Mohenjo-daro
archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan
Mohenjo-daro (; Sindhi: موهن جو دڙو, lit. 'Mound of the Dead Men'; Urdu: موئن جو دڑو [muˑənⁱ dʑoˑ d̪əɽoˑ]) is an archaeological site in the Larkana District of Sindh, Pakistan. Built c. 2500 BCE, it was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, and one of the world's earliest major cities, contemporaneous with the civilisations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Minoa, and Norte Chico.
With an estimated population of at least 40,000 people, Mohenjo-daro prospered for several centuries, but by c. 1700 BCE had been abandoned, along with other large cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation.
The site was rediscovered in the 1920s. Significant excavation has since been conducted at the site of the city, which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, the first site in South Asia to be so designated. The site is currently threatened by erosion and improper restoration.
Etymology
The city's original name is unknown. Based on his analysis of a Mohenjo-daro seal, Iravatham Mahadevan speculates that the city's ancient name could have been Kukkuṭārma ("the city [-rma] of the cockerel [kukkuta]"). Cock-fighting may have had ritual and religious significance for the city. Mohenjo-daro may also have been a point of diffusion for the clade of the domesticated chicken found in Africa, Western Asia, Europe and the Americas.
“Mohenjo-daro” enters the record as archaeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Mohenjo-daro, archaeological and site can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5725. VIAF identifies the subject as 245046494. Authority coordinates are 27.329, 68.139. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1700 and 1980.
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This entry incorporates text from “Mohenjo-daro” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.