Friday, 16 September 2011

The Marvelous Town Planning of Mohenjodaro

 

The chief feature of Mohenjodaro, that amazes all curious spectators, is its superb town planning. The streets, which divided the city into neat rectangular or square blocks, varied in width but always intersected each other at right angles.
The city had an elaborate drainage system consisting of horizontal and vertical drains, street drains and so on. The architecture of the buildings was clearly intended to be functional and minimalist, and certainly not to please the aesthete. 

Mohenjodaro was obviously a cosmopolitan city, the capital of the civilization or something, with people of different races mingling with the local populace.
Studies reveal that four distinct races inhabited the city: Proto-Austroloid, Mediterranean, Alpine and Mongoloid. Not much is known about their socio-economic-religious life as the script of the civilization eludes decoding; many have come tantalizingly close, but then just that.
They had their distinct religious sects, including a very active Mother Goddess cult, as is evinced from various seals that they have left behind not only here, but also in far-flung places like Mesopotamia. Which means that sea trade was very much part of their lives; this is confirmed from another source as their seals carry insignias of boats and ships on them. 

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