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Flying Trapeze Aerial Voltige
Breathtaking!!!!!
Dominating
the city is a massive structure long thought to be a Buddhist stupa.
Some archaeologists now suspect it may, in fact, have been constructed
during the Indus era, but excavations are needed to confirm this theory.
This
small statue found at Mohenjo-Daro, dubbed the Priest-King, is one of
the very few Indus-period sculptures depicting a human ever found.
"With
a possible population of 100,000, Mohenjo-Daro would have been bigger
than Egypt's Memphis, Mesopotamia's Ur or Elam's Susa in today's Iran,
some of the ancint Near East's largest metropolises. The city boasted
wide streets, more than 60 deep wells, strong foundations, and
impressive walls, 25 miles of which have been excavated thus far.
Overlooking the settlement, on the northwest end, was a high-walled
platform that archaeologists dubbed a 'citadel.'..Covering some 625,000
square miles, the Indus surpassed Egypt and Mesopotamia in size, and may
have included as many as a million peole, a staggering figure for an
agricultural society that depended on the unreliable waters of the Indus
River and its tributaries. Indus sites have been identified from the
shores of Iran to the mountains of Afghanistan to the outskirts of
today's Delhi. Recent work by University of Wisconsin researcher Randall
Law demonstrated that stones nd metals from across this vast region
circulated throughout ('Letter from Pakistan,' September/October 2008).
Indus merchants, mastering monsoon winds, traded goods with
Arabians and likely conducted business as far west as today's Iraq. One
Mesopotamian text records a court case involving a 'Meluhhan,' thought
to be the Sumerian word for someone from the Indus, while another
mentions a Meluhhan interpreter at a Mesopotamian court...The citadel
that forms the height of Mohenjo-Daro was clearly a planned effort, with
enormous walls enclosing a raised platform that is 200 yards long and
400 wide. At its highest point sits a prominent structure that 1920s
researchers identified as a Buddhist stupa. These scholars thought the
stup, which was built with bricks and ringed by what they called monks'
cells, had been constructed in the early centuries AD, when Buddhism was
at its peak in the region. This assumption derived mainly from the
discovery of coins dating to that era. But in 2007, Giovanni Verardi, a
retired archaeologist from the University of Naples, examined the site
and noted that the stups is not aligned in typical
Buddhist fashion, along the cardinal points. The plinth is high and
rectangular, not square as would be expected, and there is little
pottery associated with the later period. He also concluded that the
materials recovered from the 'monks'' rooms were made in the Indus
period. Verardi now thinks there is 'little doubt' that, apart from the
mudbrick dome, the 'stupa' is actually an Indus building. He believes
that it was likely a stepped pyramid with two access ramps, and that
terracotta seals found nearby depicting what appears to be a goddess
standing on a tree while a man sacrifices an animal suggest that the
building was used for religious activities. Jansen and other
archaeologists agree that Verardi's interpretation may be correct,
though they add that excavations are necessary to prove that his theory
about an Indus-era temple is accurate. If it is, says Jansen, 'this will
turn our interpretations upside dow.' No templess have been discovered
at
any Indus site, an absence unique among major ancient civilizations.
But the presence of a stepped platform in the heart of its largest city
would link the Indus with a tradition of religious buildings that by
2000 BCE had spread across the Middle East and Central Asia...Only 10
percent of the known site has been dug and no major excavations are in
the offing. But Fazal Dad Kakkar, director general of Pakistan's museums
and ancient sites, says he hopes to begin coring around the perimeter
soon..." (pp.32-37).
When
the Indus River swelled two years ago in central Pakistan, the
floodwaters came within just three feet of overtopping an earthen
embankment protecting the ancient city known as Mohenjo-Daro. At the
time, archaeologists breathed a sigh of relief. But in September 2012
monsoon rains again threatened the site, lashing at the exposed walls
and sparking new fears that this
4,000-year-old metropolis may be destroyed before it yields its
secrets. Those secrets remain legion. Archaeologists still don’t know
the city’s true size, who ruled there, or even its ancient
name—Mohenjo-Daro (“Mound of the Dead”) is the site’s name in modern
Sindhi. To read more.. Dowload .pdf below.
Mohenjo Daro's New story (Andrew Lawler, 2013) Archaeology, January/February 2013 pp.32-37
śankha as a conch; śivalinga, Harappa.
Out of over 2600 archaeological sites of the civilization identified so far, as many as 2000 are on the banks of River
Sarasvati.
It will be interesting indeed if further excavations
on the 'stupa' area on the citadel mound reveal an Indus-Sarasvati
temple at Mohenjo-Daro.
Harappa has revealed 3 stone śivalinga,
apart from śankha bangles, śankha trumpet and śankha used as feeding
ladles for babies. At Nausharo, two terracotta toys revealed women
wering sindhur at the parting of their hair, attesting a
5000 year-old continuum of Hindu tradition followed by women in India
even today. So do women in Bengal and Orissa celebrate marriages wering
śankha bangles. One śankha discovered in a burial of a woman yielded a
stunning date of 6500 BCE for the burial. Bhirrana, a site on Sarasvati
river basin takes the roots of the civilization to ca. 7500 BCE.