Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.65

c12.65

In the matter of actual plan and lay-out the two cities are strikingly similar, and Wheeler’s recent work at Harappā has thrown much light on the significance of this uniform planning. In both sites the extant remains consist of an irregular series of mounds towards the east and a recognizably higher and more compact mound placed more or less centrally and on the edge of the site to the west. In both cities this mound is roughly a parallelogram in plan, measuring about 400 yards north-south and 200 yards east-west : at Harappā it rises up to 50 feet above the level of the surrounding plain, at Mohenjo-daro to 35 or 40 feet at least. At the latter site enough has been recovered of the original street plan to show that this high mound to the west stands centrally between the two main east-west streets and, as we shall see, it may have formed one of a series of major building blocks in a symmetrical lay-out (Fig. 18).