An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c14.s4.2

v1.c14.s4.2

Excavations at Mohenjo-daro have revealed that the city was flooded many times by the Indus. Sahni, 1956, noticed huge silt deposits at an unusual height near Hyderabad which he thought might be result of floods in the Indus due to tectonic upheavals. [Lambrick, 1967, however pointed out that what was regarded as silt by Sahni was nothing but decomposed mud bricks.] Raikes, 1964, thought that an uplift of the land down the Indus caused the blocking of the river and hence the drowning of Mohenjo-daro several times during its lifetime. Dales [1977] has pointed out the highest of these perched strata of flood deposit is some 30 ft (9·14 m) above the plain level. Evidence of floods could be traced from the different levels of the excavated area of Mohenjo-daro (Wheeler, 1968). The artificial packing and the building of platforms for structures in the later levels indicate that they were made to protect the settlement against floods. The silt deposits at other Harappa sites such as Jhukar and Lohumjo-daro could also indicate the same type of flooding. (The pre-Harappa, [4.8], settlement of KALIBANGAN is believed to have ceased to exist as a result of a flood in the SARASVATĪ, which left a thin deposit of sand.)