Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.80

c12.80

At Mohenjo-daro Wheeler was able to show, by a little field-work rather than by actual excavation, that similar defences must have surrounded the westernmost mound on that site, now crowned by a Buddhist stupa of the third or fourth century A.D. Marshall and Mackay in the earlier excavations had shown that the stupa mound had contained a great rectangular platform of mud brick, at least 20 feet high, and built immediately after the earliest building phase recognized on the site (where virgin soil was not reached owing to the water-table). On this platform had been some building now covered by the stupa and its court, which the excavators unfortunately did not remove: it is a third-rate architectural monument and it is to be hoped that the site will be dealt with satisfactorily in the future. But adjacent to it was a remarkable complex of buildings, described by Marshall as ‘a vast hydropathic establishment’. Memories of Matlock or Baden-Baden, however, are hardly applicable to the actual structures on the Mohenjo-daro citadel, though the central feature is certainly a great bath, or ‘tank’ in modern Indian nomenclature, nearly 40 by 24 feet and built of very fine brickwork. It is 8 feet deep, and steps, originally with wooden treads on the brickwork, lead down into each end; the whole walling is backed with bitumen to make it water-tight, and there is provision for draining the bath when needed. Around it was a cloister and on three sides a series of small rooms, like changing-rooms, in one of which was a well.