ISLAMABAD: Recent excavations and new radiocarbon dates have confirmed an earlier urban occupation at Mohenjo-daro during the Kot Diji Phase, circa 3300-2600 BC, the Sindh Directorate General Antiquities & Archaeology (DGAA) said on Sunday.
Mohenjo-Daro, a UNESCO World Heritage site in Pakistan’s Sindh province, was a major center of the Indus Valley Civilization. It rivalled contemporaneous cities in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, boasting a peak population of 40,000 before its abandonment around 1,900 BC.
A Joint Mission of the DGAA and the Sindh Exploration & Adventure Society, or SEAS Pakistan, carried out fresh excavations in 2025–26, led by Pakistani archaeologists Dr. Asma Ibrahim and Ali Lashari along with Dr. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer from University of Wisconsin and a team of scholars and students from various universities in Sindh and the US.
The DGAA said new excavations at the plain level to the west of the famous Stupa Mound have provided five new radiocarbon dates for a massive mudbrick perimeter wall of the city, which was first discovered by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1950 but “misidentified” as a revetment built to protect the city from flooding.
“The main focus of the excavations was to delineate the overall plan and chronology of the mudbrick city wall that surrounds the western Stupa Mound. Wheeler’s 1950 excavation and drawings show that this wall was built in many phases and the earliest structure was built on top of an even earlier occupation deposit,” the DGAA said in a statement.
“Although the lowest levels are now below the water table, the recent excavations were able to reopen the earlier trench of Wheeler to redocument and date the construction of the multiple phases of the mudbrick city wall. Pottery and carbon samples from the lowest levels of the first wall indicate that this initial structure was constructed at the end of the Early Harappan or Kot Diji Phase, around 2700-2600 BCE, approximately 100 years before the beginning of the Harappan Phase.”
The archaeological investigations were carried out under the direction of the National Fund for Mohenjo-daro after a lapse of many years, according to the statement.
Kot Dijian pottery recovered from new deep coring below the first city wall indicates the presence of a substantial Early Harappan occupation before the first city wall was constructed. These findings correspond with the results from excavations at the site of Harappa, Punjab, which also has an Early Harappan, Kot Dijian Phase occupation and city wall dating to around 2800-2600 BCE.
“Pottery and carbon samples from the middle and upper levels of the new excavations confirm that the later phases of the mudbrick city wall at Mohenjo-daro were constructed during the Harappa Phase, beginning around 2600 BCE,” the DGAA said in a statement.
“The walls were expanded and maintained until around 2200 BCE and possibly even longer. Future investigations will trace the plan of the city wall around the Stupa Mound in order to try and locate gateways and to determine how this wall functioned and when it began to erode.”
A Technical Consultative Committee for Mohenjo-daro described the excavations as a “step forward” in the understanding of the evolution of the urban fabric and society of the ancient city.
Situated on the banks of the Indus River in Pakistan’s Larkana district, the sprawling Mohenjo-daro city covers over 620 acres of land. The first excavation on the site was conducted in 1921-22.
In 2023, a preservation effort led by DGAA led to the discovery of hundreds of coins dating back to the Kushan era.
“These coins belong to the same Kushan period, dating between 2nd century AD and 5th century AD, and were discovered in the vicinity of Divinity Street near the Stupa,” Shaikh Javed Ali Sindhi, a research scholar who was part of the excavation team, told Arab News.
“The coins are adhered to each other due to the immense heat they have endured over the centuries, making an exact count at this point of time challenging. However, their weight is approximately 5.5 kilograms, and they are estimated to be in the hundreds.”
Archaeologists such as R. D. Banerji, John Marshall and Ernest Mackay had also unearthed a total of 4,348 coins at the site from 1922 to 1931, which were subsequently transferred to different museums in united India.
