Moenjodaro finally allocated Rs 100m for rehabilitation

Moenjodaro finally allocated Rs 100m for rehabilitation

Mohenjo-daro was built in the 26th century BC, and abandoned around 1800 BC. The ruins of the city were discovered in 1922 by Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay,
an officer of the Archaeological Survey of India. He was led to the mound by a Buddhist monk, who reportedly believed it to be a stupa. In the 1930s, major excavations were conducted at the site under the leadership of John Marshall, K. N. Dikshit and
Ernest Mackay. Further excavations were carried out in 1945 by Ahmad Hasan Dani and Mortimer Wheeler.

IT is at long last that a sum of Rs100m has been allocated to maintaining, conserving and building some facilities at Moenjodaro. Much more is needed for the effort to be meaningful.

The magnificent site that should have been the pride of Pakistan has been neglected so much that it was virtually taken off the tourism map for sheer lack of facilities to and at Moenjodaro. What lies ahead is the difficult task of rehabilitating this ancient
Indus Valley Civilisation site on the tourism map, with hopefully some money going to the critical head of conservation. A rising underground water table and high saline levels have over the years caused much damage to the prehistoric remains.

Moenjodaro lay unattended due to lack of initiative and funds on the part of the federal archaeology department, which was the erstwhile custodian of the site. Now that it has been handed over to Sindh after the passage of the 18th Amendment to the constitution,
the provincial government would do well to form a committee of experts and set about conserving this most spectacular of our prehistoric sites.

Mohenjo-daro is located in the Larkana District of Sindh, Pakistan,
on a Pleistocene ridge in the middle of the flood plain of the Indus River Valley, around 28 kilometres (17 mi) from the town of Larkana. The ridge was prominent during the time of the Indus Valley Civilization, allowing the city to stand above the surrounding
plain, but the flooding of the river has since buried most of the ridge in deposited silt.

The site occupies a central position between the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra River. The Indus still flows to the east of the site, but the riverbed of the Ghaggar-Hakra on the western side is now dry.

Mohenjo-daro was most likely one of the largest cities of the ancient Indus Valley Civilization, which is also known as the Harappan Civilization after Harappa, another important IVC site, located to the north of Mohenjo-daro in Punjab, Pakistan.

Given its years of apathy, the Sindh culture ministry should now look at creating awareness about the historical value of Moenjodaro so that it comes to be owned by the people and becomes an emblem of pride for them.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=13553

Posted by Naveed A Bari on Feb 22 2012. Filed under Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry