The larger part of the city
Most of Mohenjo-Daro lay not on the raised citadel but in the Lower Town, a broad area to the east where most people probably lived and worked. It was occupied in the mature Indus period, roughly 2600-1900 BCE. Large parts of it have been exposed by excavation, which makes it one of the best places in the ancient world to study what an ordinary Bronze Age urban neighbourhood looked like.
A caution first: excavation has uncovered only a part of the city, and the deepest, earliest levels lie below the modern water table and cannot easily be dug. Much of what is said about the street plan comes from the upper, latest phases of occupation, so it may not show the city at every stage of its history.
The street grid
The Lower Town’s main streets run roughly north-south and east-west, dividing the area into large blocks. The widest streets were several metres across, wide enough for carts, while narrower lanes ran between and behind the houses. The result looks like deliberate planning, which is why the Lower Town street grid is so often cited as a sign of early urban planning, though the grid is not perfectly regular and was altered over time by rebuilding.
Roman-style town planning, such as the Timgad grid plan, came about two and a half thousand years later. Comparing the two is a reminder that gridded cities appeared independently in different places, and for different reasons.
Some features of the street layout are worth noting:
- Houses usually opened onto side lanes rather than directly onto the main streets, which may have reduced noise and dust, although the intention is a matter of interpretation.
- Brick drains ran along many streets, covered with bricks or stone slabs that could be lifted for cleaning.
- Rubbish chutes and small collection bins have been reported in some houses, though not everyone agrees on how they functioned.
Houses of fired brick
Houses were typically built of standardised fired brick, and many were arranged around a central courtyard. The size varied: some are small, with a few rooms, while others are large and had stairs, which suggests a second storey or a roof used as living space. Walls were often thick, and rooms were plastered. Wooden doors and roof beams have decayed, so only the brick footprint survives.
Differences in house size and quality are visible, but the contrast is not as stark as in many other early cities. Scholars sometimes describe the Indus cities as having relatively modest differences in housing, though this is a general impression rather than a measured fact, and it depends on how one compares the surviving houses.
Wells and water
Wells are a striking feature. Excavators have recorded several hundred in the city, and many houses had their own well, while others shared one in a lane. Wells were lined with wedge-shaped bricks, which made them strong. Having water within the house would have been a convenience that few ancient cities offered.
Water also left the house. Many homes had a bathing room, usually a floor of brick set at a slight slope, with a drain that ran out through the wall into the street drain. Some had a latrine fitted into the wall connected to the same system. The scale of this arrangement, together with the care taken with the brickwork, shows that sanitation was a priority, at least for households that could afford it. Later Roman public baths and their plumbing were far more elaborate, but the Indus system was in place a very long time before.
Craft and household objects
The ruins of ordinary houses and the streets outside them have produced everyday objects, which give a sense of daily life:
- pottery made on the wheel and fired in kilns, including the potters wheel finds that show a thriving ceramic industry;
- spindle whorls and traces of cotton, evidence for ancient weaving;
- beads, bangles and tools of copper and bronze;
- small terracotta figurines and toys, such as model carts, animals and whistles, which suggest that children played with toys much as in later cultures;
- stone weights and sealstamps, which hint at trade and record keeping.
Workshops for beads, shell and metal seem to have been located in particular parts of the city, suggesting some specialisation of craft by district.
What we cannot tell
It is tempting to build a picture of family life, status and religion from the houses. The evidence is thinner than it looks. We do not know who owned a house, how many people lived in it, how labour was divided, or what the language and customs of a household were. There is no readable text. Population figures that sometimes appear in popular books rest on assumptions about density, and published estimates vary widely.
Likewise, claims that the city was perfectly egalitarian or that it had no crime or conflict go beyond the evidence. Archaeology can show where the houses and drains were; it cannot easily show how people felt about them.
A comparison with other early cities
Compared with the cities of the Mesopotamian world, where daily life is known from thousands of tablets, the Lower Town has no letters, accounts or contracts to read. The strength of Mohenjo-Daro is instead its physical record: streets, walls, wells and drains that survived long enough to be mapped. For anyone who wants to imagine the sights of a Bronze Age neighbourhood, those practical details, and the care they show for water and cleanliness, are the most reliable guide.