.

          Almost ten years ago I had just turned forty years old and I planned to lead some other archeologists into the ruins of Mohenjo-Daro. We brought shovels, and other excavating equipment. We spent a while driving until we came to a point where we decided to walk the rest of the way. As we walked we got closer and closer and we could see more and more of the legendary civilization. As we got there we saw a huge mound of rocks. I looked in my bag and grabbed my notebook. I had a picture labeled Citadel that looked just like the mound of rocks in front of us so I knew it was the Citadel. As we got closer into the Citadel \                I saw what looked like the Great Granary, so I knew that the Great Bath would be nearby.

          A few of the other archeologists and I ran up the hill getting closer to the Great Bath. It was huge. It was around eight feet deep and around thirty nine feet long. The crew and I were amazed by the size of it as none of us had ever been here before. Part of the crew stayed up in the Citadel but I went down into the town. The reason I even came on my

Trip to Mohenjo-Daro was because I wanted to see how the people of the Harappa civilization and the people of the city Mohenjo-Daro lived. As I got down to the lower city, there were eight foot walls creating alleys between the homes. I walked up to one of the homes; it seemed to be made of some sort of a fried mud brick. I walked into the house. It must have belonged to someone who wasn’t too rich but wasn’t too poor as it was a medium sized house. Just then another one of the archeologists walked in. He was looking for me because one of the other men had found a stone seal. We rushed back up into the part of the Citadel near the Great Granary, nobody knows for sure if it was used as a granary but that’s what its name is. The seal he found amazingly had a picture of what appeared to be a unicorn. He carefully picked it up and put into a bag which he then put in the case that we were putting artifacts in.

          We then walked into what we thought was a temple. It was very big and had some rings and other jewelry. We put some in our bag to study later but left some there. We could see many beautiful things there, rings, beads, and axes were just a few. They must have had a division of labor which would give the m free time to make such beautiful objects.

          We then walked into what appeared to be the city’s sewer system; many people don’t know this but Mohenjo-Daro but they created the first sewer system almost two-thousand years before the Romans. As we walked around where part of the sewer entered, it was amazing just to think how much time these people would have needed to build such a amazing sewer system.

          It had already been four days of investigating the ruins of Mohenjo-Daro and we had to head back home. We took our bags and packed them into the car and drove back home. When we got back to our Headquarters, our head archeologist then examined the artifacts we had found in Mohenjo-Daro.

          From the research and notes I got from my travel to Mohenjo-Daro I have figured that they spent much of their time making sure that their city was the best that they could make it. They would have had to have a division of labor to make all of these beautiful artifacts. Even though the Romans are credited with making a sewer system the people of Mohenjo-Daro built one nearly two thousand years before the Romans. They even had indoor bathrooms. A day for someone in Mohenjo-Daro would have been different depending on how much money or barter they got. If you were rich life may have been very easy to live your life. From the artifacts other people there have found they didn’t have horses and may have just used cows to do the work of what people use cows. On my expedition I found many artifacts that may have been from the other legendary civilization, Mesopotamia, as we are not for sure if these artifacts came from Mesopotamia they are very much like things archeologists have found in Mesopotamia.

          Just a few of the many facts I found out on my trip to Mohenjo-Daro: The city of Mohenjo-Daro covered almost 260,000 miles, inside the Great Bath there were eight private bath rooms, now days the soil is much worse than it was back then, Mohenjo-Daro actually means Mound of the Dead, it was first found in 1922 by a archeologist named D. G.F. Dales, they had many cans that held, many different kinds of grains and other items in Mohenjo-Daro such as, barley, cotton, dates, melons, peas, rice, sesame seeds, and wheat.

          My trip to Mohenjo-Daro changed my perspective of the world; it showed me how this world has changed and gotten better, but it has also showed me how this world has gotten worse. Back then people worked together to build towns, now days we fight each other for resources our countries need. I hope at some point in your life you can visit Mohenjo-Daro or another one of the ancient places like Mesopotamia, they are truly life changing.

~Archeologist Nick Pryor

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Guest archeologist, Archeologist Nicholas Pryor.