Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c7.129

c7.129

In any interpretation of this process, however, two considerations are important. The first is the annual impact of the Indus flood which raises the flooded area and simultaneously raises the water-table. Today, the Mohenjo-daro landscape is only preserved from disastrous inundation by large annual expenditure on a series of protective banks or bunds. So, no doubt, from the outset considerable engineering was already needed when the new city rose upon its far lower flood-plain. Even so, the swollen river broke through from time to time; its alluvium has been identified at intervals in deep sections, and houses were raised to safer heights, sometimes with the help of mud-brick platforms.∗ Any relaxation in the supervision of the bunds, any accidental weakness in their structure, any exceptional volume in the spring torrent, must have been immediately fatal. And a population harassed by this recurring enemy may well have tired a little, as human societies under continuous stress are apt to do. A convergence of causes may be thought to have induced an increasingly rapid decline.