The “citadel” must be a city center. Its physical setting is prominent, and it features large, imposing buildings, some most likely the sites of religious ritual or public ceremony. The citadel is built on an artificial platform, ca. 400m X 200m, made of sand and silt enclosed in a mud brick retaining wall 6m thick. It rises some 13m above the plain, and well above the rest of the city.
The exact functions of its fascinating, enigmatic buildings can only be guessed. Textual evidence is, as noted, silent. In addition, the excavators did not uncover inside these buildings objects that clearly revealed their functions. Today, excavators faced with such a situation would hope that answers might come from the modest remains, such as potsherds, animal bones, and plant remains, where their types, frequencies, and find spots have been carefully recorded, this evidence then scrutinized for instructive patterns. But this was not standard practice in the 1920s on sites with monumental architectural remains. Moreover, the plan of the “citadel” is incompletely known, because of erosion, and because of the preservation in a key position on the top of the mound of a second century AD Buddhist stupa and monastery. Nonetheless, certain hypotheses can be advanced. Absent are any cult centers comparable to the temples that characterize Sumerian cities. Also lacking are buildings associated with secular rulers: palaces, for example, or royal tombs. What, then, was going on here?
The most striking building on the citadel is the so-called Great Bath (Figure 4.3). This complex contained in its core a large rectangular basin of baked brick, ca. 12m X 7m X 2.5m, with steps, originally timber treads set in bitumen, at both short ends. The floor of the bath was made of sawn bricks set on edge in gypsum mortar, with a layer of bitumen sealant between the inner and outer “brick skins.” Water was supplied from a well in an adjacent room. An outlet from one corner of the bath led to a drain that evacuated water onto the west side of the mound.
This Great Bath lay in the open air, surrounded by a portico on all four sides. The entrance, located on the south, provided access into a long, narrow room. The entire eastern side beyond the portico consisted of small, cell-like rooms, while to the north lay an irregularly spaced set of larger rooms, including at the far north a group reached by a staircase. It is usually assumed that
Figure 4.3 The Great Bath, Mohenjo-Daro
The Great Bath served some ritual purpose involving water, not merely hygiene or sheer pleasure, the main functions of later Roman bathing establishments.
Next to the Great Bath, on the west, was found the substructure of a building identified as a granary by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, thanks to his explorations in 1950. This substructure, whose original core measured 46m X 23m before an enlargement was made on the south side, consisted of twenty-seven solid blocks of baked bricks divided by a grid of narrow passageways, two east-west, eight (later nine) north-south. The building proper, set on these foundations, was made of wood. Traces of the sockets for holding wooden beams were discovered embedded into the brick podium. The passageways would have contributed to the aeration of the building and its contents. Wheeler’s interpretation is controversial, however. The finds from the building neither support nor disprove his theory, for they were not carefully recorded at the time of the original excavations in the 1920s. All we can be certain of, then, is a large wooden building. According to J. M. Kenoyer, this may well be a large hall. It does differ in design, however, from another candidate for such a function, the “Assembly hall” located to the south (see below).
A similar building at Kalibangan in the Indian Punjab may shed light on the function of this building. Here, clear traces of ritual practice were found, evidence lacking in the “granary” of Mohenjo-Daro. In the south part of the citadel mound at Kalibangan, brick platforms were separated by narrow brick-paved passages. The surfaces of these platforms were damaged. On one platform a row of seven fire altars was discovered, as well as a rock-lined pit containing animal bones and antlers, a well head, and a drain. This area, entered by a broad flight of steps on the south, must have been a ritual center for animal sacrifice, ritual bathing, and a cult of the sacred fire. Similar fire pits have been found in a small brick-walled courtyard set apart in the lower town of Kalibangan. Because fire worship was associated with the later Indo-Aryans, some scholars have postulated their presence here, even at this early date.
Although it is tantalizing to imagine such functions for the “Granary,” excavations have not yielded supporting evidence. The link between the two buildings may simply be in the common approach to monumental architecture, with solid brick foundations separated by channels — a structural basis that could be adapted for a variety of purposes.
Buildings to the north and east of the Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro include one called the “College.” Marshall attributed it to a high priest or group of priests, but there is no evidence to support such an interpretation. Its function remains unclear.
The last of the major buildings on the citadel lies in the south-east, apart from the above-mentioned three. The “Assembly hall,” as it is called, originally measured 28m. Its interior was divided into equal aisles by three rows of five brick plinths, bases for wooden columns. The floor consisted of finely sawn brick work, recalling the typical flooring of bathrooms. Large square rooms of this sort with columns or piers to hold up the roofing are found most notably in Egyptian and Achaemenid Persian architecture, and served public gatherings on the grand scale, either religious or secular. The name of the building, the Assembly hall, was suggested by this analogy.
World History
