Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c7.102

c7.102

Now this last consideration does in fact raise an interesting issue at Mohenjo-daro. The two earliest buildings at present known on the acropolis, the State Granary and the first of a succession of peripheral towers near the south-east corner, are built of baked brick but were reinforced superficially and internally with timbers in a mode natural to mud-brick structures, but alien to baked-brick construction. Inevitably in the Indus climate these timbers quickly decayed, causing local collapses of the brickwork and necessitating brick reinforcement. The lesson was learned and the experiment was not (so far as we know) repeated; but its occurrence in the early phase suggests that the master-builder concerned had been a foreigner Fig. 23 Pottery from Harappā, late phase of the Indus Civilization. Scale: 2, 3-7, 11, 1/3; remainder, 1/6 accustomed to methods appropriate to a drier climate and inexperienced in Indus conditions. Here if anywhere we have a hint of direct intrusion from abroad. Of its wider implication, if any, nothing can be affirmed without much further excavation.