The Secrets of Sindh
"Civilizations rise and fall, all.
Egypt, Rome, Greece, Babylon, Assyria, Mesopotamia.
Slaves, armies, sieges,
Fiery catapults and captives flayed alive!
Violence by rote,
Conquest by conviction.
Thousands of years of terror,
Millennia of man against man
For ideology or land,
With women and children murdered in the middle.
Is it human nature that tears down
The walls of Jerico or Multan,
Slaughtering all the inhabitants
In the name of religion or obscure cultural allegiances?
Boys are beheaded, their mothers raped
Babies are impaled from Tenochitlan to Taxila.
Desert Prophets,
Regal Monarchs,
Military Rulers.
Imperialistic imperatives
Bringing manacles and massive mayhem.
From time immemorial hate and horror ruled the earth
And guided mankind's interactions.
How then in ancient Sindh were they so confident
In the continuance of their existence
That they built no moats and manufactured no weapons?
3000 years before the common era
In a vast territory the size of Europe
Thrived the Indus Valley Civilization
Where traders and craftsmen and women and children
Worked and played
For more than 20 centuries.
Why were there no weapons?
No ramparts?
No moats?
No fortifications against
Marauding fear?
Why were they so confident?
Given the collective history of the human race.
What was their secret?
How did they order their reality without resorting to arms?
From Persia to Kashmir across the Deccan
Sprawling>br> Interacting
Supplying the world with condiments and cloth.
How they remained thus,
Free from the necessities of warfare,
The bricks, the drains and wells at Mohenjo-Daro
Cannot tell us.
The recent history of the Indus holds no answers.
But in the soul of Sindh
Beyond all forms of contemporary coercion,
Through the layers of conditioning:
A clearness of intellect holds some primordial clue.
If only the world could understand
The meaning hidden beneath the mounds
In Mohenjo-Daro."
.....Yvette C. Rosser (July 22, 1997), Mohenjo-Daro, Sindh

It is observed that all ancient civilizations of the world rose on the banks of rivers. The Mohan-jo-Daro civilization rose on the river Sindhus (Indus). Although the civilization did not leave any decipherable records, the structure tells a highly articulate story.

The excavations of Mohan-jo-Daro bear a living testimony to a highly developed pre-Aryan civilization which was at its zenith between 4000 B.C. and 3000 B.C. Archaeological research tells of a people who were well-versed in the art of dancing, sculpture and arts and crafts. They had attained a high degree of excellence in agriculture taking advantage of the vast tracts of a fertile alluvial soil found on both sides of the Sindhus river.

Among other things, the civilization seems to have been well acquainted with the use of the wheel as well as the use of draught animals for farming. The architectural structures also are a testament to a sophisticated people who developed organized urban structures . The cloth and designs on fabric also attest to a refined culture. Among the discoveries in Mohen-jo-Daro is a seal with a representation of a mastless ship proving that the civilization not only used the Sindhus river but also traveled the sea.

The civilization slowly developed and became very prosperous. At its height it stretched from present day Kashmir to Kutch. The Sindhus valley civilization paid the price for prosperity. After 2500 B.C. a number of smaller Aryan civilization began to encroach on its territory.

The pottery of Mohenjo-daro, one of the two major urban centers of the Indus Valley civilization (2500-2000 B.C.), is described and documented. The authors survey Harappan ceramic technology and style, and develop an important and unique approach to vessel form analysis and terminology. Included is Leslie Alcock's account of the pottery from the 1950 excavations by Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

"(this volume's) appearance is of extraordinary interest to students of the Indus civilization, since the study aims to achieve a level of analysis quite different from that of any of the earlier published reports on Indus sites . . . there is a clear discussion of the crafts aspects, valuable because so little has been written on this aspect of the pottery of Mohenjo Daro in the past five decades . . . no one can question the meticulous labour that has gone into producing this monumental volume." - Antiquity 1986. University Museum Monograph 53. Hard. xxi + 586 pp., color frontispiece, 45 pls., 115 figs., 11 tables, numerous drawings, Urdu summary, appendices, index. ISBN 0-934718-52-0. Price $149.00 Halo ta Mohein Halaoon : Walk Through Moenjadaro

The Sindhi Language Of Moenjodaro

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Sindhis And Moenjodaro Civilization : Questions Of Credibility

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We Must Rescue Moenjadaro

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Arid Thar : Aasro Ma Laahej-u

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Rich Archives Of Ancient History

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Moenjodaro and Harappa

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Peoples And Languages In Pre-Islamic Sindh

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The Indus Story

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Sarasvati Sindhu Civilization

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The Roots Of Sindhi Civilization

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