Mystery of Mohenjo Daro | Indus Valley Civilization

Come, we have found an artifact. Look at these bones. These are pieces of utensils. We have found half of their remains. This man will wake up after his death. We visited the ruins of the world's oldest and most advanced civilization. Where the traces of 5000 years old life are still clearly showing their presence. In those ancient times, seeing such magnificent town planning, the human mind is stunned. In the time when the ancient Egyptians were busy worshipping their pharaohs, in the same era, they were busy building permanent houses, not just permanent but also double-story houses, attached and public bathrooms, modern jacuzzi-style waterproof pools, roads, sewerage system and new technology. But how was all this done in this corner of the world? We are not talking about anyone else but the Mohenjo-Daro. This was the advanced city of the Indus Valley civilization, which has still kept experts entangled in puzzles. Who were these people? What did they eat? Whom did they ask? Where the world was successful in decoding the languages of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians, while the language of the people of the Indus Valley could not be decoded yet? Was it deliberately kept encrypted? How was such a modern city built 5000 years ago with strict planning? In that era, what was the secret connection of the Indus Valley civilization with the ancient Egyptians 4,000 km away? And most importantly, where did these people go despite all this? Welcome to Zem TV's videos once again. Viewers, this is the story of December 1922, when the Indian archaeologist R.D. Banerjee was out hunting on the banks of the Indus River in West India. He saw a very beautiful red spotted deer. He chased his horse, but the deer disappeared somewhere in a nearby jungle. R.D. Banerjee, tired of chasing him, decided to rest under a tree. Meanwhile, he stepped on a sharp blade. At first glance, it looked like a normal stone, but when tested, it turned out to be a flint scraper used in the Bronze Age 4,500 years ago. At that time, this blade was used to remove animal skin or to cut different things. Finding a flint scraper in the middle of this dense jungle was quite surprising for R.D. Banerjee. Therefore, he started investigating this place. Meanwhile, a local person came on a bullock cart and started loading some of the stuff from a part of the jungle into the bullock cart. He saw that these were made bricks, i.e. bricks that he was taking to use in his house. At this time, R.D. Banerjee, who already had a lot of experience in the field of archeology, had understood that there must have been an ancient city under the jungle where he was standing. He set up his camp there with his team, hired some locals, and continued digging here for the next four months. Whatever Banerjee was going to get from here in the next four months was enough to stir up the world of archeology. Under the jungle, he found stamps on which characters and some animals that he did not understand were made. He sent the impression of the stamps to his senior, Sir John Marshall, who was the Director General of the Archeological Survey of India at that time. Undoubtedly, these stamps were removed from the ground after thousands of years, but Sir John Marshall had already seen their impressions somewhere before. Yes, the place where R.D. Banerjee was present was Mohenjo-Daro, while two years ago, 600 km north of here, Indian archaeologist Dayaram Sahni had also found similar stamps from Harappa. This evidence was enough to prove that the people of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa lived in two separate cities of the same civilization. Initially, it was named Harappan civilization, but over time, archaeologists began to find other small and large villages of this civilization. Most of them were found on the banks of the Indus River. This was the reason why it was later named Indus Valley Civilization. But Indus Civilization was not limited to just Indus Valley. In Balochistan, from the coast of Makran to Eastern Afghanistan, Yamuna River and Gujarat to North Pakistan, Indus Civilization has also been found. In total, more than 1400 small and large cities of Indus Civilization have been found in this entire area. According to some experts, this number goes up to 3771. That is, Indus Civilization was spread from east to west by 1600 km and from north to south by 1100 km. If this entire occupied area is compared to the Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations of that time, then Indus Civilization was spread over a larger area than the combined area of ​​both. According to a rough estimate, 500,000 people lived in this entire civilization. Mohenjo-Daro was not only the largest city of Indus Valley Civilization, but it is also the first advanced city in the world to be built. It has been named by the local people here. In Sindhi language, Teela is called Daro and Mohan means dead. From 1925 to 1964, excavations were carried out here. Only 10% of the Mohenjo-Daro, which is spread over 633 acres, has been excavated. And only in this, whatever came out, it shows a clear picture of the thinking and tolerance of the residents of this city. 5000 years ago, they had made a planned city for themselves. According to the planned plan, roads and alleys were laid, which go exactly from north to south. And the roads that were made in the cross, they are made at exactly 90 degrees. The entire city of Mohenjo-Daro was seen divided into different parts. It is an upper city, which is called a citadel. It is different from the lower town, in which all the imported buildings are present. As in today's modern cities, there is a separate area for government offices. It includes a college, where people were given education. A granary, i.e. a garden of grains. There were also lights for the passage of air, and a platform for loading and unloading. Looking at the granary, you can guess how much the government here cared for its people. In floods or difficult conditions, the grains stored in the granary were distributed among the people. Then comes the Great Bath, which is a 2.5 meter deep pond. And to get down on both sides of it, stairs were also made. Remember that the Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro is the oldest bath of its kind in the world. In this 12 meter long and 7 meter wide bath, 2,10,000 liters of water could be filled. This is the same amount of water as 30 water tanks on the roof today. But how did such a large amount of water weigh 5000 years old walls? During the excavation, it was found that the walls of the Great Bath were watertighted with gypsum and bitumen, i.e. dumber. Gypsum was used as plaster, and bitumen is a waterproof hydrocarbon, which is still used for waterproofing. Some pillars can be seen all around the Great Bath. It is believed that this whole pond was under a large roof, like today's covered pools. There is also a large well to fill water in it. And a special system was designed to draw water from the pool. At the bottom of the bath, you can see this hole, which comes out in a large drain. And from here, the water was drawn out of the city towards the river. What was the real purpose of this Great Bath is still unclear. But experts say that there was religious activity here. There are many other buildings in the Citadel, but there is one that is different from all of them. It was not fully excavated, but this mysterious building is spread over an area of ​​4800 sq. ft. In which 20 large pillars are standing. Actually, it was a big assembly hall where the officials of the city used to gather. Or a ceremonial hall where small and large functions were held. In Mohenjo-Daro, we noticed a very interesting thing. That all the structures here, in fact, the whole city is built on a floating platform. This is normally done only when the houses have to be protected from rainwater or floods. Even today, the part of Mohenjo-Daro where it is present, Here every other year, because of the rains, the whole village comes under the flood. This means that it was not a coincidence, but 5000 years ago, keeping the flood in mind, The whole city was built on floating platforms under a special plan. But the purpose of making the whole city on the platform was not just to avoid the rainwater. In fact, the people of Mohenjo-Daro had invented a new system, which had not been seen anywhere in the world before. Yes, a magnificent drainage system was installed in the whole city. Every building in the city and even the smallest house was connected to this drainage system. In that era, they had known that to remove the drainage water from the city, It is very important to build on floating platforms throughout the city. This sewage system was not ordinary, but after every little distance, manholes were placed in it, So that the garbage can be cleaned in the event of a blockage. In addition to this, the sewage system was covered with limestone stones. This is not just to avoid an accident, but limestone has the property that it absorbs the smell inside itself. You can easily guess how serious the people here were about cleanliness. At that time, even the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians did not have such a drainage system and nor such roads. Even today, in many villages of India and Pakistan, such a sewage system is not found. In Mohenjo-Daro, 700 wells have been found in just 10% excavations. Although earlier, there was a lot of water in the Indus River that passed right next to it. But still, you can see wells here and there. There were big wells for the public, while there were small wells in many houses. Apart from the fort, in the lower town, mostly only houses, markets and industrial zones were built. Especially in this area located east of the fort, businessmen or wealthy people lived here. Not only houses were built here, but also double-storied houses, with wide stairs leading to the upper floors. The pillars on which their roof stood are still visible today. The wells here were 10 feet high, which were made especially for those living on the first floor. Here in the markets, we also saw a big tandoor inside a shop, where rotis were cooked. In front of it, a large window indicates that people stood in line and waited for their turn. There was also a shop in the market, which had a take-away window. As is the case in modern fast-food restaurants today. In this area of ​​the elite class, the wall of a house is quite different from others. It is made of clay from inside, while the outer portion of it is made of solid bricks. This special arrangement was made to keep this house cool. You can guess the perfect planning from the fact that the wide road passing through all the lower towns was made completely straight, which can also be seen from Google Earth. Perhaps this road was the important trade route at that time. While making the footages of this area, we found a 5,000-year-old artifact stuck in a wall here. This 2.5-inch cone looks like a rifle bullet, but in reality it is such a clay-made equipment that was used to see the time at that time. It was erected directly under the sun, and then the shadow created by this cone was used to estimate the time of the day. Many such cones have already been found in the excavation here. The glimpse of life is still visible here in the walls of Mohenjo-daro. In one wall, pieces of clay utensils and bangles, used coal and pieces of bones are also visible. These are bones. One is this. These are pieces of utensils. One is this. Look below. Can you see the round one? But what is the use of pieces of bones and used coals inside the walls? This can also be a sign of the natural disaster that has turned Mohenjo-daro into these ruins, such as floods. Speaking of bones, let me tell you that a total of 37 pieces have been found from here, of which 14 pieces were found from a room called Room No. 74, or in simple words, Skeleton Room. 14 pieces were found from this skeleton room, but these pieces were not complete. That is, if no one's lower part was there, then no one's head was there. Half of their pieces were found. Some were found up to here. The lower part was not found. Some of their necks are lying there. The rest of the pieces were found. Some of their arms were cut off. Some were injured. The black-and-white photo of this scene is still in the museum. But the question is, why were so many bodies kept in just one room? Did these people die of suffocation, or did someone bring them here after they died? Nothing can be said about this. In this area, there is a street passing through the houses, which has been named Dead Man Lane. Because a headless skeleton was also found from here. There is a VS area near the HR area, where a unique room is present. Round holders are made from bricks on the ground of this room, and a well is also present in this room. It seems that some utensils or a big pan was kept in these holders. A drain hole can also be seen in this area. American archaeologist Mark Kenwer believes that this could have been a restaurant, but there is a high chance that it was a workshop for dyeing clothes. In the process of dyeing clothes, color and cloth are put in hot water. The color easily rises inside the cloth due to the pressure of boiling water. You will be surprised to know that Sindhi Ajrak is still made through this process, whose knots are found from Mohenjo-daro only 5000 years ago. In 1925, the sculpture of the priest king found from here is also wearing a shawl like Ajrak on his shoulder. But was this priest king really the ruler of Mohenjo-daro or the king? If you look at the sculpture found from Mohenjo-daro, it has a person's clean beard. He is wearing a band on his head, a comb on his hair, a stone on his arm, a printed shawl on his shoulder, and his eyes are closed. Looking at his appearance, someone said that he looks like a priest, who is busy worshipping. But some people thought that he looks like the king here. After mixing these two opinions, its name became Priest King. In fact, it was not so big, it was just a small sculpture of 6 inches. And its lower part is still missing. Similarly, the second sculpture of Mohenjo-daro is of this dancing girl. Looking at it, it seems that she is in a position to dance. After the excavation, these two sculptures remained at the headquarters of the Archaeological Survey of India in New Delhi for a long time. But then in the 1970s, Pakistan's President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto requested Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to return these two sculptures to Pakistan. Indira Gandhi told Bhutto that we cannot give this dancing girl, but you can take this priest. Since that day, its copy has been kept in the Karachi Museum. Mohenjo-daro and the people of Indus Valley were very talented. They did not adopt technology, but invented it. Their main income source was agriculture. Due to the flow of the Indus River, the land here was very fertile. These people, along with wheat, barley, banana, watermelon, and peas, But their biggest success was the cultivation of cotton. Even at that time, there was no concept of cotton in Egypt and Mesopotamian civilization. In Indus Valley, cotton production was done 2,000 years before Mohenjo-daro, i.e. 7,000 years before today. The real pieces of cloth were found attached to the silver pot and the lid of copper objects. Their talent can be guessed from the bricks used here. In ancient times, they had made bricks of the same size. First, they used to cook the bricks in the heat of the sun, but later they invented the technology of cooking bricks in clay. But the question is, where did they get the wood to cook so many bricks? Mohenjo-daro's area looks dry, but it was not always like this. First, this entire area was full of dense forests, and in the middle they had set up their own city. And it was this forest that provided them with wood to burn hundreds of tons. Along with all these things, the artifacts found here also prove the skillfulness of this civilization. Mirror made of bronze and comb made of wood. Jewelry made of clay and bronze. Axe made of copper. Fishing hook. Sewing thread. Stone for grinding spices. Painted pots. Bathtub. Various kinds of children's toys, including balls and lollipops. Different seals, which were used to stamp, and most importantly, weight stones. When these weight stones were properly examined, it was found that these people used to weigh and sell different things. Their smallest weight is now exactly 0.856 grams. And the most common weight is 13.7 grams. If the smallest weight is multiplied by 16, it becomes exactly 13.7 grams. Surprisingly, this was the standard in the entire Indus civilization. Wherever such weights have been found, they all had the same weight. This means that the people here were very serious about their economy and business. So now the question arises, did these people trade things with each other, or did they have a secret connection with the outside world? This secret was revealed when John Marshall decided to publish the artifacts found in Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in the Illustrated London newspaper. This article was published in Illustrated London on September 20, 1924. And this was the point when the world was hearing the name of this civilization for the first time. Otherwise, before this, people only knew about Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization. After reading this article and looking at the pictures of various artifacts, an archaeologist from Iraq contacted John Marshall. He said that the seals you have published, we have also removed the same seals from the Mesopotamian ruins. This only means that Mesopotamia, 2200 km away from the Indus Valley civilization, where Iraq is present today, also had a trading relationship with them. And Mesopotamia had a connection with the Egyptian civilization. A unique carnelian bead of the Indus Valley has also been found in Egypt. About which experts say that it first came from the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia and from there to Egypt. So it would not be wrong to say that the people of the Indus Valley were so talented that their work was considered international at that time. These are all the things that were imported from the Indus Valley to Mesopotamia and Egypt 3,000 to 5,000 years ago. They contain weights, unique carved stones, bracelets, beads and seals. Now, if they also had a connection with the outside world, then what name did they call the people of the Indus civilization? After all, they must have had a name. We get the clue to this from a very interesting and true story. In Mesopotamia, the ruler of the Akkadian Empire, Sargon, decided to build a very large temple in his city. The world's precious things were used to decorate this temple. Sargon wrote on the tablets found in Iraq that I had sent my ships Dilmun, Magan and Meluha. And told his people to bring whatever valuable thing they found from there. Dilmun was called the Persian Gulf area at that time, which is today's Bahrain. Magan was identified with Oman and Makran. While experts think that this Sargon king has written the names of the people of the Indus Valley civilization. It is also written in the record of the Akkadian Empire that timber from Meluha, i.e. wood, carnelian, which is a precious stone, and elephant teeth were mined. And it is no coincidence that these three things are still found in the subcontinent, i.e. India. Everyone knows about timber. Carnelian is still extracted from Gujarat. And if we talk about elephant teeth, then 60% of the population of Asian elephants is populated in India. There were two ways to go to Mesopotamia, i.e. Iraq at that time. There was a land route that went from the Indus Valley to Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq. And the second way was the sea. With the flow of the Indus River, goods were loaded on boats and transported to the Persian Gulf by sea. 5,000 years ago, the sea level was very low. The Persian Gulf, which is only a few meters deep, used to be part of the land. And at this point, where the eastern coast of Dubai is now, the territory of Mesopotamia began from here. That is, the point where the Indus River falls into the sea, Iraq, which is now 2,000 km, used to be 1,000 km long. We have learned a lot about the Mohenjo-Daro and Indus civilization. But there are some things that we still don't know, including the language spoken and written here. Their language is called Indus script. Like there are 26 alphabets of English, 46 of Hindi and 39 of Urdu. Each of these alphabets has its own unique sound. Similarly, a total of 419 alphabets or figures have been recorded in the Indus script so far. Many attempts have been made so far, but the Indus script has not yet been decoded. All we know about this script is that it was written from right to left. And it turned out that when there was less space on the left side of some tablets, the writer made the characters smaller. Looking at the complexity of the Indus script, many experts believe that it was an encrypted language. And maybe it was done on purpose so that no one knows about it. And now we know about something that is present in Mohenjo-Daro, but they did not actually make it. We are talking about the identity of Mohenjo-Daro and the highest structure here. Yes, this is actually a Buddhist stupa, which according to experts, was built in the era of Khushan Badshah after 2000 years after the end of Mohenjo-Daro. The special thing about this stupa is that a pot was kept inside it, which contained Buddha's ashes. Buddha was a religious teacher of a Buddhist religion and he lived his whole life with simplicity. When he died, there was a ruckus among his followers about his body. Everyone started fighting for his body. Finally, it was decided that Buddha's body would be burned and his ashes would be distributed among his followers. Taking Buddha's ashes in the pot, wherever his followers saw a tall pillar, they made a dome, placed Buddha's ashes in it, and made rooms all around and started worshiping there. But before the discovery of Mohenjo-Daro, the people living nearby went inside the stupa in search of the treasure and broke this pot. The pieces of which were found during excavations in 1925. So far, we have learned about the discovery of Mohenjo-Daro, its magnificent town planning, different artifacts, technology, language, the reality of the stupa, and the relationship of Indus civilization with the outside world. But where did such an advanced civilization leave all this and go? This is the last question that comes to everyone's mind. It can be seen that only a few skeletons have been found from Mohenjo-Daro. That is, this place did not suddenly turn into ruins. The total area of Mohenjo-Daro was 633 acres. And only 10% of it has been excavated. That is, 90% of the city has been buried underground. According to one estimate, there were between 50,000 and 100,000 people living in this city. If such a large population lived here, then in the event of an attack or natural disaster, not just 37, but hundreds of structures would be found here. But this did not happen. This shows that this place has been emptied slowly. Due to various problems, they had to leave this place. The destruction of agriculture due to floods, the lack of water in the Indus River, and the attack of outsiders. Experts believe that these were the reasons why the people of Mohenjo-Daro left their city. It seems that these people did not go anywhere else from here, but were divided in the whole of Sindh. And slowly they forgot their real identity. The living proof of this is the match between the culture of Indus civilization and the local culture of today. The beautiful pottery here, which is also called Hala Handicraft, its roots date back to 5,000 years ago from the Indus civilization. The traditional Ajrak here is still made in Sindh. The design of the axe, which is similar to that of Mohenjo-Daro, is still being followed. But there are many other ways that are not followed today due to religious reasons. Such as burial and food. After dying in Mohenjo-Daro, the body was buried in three ways. Either they were burned or a part of the body was buried. And in the third way, the whole body was decorated and important things were kept in it and buried. Because the people of Mohenjo-Daro believed in life after death, as was the case in ancient Egypt. Jewelry and food were also buried with the body. They believed that when they would be alive again after death, they should have important things with them. If we talk about food, the people here ate not only grains but also turtles and crocodiles. During excavations, utensils were found in many places in which the shells of the turtles were present. Recently, work was being done here in 2022-23. While working, the utensils were found and there were 2000-year-old coins in them. Their weight was 5.5 kgs of copper. It was the time of the great kings. Today, the Pakistan government has imposed restrictions on further excavations on Mohenjo-Daro. Because the structures that were previously preserved underground are now being badly affected by water and air. If we do not pay attention to its restoration, we will lose this ancient jewelry forever. I hope you will like and share this video of ZaymTV. Thank you very much for your loving comments. See you in the next great video.