Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.64

c12.64

Mohenjo-daro stands on what is significantly known in the locality as ‘The Island’ – a narrow strip of land between the main bed of the Indus and the Western Nara loop – and was subject to flooding until very recent times, when the building of a long embankment prevented a recurrence of floods. There are remains of a prehistoric embankment between the city and the nearest part of the river, running for at least a mile, and the excavations produced clear evidence of several successive floods in the history of the site, with the consequent deposition of layers of silt. Indeed, so great has the volume of silt brought down by the Indus been that today the surface of the plain is some 30 feet higher than the lowest foundations reached. There is some evidence of an ancient branch of the river washing the edge of the city on the west in prehistoric times. At Harappā evidence for periodic floods is not as clear as at Mohenjo-daro, but there seem to have been traces of a protective embankment on the west of the city here also.