ISLAMABAD: Archaeologists working at the ancient site of Mohenjo-Daro have resumed excavations aimed at better understanding the city’s early development, including the structure and chronology of a massive perimeter wall first identified more than seven decades ago, officials said on Saturday.

The latest excavation season, launched in late December, is part of a joint Pakistani-US research effort approved by the Technical Consultative Committee of the National Fund for Mohenjo-Daro, which met at the site this week to review conservation and research priorities. The work focuses on reassessing the city’s defensive architecture and early occupation layers through controlled excavation and carbon dating.

Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, a senior archaeologist involved in the project, told the committee that the excavation targets a section of the city wall originally uncovered by British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler in 1950.

“This wall was over seven meters wide and built in multiple phases, reaching a height of approximately seven meters,” Kenoyer said, according to an official statement circulated after the meeting. “The lowest part of the wall appears to have been constructed during the early Harappan period, around 2800 BC.”

Organic material recovered from different excavation levels is being analyzed for carbon dating to establish a clearer timeline of the site’s development, the statement continued, adding that the findings would be published after detailed study.

The committee noted that despite Mohenjo-Daro’s status as one of the world’s earliest and largest urban centers, systematic research at the site has remained limited in recent decades. Its members agreed to expand archaeological studies and invited new research proposals to help formulate a long-term strategy for the site.

The committee also approved the continuation of conservation work on previously excavated material, including dry core drilling data, and reviewed progress on preserving a coin hoard discovered at the site in 2023, the results of which are expected to be published after conservation is completed.

Mohenjo-Daro, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Pakistan’s Sindh province, was a major center of the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished more than 4,000 years ago.