Discrimination system model

Mohenjo-Daro is the largest known city of the Indus Valley Civilization, with an inhabited area now estimated, thanks to surface survey work, at over 250ha. The city proper, covering an area of ca. 80ha as explored through excavations, is a well-planned city located today some 5km from the Indus River. It is not known whether the river flowed closer to the town in Harappan times.

Mohenjo-Daro is also the most extensively explored Harappan city, thanks to excavations conducted first in 1921 by R. D. Banarji, then from 1922 to 1927 by Sir John Marshall, the first director of antiquities of British India, with E. J. H. Mackay continuing until 1931. Work has continued sporadically since the Second World War by British, American, and German teams.

Struck by major floods in antiquity on at least three occasions, the city still faces danger today.

Through capillary action, the ancient brick buildings suck water from deep in the ground. The salts left behind after the water evaporates corrode the buildings. Effective protection against the rapid disintegration of Harappan architecture has yet to be found.

Although the city wall has not yet come to light, Marshall assumed Mohenjo-Daro was forti-fied, as has been attested at Harappa and at other, smaller sites. The wall would lie buried beneath the unexcavated alluvial deposits in the surrounding plain. The city plan consists of two main sectors, a higher part in the west, misleadingly called the “citadel” (Figure 4.2), and a lower, larger town to the east. The placement of important public buildings in the north-west, characteristic of the major Harappan sites, recalls Mesopotamian practice: one thinks of the ziggurat and temenos at Ur, sited in the north-west of that city. In contrast with Mesopotamia, however, the lower town

was laid out on a rough grid plan, with straight streets crossing at right angles. The streets were oriented to the cardinal points of the compass, perhaps for religious reasons, such as to connect the city with the cos-mos. In another major difference, baked brick was extensively used, with air-dried mud bricks reserved for fill. Both baked and air-dried bricks came in standard sizes, such as 7cm × 14cm × 28cm. In bathrooms they might be sawn into smaller pieces, and for curved structures such as wells, wedge-shaped bricks were used. This ratio of 1:2:4 for thickness to width to length was standard throughout the Harap-pan world. These proportions were used not only for bricks but also appeared often in the design of rooms, houses, and public build-ings. Similarly, stone weights, abun-dant at Mohenjo-Daro, conform to a uniform system of weights and measures.

Why baked bricks? It has been proposed that baked bricks were in Harappan streets. Such networks of drains, from the latrines of private houses to side streets to large drains from the main streets, covered with bricks or dressed stone, were a common and distinctive feature of Harappan cities. Such systems of public hygiene far surpassed contem-porary Mesopotamian or Egyptian efforts.

The “citadel”

The “citadel” must be a city center. Its physical setting is prominent, and it features large, impos-ing buildimpos-ings, some most likely the sites of religious ritual or public ceremony. The citadel is built on an artificial platform, ca. 400m × 200m, made of sand and silt enclosed in a mud brick retain-ing wall 6m thick. It rises some 13m above the plain, and well above the rest of the city.

Figure 4.2 Plan, the Citadel, Mohenjo-Daro

The exact functions of its fascinating, enigmatic buildings can only be guessed. Textual evidence is, as noted, silent. In addition, the excavators did not uncover inside these buildings objects that clearly revealed their functions. Today, excavators faced with such a situation would hope that answers might come from the modest remains, such as potsherds, animal bones, and plant remains, where their types, frequencies, and find spots have been carefully recorded, this evidence then scrutinized for instructive patterns. But this was not standard practice in the 1920s on sites with monumental architectural remains. Moreover, the plan of the “citadel” is incompletely known, because of erosion, and because of the preservation in a key position on the top of the mound of a second century ^AD Buddhist stupa and monastery. Nonetheless, certain hypotheses can be advanced. Absent are any cult centers comparable to the temples that characterize Sumerian cit-ies. Also lacking are buildings associated with secular rulers: palaces, for example, or royal tombs.

What, then, was going on here?

The most striking building on the citadel is the so-called Great Bath (Figure 4.3). This complex contained in its core a large rectangular basin of baked brick, ca. 12m × 7m × 2.5m, with steps, originally timber treads set in bitumen, at both short ends. The floor of the bath was made of sawn bricks set on edge in gypsum mortar, with a layer of bitumen sealant between the inner and outer “brick skins.” Water was supplied from a well in an adjacent room. An outlet from one corner of the bath led to a drain that evacuated water onto the west side of the mound.

This Great Bath lay in the open air, surrounded by a portico on all four sides. The entrance, located on the south, provided access into a long, narrow room. The entire eastern side beyond the portico consisted of small, cell-like rooms, while to the north lay an irregularly spaced set of larger rooms, including at the far north a group reached by a staircase. It is usually assumed that

Figure 4.3 The Great Bath, Mohenjo-Daro

the Great Bath served some ritual purpose involving water, not merely hygiene or sheer pleasure, the main functions of later Roman bathing establishments.

Next to the Great Bath, on the west, was found the substructure of a building identified as a granary by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, thanks to his explorations in 1950. This substructure, whose original core measured 46m × 23m before an enlargement was made on the south side, consisted of twenty-seven solid blocks of baked bricks divided by a grid of narrow passageways, two east-west, eight (later nine) north-south. The building proper, set on these foundations, was made of wood. Traces of the sockets for holding wooden beams were discovered embed-ded into the brick podium. The passageways would have contributed to the aeration of the building and its contents. Wheeler’s interpretation is controversial, however. The finds from the building neither support nor disprove his theory, for they were not carefully recorded at the time of the original excavations in the 1920s. All we can be certain of, then, is a large wooden building. According to J. M. Kenoyer, this may well be a large hall. It does differ in design, however, from another candidate for such a function, the “Assembly hall” located to the south (see below).

A similar building at Kalibangan in the Indian Punjab may shed light on the function of this building. Here, clear traces of ritual practice were found, evidence lacking in the “granary” of Mohenjo-Daro. In the south part of the citadel mound at Kalibangan, brick platforms were sepa-rated by narrow brick-paved passages. The surfaces of these platforms were damaged. On one platform a row of seven fire altars was discovered, as well as a rock-lined pit containing animal bones and antlers, a well head, and a drain. This area, entered by a broad flight of steps on the south, must have been a ritual center for animal sacrifice, ritual bathing, and a cult of the sacred fire. Similar fire pits have been found in a small brick-walled courtyard set apart in the lower town of Kalibangan. Because fire worship was associated with the later Indo-Aryans, some scholars have postulated their presence here, even at this early date.

Although it is tantalizing to imagine such functions for the “Granary,” excavations have not yielded supporting evidence. The link between the two buildings may simply be in the common approach to monumental architecture, with solid brick foundations separated by channels – a structural basis that could be adapted for a variety of purposes.

Buildings to the north and east of the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro include one called the

“College.” Marshall attributed it to a high priest or group of priests, but there is no evidence to support such an interpretation. Its function remains unclear.

The last of the major buildings on the citadel lies in the south-east, apart from the above-mentioned three. The “Assembly hall,” as it is called, originally measured 28m². Its interior was divided into equal aisles by three rows of five brick plinths, bases for wooden columns. The floor consisted of finely sawn brick work, recalling the typical flooring of bathrooms. Large square rooms of this sort with columns or piers to hold up the roofing are found most notably in Egyp-tian and Achaemenid Persian architecture, and served public gatherings on the grand scale, either religious or secular. The name of the building, the Assembly hall, was suggested by this analogy.

The lower town

The town proper lies to the east of the citadel. Streets running approximately north-south and east-west divided the large area into blocks of ca. 370m × 250m. Of perhaps twelve blocks, seven have been investigated by archaeologists. The citadel may, in fact, occupy one of the central blocks on the west side. Main streets could be as wide as 10m, while side streets were narrower,

1.5–3.0m in width. Although unpaved, the streets were provided with covered drains of baked brick. Manholes, covered, located at periodic intervals provided access into the drains. Clay pipes and chutes allowed waste material from private houses to reach the drains in the street. What happened to the refuse when it reached the edge of the city is not known.

Private houses appear comfortable. They vary in size, from single-room houses to medium-sized (court and one dozen rooms) to big (several courts, several dozen rooms). As in Mesopo-tamia, the house focused on a central courtyard. Rooms surrounded it, usually arranged on two stories. Baked brick was the standard building material for walls, an urban practice that contrasts with the air-dried mud brick typically used in towns and villages. House floors consisted either of beaten earth or brick, baked or air-dried. Roofing materials have not survived, but we may guess they consisted of lighter timber, reeds, and clay, as elsewhere in the Near East. Cuttings, some-times square, indicate the use of precisely cut wooden beams; such beams spanned distances as great as 4m. Although mud plaster was occasionally used to coat internal wall surfaces, the walls were never decorated with paintings.

Houses usually had their own well. Indeed, 600 wells have been found at Mohenjo-Daro.

Houses were furnished also with bathrooms, generally on the ground floor. The flooring of bathrooms was lining with finely sawn bricks or, in some cases, a plaster of brick dust and lime.

Smaller rooms constructed in the same technique were identified as toilets.

Throughout the city, other buildings surely sheltered a variety of functions: residential, reli-gious, or commercial. Of particular interest are the following. Some barrack-like groups of single-roomed tenements were found, possibly housing for the poor, or even for slaves. House A1, a building in the area labeled HR, may indeed be a prominent house, or it might be a temple. It stands out, with its monumental entrance and double stairway leading to a raised platform on which was discovered a rare stone sculpture of a seated figure. Other buildings with thick walls or unusual plan have also been tentatively interpreted as temples, but the evidence is nowhere compelling. Shops existed throughout the lower town; potters’ kilns, dyers’ vats, metal works, shell-ornament makers, and a bead-maker’s shop have been identified.

The architectural features seen in this major city appear throughout the vast region occupied by the Harappan civilization. The quality of the baked brick construction, the regu-lar layout of city blocks in a rough grid plan, the extensive and well-built drainage system, and the large buildings on the “citadel” indicate a complex society fully as sophisticated as any seen in Mesopotamia and Egypt. In contrast, during the final stage of the Harappan period, Mohenjo-Daro experienced a marked deterioration in town planning and in the quality of construction.

LOTHAL

On the south-east edge of the Harappan world, in the Indian state of Gujarat, the ruins of Lothal were explored in the 1950s by S. R. Rao of the Archaeological Survey of India. Although much smaller than Mohenjo-Daro, this city displays many of the same key features of urban design and architecture. Size differences thus did not affect the basic template of the Harappan city.

Laid out on a grid plan and provided with a good system of drainage, the city originally occu-pied 12ha within a fortification wall (Figure 4.4). Later the town expanded beyond the wall, even-tually doubling its area. Like other Harappan sites, Lothal too had its “citadel,” 48.5m × 42.5m, built on an artificial platform of mud brick, ca. 4m high. But this citadel lay clearly within the

town and, unusually, in the south-east sector. The citadel would have served for defense against floods, to secure storage for food, and as a showcase for the prestige of the rulers of the town.

The notable building on the citadel is a mud brick structure with ventilating channels, here, Rao proposed, possibly the foundation for a warehouse.

In the town proper, the main street runs north–south. The principal streets are 4–6m wide, the lesser streets only 2–3m. Houses were built of baked brick, and were routinely provided with brick-lined drains. Workshops have been identified, among them a copper and goldsmith shop and a bead factory.

On the east side of the city mound, at the edge of the citadel, lies Lothal’s most fascinating monument, a massive brick platform alongside a large rectangular enclosure, ca. 225m × 37m

× 4.5m, lined with baked brick. The enclosure had a sluice gate at one of the short ends. Heavy pierced stones, perhaps ancient anchors, were found on its edge. The excavator considered this structure a dock for ships sailing up the river from the Indian Ocean. Lothal lies ca. 20km from the sea, near a tributary of the Sabarmati River. Channels or estuaries would have provided a con-nection with the river. If this interpretation is correct, Lothal has given us an unusually early and sophisticated port installation from western Asia. A more recent analysis, however, has proposed this to be a vast storage tank for fresh water in this low-lying region where the modern water resources, at least, are saline. The issue is not yet settled.

Figure 4.4 City plan, Lothal