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HARAPPA FILMS presents

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MESOPOTAMIA IS FAMED
AS THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION.

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BUT AT THE SAME TIME A VASTER,
MORE MYSTERIOUS EMPIRE ROSE IN SOUTH ASIA,

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JUST AS THE PYRAMIDS WERE BEING BUILT.

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ITS GREATEST CITY LAY HIDDEN
UNTIL A CENTURY AGO.

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TODAY, ITS LEGACY IS SPLIT
BY THE TURBULENT BORDER

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BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN.

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MOHENJO-DARO:
UNSEALING AN ANCIENT INDUS CITY

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Excavations on the Stupa Mound:
Mohenjodaro.

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The ruins
of the 4,000-year-old city of Mohenjo-daro

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cast a spell over the surrounding area.

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Villagers tell stories,
true or not, about the site.

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One of the most dramatic
is about an ancient ruler.

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1. THE STORY

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There was a king of Mohenjo-daro.

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He was very cruel,
and he was very powerful,

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and he was lusty.
SHEIKH JAVID

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ALI SINDHI:
When there was a wedding,

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the king used to sleep
with the bride during the first night.

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This continued from day to day,

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weeks to weeks,
months to months,

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from years to years.

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One day, the daughter
of the king's sister was married.

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The king started preparing
himself for the occasion.

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The bride started praying
to gods and goddesses of the valley

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to come and save her.

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When the king entered, he was entering,
one feet was into the house,

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one was outside the door.

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Then due to the prayers of that bride,

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all of the city was destroyed.

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This story has come due
to some exchange of ideas

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from Mesopotamia.

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The same story is found
in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

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MOHENJO-DARO SEAL, ~2300 BCE

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How did I get hooked on this ancient city?

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I first came here in the early '70s
on a school trip with a ninth-grade class

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at the American School in Islamabad.

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Our host was classmate Shah Nawaz Bhutto,
the Prime Minister's son,

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whose ancestral lands
were just a few miles away.

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With me was my first
Kodak Instamatic camera.

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What I remember most
was the empty streets,

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which the people living here
seemed to have just left.

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A FORGOTTEN CIVILIZATION:

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NEW DISCOVERIES,
AN UNKNOWN INDIA.

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Who were those people?

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"MODERN" REFINEMENTS IN ANCIENT INDIA:

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ARTS AND CRAFTS
OF A NEWLY DISCOVERED RACE.

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At the time of Ancient Egypt,
Mesopotamia, and China (2500-1900 BCE),

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a civilization bigger
than all of them combined arose

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in the ancient Indus Valley.

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Mohenjo-daro
and Harappa were its first cities.

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Mohenjo-daro
is by far the most impressive,

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the source of half
of all undeciphered seals.

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The flagship city.

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But my first Indus city was Harappa.

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As a kid, I visited many times.

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My favorite great-uncle Hafiz

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and Auntie Samia lived
just a few miles away.

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The silence of these ruins gripped me too,
but they faded away with my childhood.

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In 1995, after moving
to San Francisco from Pakistan,

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I wanted to build a website.

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I remembered how much
I loved those ruins when I was a kid.

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So I chose Harappa.com as the domain name.

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I liked
the ancient ring of the word Harappa

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at the heart of the new.

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But it was mostly
my personal historical collection,

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not ancient Indus stuff,
that I put on the site.

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I didn't think much more about it.

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Within weeks,
I got an email from Dr. Richard Meadow

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introducing the Harappa
Archaeological Research Project.

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Did I know about them?

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He copied Dr. Mark Kenoyer, co-director.

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I said, "Why don't we work together?"

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Mark responded with a 90-slide set
he wanted me to put up on this new thing,

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the internet.

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I was young,
and I had no idea what I was getting into.

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Thousands of pages and 30 years later,
harappa.com has become the leading website

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on the ancient Indus civilization,

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thanks to contributions
from major scholars, especially Mark,

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the world's leading
ancient Indus archaeologist.

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My role is that of an informed detective,

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sharing an obsession
with thousands of people a day.

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Just before coming to Mohenjo-daro in 2025
I spoke at a conference in Chennai, India.

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It was the 100th anniversary
of John Marshall announcing the discovery

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of the ancient Indus civilization.

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I am not a scholar myself
of the ancient Indus Valley.

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I'm somebody really interested

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in learning about it
and been drawn into it

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and just trying to understand
more about this really enigmatic

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but incredibly
important civilization to the world.

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A century has elapsed,
but we still do not know a single word,

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name, ruler,
not even the religion or language spoken.

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Yet deep in South India,
many Tamils are convinced

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that their culture
originated in Mohenjo-daro,

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beyond national borders
only established in 1947.

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Here, the first urban
South Asian civilization flourished

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some 4,000 years ago.

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2. THE CITY

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Early morning,
I got up as bright as I could and rushed.

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DR. ROMILA THAPAR:
It was

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magnificent.
It was absolutely magnificent.

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I just stood there
and stood there and stood there

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and thought
how wonderful it must have been

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to have lived in this city.

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DR. GHULAM MUSTAFA SHAR:
We have excavated only 8%

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of Mohenjo-daro.
Still, 92% is unexcavated.

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MOHENJO-DARO, 1925

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52 years after I first visited (DK Area),

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I was stunned by the size and
organization of the city (VS, HR Areas).

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In fact, the famous priest-king

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was discovered
far from the so-called stupa mound.

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We have no idea who he was.

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"Oh peacock, what a sweet
song you are singing?"

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One cannot help but wonder
how much of the city was found

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and then lost again over 4,000 years.

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local people, these old laborers,

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they say, when we were finding
some golden objects or jewelry,

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we are taking in our pocket to home,

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because at that time,
English people were paying only 2 annas.

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It was eighth part
of the 1 rupee for 1 day,

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so we didn't give them the golden jewelry.

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We didn't know what these things were,

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seals or what. So
when we were small

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MOHAMMAD ILYAS, EXCAVATION WORKER:
kids, we used

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to play with them,

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kick them as kids with our feet.

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TYPICAL SEAL 1 INCH, 2.5 CM SQUARE

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"You do not want to go into a city

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in the ancient world.

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They're so dirty, disease-ridden,

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dysentery everywhere."
Joe Manning, Yale Archaeologist

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Mohenjo-daro was not so dirty.

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The city is known today
for the finest sanitation system

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of the times: covered drains on streets,
second-floor bathrooms,

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and pipes that flowed
into them across town.

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The city had hundreds of wells.

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The German archeologist
Michael Jansen used the term wasserluxus,

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or the luxury of water.

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The Great Bath is probably the finest
aquatic achievement of the Bronze Age.

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A.I. GENERATED

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Peering inside the giant drain
from the Great Bath made me wonder,

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who cleaned these drains?

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Certainly,
there is evidence for social separation.

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Like at Harappa, areas of town
are walled off from each other,

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suggesting a tribe
or crafts guild in each.

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First Street ran
along a whole perimeter of the city.

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First Street peopled to show its width,
Mohenjodaro.

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Some archeologists believe

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there were stores
and workshops along the way.

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There is little doubt
that many kinds of people lived here,

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from fishmongers to goldsmiths,

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from potters and cloth merchants,
to dealers in things we cannot yet name.

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ACTUAL INDUS SIGNS

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Whoever they were,
they certainly spoiled their children.

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It is not clear
if any other Bronze Age city yielded

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as many toys per excavated square meter.

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Some, like the bird whistle,
are still common in villages today.

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Only playful people would make
bird cages which show birds climbing out.

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The evidence
is that they played lots of games.

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Look at this.

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Even I found a die lying on the ground.

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Did any
of the world's games originate here?

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Some say it was
a peaceful egalitarian civilization.

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I have never bought that story.

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There is plenty of evidence for elites,
like large homes and extravagant jewelry,

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even weapons and conflict.

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But signs of militarism,
unlike in its neighbors at the same time,

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are limited.

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Both iconic figures

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of the Indus civilization
were found in Mohenjo-daro.

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The dancing girl may be
more famous than the priest-king.

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Some question whether the dancing girl

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was a dancing girl,
but I'm pretty convinced,

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given how well
her hand-on-hip pose has endured.

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DANCING GIRLS

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Have you looked at the dancing girl?
Is she dancing?

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You don't think
she is dancing?

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Of course not!

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DR.  SHEREEN RATNAGAR

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The Edwardians
thought that immoral women

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were there to dance
to entertain the British troops.

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HOME MAKER
(NOT DANCER), KUTCH

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Mark would agree that the dancing girl
is a colonial prejudice.

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He prefers pujari,
the performance of religious rites

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as the possible purpose
of the Mohenjo-daro figurine.

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TEMPLE DANCER
BY DR. KENOYER

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We see the past
through the colored bits of glass

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that catch our eye today.

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DANCING GIRL, MOHENJO-DARO

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A lesser-known second dancer
was also found in Mohenjo-daro.

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Maybe these women did more than dance.

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In early tribal Indian societies,
there are stories of dancers who ruled.

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At Independence,
one of these two figurines ended up

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in India, the other in Pakistan.

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PAKISTAN NEW COUNTRY AS INDIA SPLITS

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When British India was split
into India and Pakistan in August 1947,

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The new countries divided up
their Indus artifacts.

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The finest necklace
from Mohenjo-daro was cut into two pieces,

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one part today in Islamabad,
the other half in Delhi.

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In fact, many of the most
important objects were shipped to India.

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A.I. GENERATED

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Hardly was
the 4,000-year-old civilization discovered

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that it was divided.

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3. THE CITADEL

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On high ground, overlooking the city,

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is the best-known part,
the so-called stupa mound.

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It has a Buddhist structure
from the 2nd or 3rd century ACE.

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A big controversy
is whether it was a holy site

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in Indus times as well.

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The original excavator R.D. Banerji
discovered thousands of votive-style pots,

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just the kinds of things
one would deposit at a holy site.

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"The entire area of

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Site No. 1 was covered with funeral urns."
R.D. Banerji, First Excavator, 1922-23

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However, the chief British excavator

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Sir John Marshall questioned
this interpretation, as have others.

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In recent times, Dr. Giovanni Verardi
agreed with Banerji.

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He argued that this was
a religious site in Indus times as well,

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and suggested that steps
once led upwards to a platform,

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A.I. GENERATED

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much like the ziggurats
in Ancient Mesopotamia.

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This would have made
the entire mound sacred.

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Then we come to the Great Bath,

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which most archeologists
do agree was a ritual space.

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We know that Hindu and Sikh temples today
often have large water baths next to them.

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I think there's a profound connection,
but not everyone would agree.

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DR. SHEREEN RATNAGAR: I think

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it was a royal
investiture ritual.

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Someone went down the baths
ritually in some way and came out again.

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There are only a restricted range
of steps going down into the water tank,

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and they come out again.

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It's some heavy ritual.

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If this entire area was in fact holy,

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it may support the idea that the founders
of this city were priests,

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just as they were
in early Mesopotamian cities.

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Among the very few sculptures found

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in Indus cities,
almost all of them at Mohenjo-daro,

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a priestly style dominates.

238
00:17:48,458 --> 00:17:51,833
Hair is knotted in the back
with one hand on the knee.

239
00:17:53,625 --> 00:17:56,625
A similar figure
was also found in Dholavira.

240
00:17:56,709 --> 00:17:58,833
DHOLAVIRA,
INDIA ~2500 BCE

241
00:17:58,917 --> 00:18:00,708
Another Italian archeologist,

242
00:18:00,792 --> 00:18:04,374
Massimo Vidale,
points out that similar priestly figures

243
00:18:04,458 --> 00:18:08,125
were present
at this time in Iran and Afghanistan.

244
00:18:08,325 --> 00:18:09,325
ZAHEDAN
~2300 BCE

245
00:18:09,542 --> 00:18:12,667
MUNDIGAK
~2100 BCE

246
00:18:12,751 --> 00:18:15,999
MOHENJO-DARO
~2300 BCE

247
00:18:16,083 --> 00:18:18,917
My late friend, Iravatham Mahadevan,

248
00:18:19,001 --> 00:18:22,583
was India's
leading expert on the Indus script.

249
00:18:23,042 --> 00:18:25,333
This sign, popularly called the jar sign,

250
00:18:25,417 --> 00:18:27,958
is the most
frequent one in the Indus script.

251
00:18:29,375 --> 00:18:30,875
In the Indian tradition,

252
00:18:30,959 --> 00:18:35,499
the ruling classes,
the princes and the priests,

253
00:18:35,583 --> 00:18:38,208
they always claimed
to have come from a jar.

254
00:18:46,208 --> 00:18:48,833
All the major rishis were jar-born.

255
00:18:48,917 --> 00:18:51,458
AGASTYA
TAMIL RISHI

256
00:18:53,417 --> 00:18:55,458
Many Indus signs combine

257
00:18:55,542 --> 00:18:59,458
the priestly jar motif
with possible trade symbols.

258
00:19:00,042 --> 00:19:01,958
Did priests control trade?

259
00:19:02,750 --> 00:19:07,167
Religion and commerce
were inseparable in later Buddhist,

260
00:19:07,251 --> 00:19:09,667
Jain, and Hindu traditions.

261
00:19:10,333 --> 00:19:16,125
More evidence comes from these mysterious,
identically sized rooms.

262
00:19:16,667 --> 00:19:20,000
A similar structure
was also found at Harappa.

263
00:19:21,083 --> 00:19:23,500
They are probably storerooms for trade,

264
00:19:23,875 --> 00:19:29,833
though not granaries as was originally
fantasized by an English archeologist.

265
00:19:30,033 --> 00:19:32,042
RECREATION BY SIR MORTIMER WHEELER, 1966

266
00:19:32,458 --> 00:19:35,583
In Mohenjo-daro,
they are right in the citadel,

267
00:19:35,833 --> 00:19:37,917
next to the Great Bath itself.

268
00:19:38,583 --> 00:19:43,333
This suggests that trade
was controlled by a religious elite.

269
00:19:45,500 --> 00:19:48,708
If so, how did they maintain order?

270
00:19:50,917 --> 00:19:52,542
Was it through violence?

271
00:19:54,375 --> 00:19:58,750
One of the most famous
narrative seals from Mohenjo-daro shows

272
00:19:58,853 --> 00:20:02,000
what could be
the sacrifice of a human head.

273
00:20:04,583 --> 00:20:09,875
But another narrative seal from the city
shows what some have called a proto-Shiva,

274
00:20:10,125 --> 00:20:13,250
Pashupati, or Lord of the Beasts figure,

275
00:20:13,567 --> 00:20:19,125
having animals come
to him in peaceful submission. They

276
00:20:19,209 --> 00:20:22,792
could have represented different tribes,
cities, or merchant guilds.

277
00:20:29,792 --> 00:20:32,125
I cannot imagine a city of this size

278
00:20:32,458 --> 00:20:35,792
not having had
a strong ruling class or belief system.

279
00:20:36,250 --> 00:20:37,750
But without further research,

280
00:20:37,958 --> 00:20:41,542
what that was
is very much up to our imaginations.

281
00:20:41,917 --> 00:20:44,583
Our imaginations can run riot,

282
00:20:44,875 --> 00:20:47,640
as they already do
in the vicinity of Mohenjo-daro.

283
00:20:53,333 --> 00:20:55,958
We don't even know
what the word Mohenjo-daro means.

284
00:20:56,542 --> 00:20:59,500
John Marshall said
it meant, "Mound of the dead."

285
00:20:59,584 --> 00:21:00,792
IRSHAD ALI SOLANGI:

286
00:21:00,876 --> 00:21:03,166
People used to say this is a graveyard and

287
00:21:03,250 --> 00:21:04,750
one must avoid
going there.

288
00:21:05,208 --> 00:21:09,374
They were reluctant to cut
and take fuel wood from the site

289
00:21:09,458 --> 00:21:12,875
and come to get it from a graveyard.

290
00:21:12,959 --> 00:21:14,958
Some people used to say that

291
00:21:15,042 --> 00:21:16,833
it is a ruined town,
and going

292
00:21:16,917 --> 00:21:18,375
near to it is a sin.

293
00:21:32,042 --> 00:21:38,958
4. THE WRITING

294
00:21:44,125 --> 00:21:46,333
What does Mohenjo-daro mean
in your opinion?

295
00:21:46,417 --> 00:21:48,167
Is it mound of the dead or no?

296
00:21:48,375 --> 00:21:50,583
What is your interpretation?
No, no, no.

297
00:21:50,667 --> 00:21:52,708
DR. SHAR:
Mohan is epithet of Krishna.

298
00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:55,833
Because of Hindu name,
people don't like him here.

299
00:21:56,417 --> 00:21:59,458
Also for door, we say also moho.

300
00:21:59,542 --> 00:22:03,875
Moho means in front.
We say moho or samoho, in front.

301
00:22:03,959 --> 00:22:07,000
So Mohenjo-daro means a city with a face.

302
00:22:22,708 --> 00:22:25,792
Mohenjo-daro is also a city of signs.

303
00:22:27,208 --> 00:22:28,708
We cannot yet read them.

304
00:22:28,792 --> 00:22:32,875
We do know that they helped
weave an international trading network

305
00:22:32,959 --> 00:22:37,667
used by Indus merchants
as they traveled to distant Mesopotamia.

306
00:22:37,751 --> 00:22:40,208
MESOPOTAMIAN SEAL WITH INDUS MERCHANTS

307
00:22:40,292 --> 00:22:43,041
IRAVATHAM MAHADEVAN
INDUS SCRIPT EXPERT

308
00:22:43,125 --> 00:22:49,792
Every Harappan of any consequence carried
a seal on his person, strung it on a cord,

309
00:22:49,876 --> 00:22:55,874
and probably hung it around his neck,
and used it to attest his documents,

310
00:22:55,958 --> 00:22:58,792
his sale, or the nobles, their orders.

311
00:22:59,292 --> 00:23:03,167
In this sense, the seals of Harappa
and Mohenjo-daro are no different

312
00:23:03,251 --> 00:23:08,042
from those found in Sumerian,
Akkadian, and Egyptian cities.

313
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:12,458
Seals were impressed
on a lump of soft clay,

314
00:23:15,292 --> 00:23:17,125
placed over the knot of a cord,

315
00:23:20,750 --> 00:23:22,750
or directly onto a pot.

316
00:23:25,625 --> 00:23:29,208
The sealing acted
as a mark of authority or ownership,

317
00:23:29,625 --> 00:23:34,167
identifying the responsible official,
merchant, or institution.

318
00:23:38,083 --> 00:23:40,125
If we could understand the seals,

319
00:23:40,475 --> 00:23:42,792
we would know
so much more about these people.

320
00:23:48,125 --> 00:23:51,167
Many scholars think
the language was proto-Dravidian,

321
00:23:51,417 --> 00:23:53,333
like those in South India today.

322
00:23:53,750 --> 00:23:57,792
In fact, a Dravidian language
is spoken today not far from Mohenjo-daro.

323
00:23:58,542 --> 00:24:03,833
Linguistic archeology suggests
that other languages in the larger region

324
00:24:04,042 --> 00:24:07,292
would have contributed
to the ancient Indus language.

325
00:24:07,500 --> 00:24:09,375
ANCIENT INDUS LANGUAGE

326
00:24:10,375 --> 00:24:13,417
In fact,
many languages were probably spoken,

327
00:24:13,708 --> 00:24:19,833
just like every day in Mohenjo-daro now,
where one hears Sindhi, Saraiki, Balochi,

328
00:24:20,125 --> 00:24:23,250
Urdu, English, Punjabi, and Pashto—

329
00:24:25,250 --> 00:24:27,708
a sandwich of origins and traditions.

330
00:24:28,458 --> 00:24:29,917
Not a monoculture,

331
00:24:30,125 --> 00:24:35,667
but a mega-multiculture
probably best explains the 700 years

332
00:24:35,833 --> 00:24:37,375
of Indus civilization.

333
00:24:40,125 --> 00:24:42,916
"Of all these antiquities
the most valuable are the seals

334
00:24:43,000 --> 00:24:44,208
different from anything

335
00:24:44,292 --> 00:24:46,333
in Indian art."

336
00:24:46,417 --> 00:24:49,625
John Marshall, Director
Archaeological Survey of India, 1924

337
00:24:51,792 --> 00:24:55,708
Was a single written language used
by a ruling elite?

338
00:24:56,333 --> 00:24:58,917
A key figure
on most seals from Mohenjo-daro

339
00:24:59,208 --> 00:25:05,167
was the so-called unicorn with one horn
and a body unlike any single animal.

340
00:25:05,251 --> 00:25:06,667
It too remains a mystery.

341
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:11,458
The unicorn may well have represented

342
00:25:11,667 --> 00:25:15,292
a combination of tribes,
crafts, or regional groups.

343
00:25:17,250 --> 00:25:21,500
Most of the time, the unicorn
is shown with a unique standard.

344
00:25:22,083 --> 00:25:27,291
The mysterious cult object
you find before the unicorn,

345
00:25:27,375 --> 00:25:28,417
it's a filter.

346
00:25:28,708 --> 00:25:30,292
It's made of three parts.

347
00:25:30,500 --> 00:25:36,875
You have an upper cylindrical vessel,
a lower hemispherical vessel with holes

348
00:25:37,208 --> 00:25:41,250
like a colander, for example,
and the whole thing is stuck on a staff.

349
00:25:41,833 --> 00:25:46,875
The staff shows it was meant to be
a standard to be carried in processions.

350
00:25:47,125 --> 00:25:52,750
It was a cult based
upon some kind of hallucinogenic drug

351
00:25:53,167 --> 00:25:56,875
crushed and filtered
out of plant and drunk ritually.

352
00:25:59,792 --> 00:26:03,500
Mr. Omar Khan, I must tell you
that this is no more than a theory.

353
00:26:06,917 --> 00:26:10,542
Narrative seals from Mohenjo-daro
must encode important myths.

354
00:26:11,167 --> 00:26:16,792
Many have tigers on them,
once abundant in the Indus Valley.

355
00:26:19,042 --> 00:26:22,124
In Dholavira,
a large signboard was found

356
00:26:22,208 --> 00:26:26,542
atop an entrance to the fortified city,
strengthening my own feeling

357
00:26:26,792 --> 00:26:30,333
that the round circle
is some sort of symbol of rule,

358
00:26:30,750 --> 00:26:34,708
if not also
an actual spinning wheel like Gandhi used.

359
00:26:37,458 --> 00:26:41,208
We suspect that textiles
were a key part of the Indus economy.

360
00:26:41,292 --> 00:26:43,250
TEXTILE IMPRESSION FROM MOHENJO-DARO

361
00:26:43,958 --> 00:26:48,083
A different Buddhist wheel appears
on today's Indian flag.

362
00:26:51,333 --> 00:26:56,250
Around 1900 BCE, the civilization
seems to have disappeared.

363
00:26:57,583 --> 00:27:00,333
Many statues are defaced or headless,

364
00:27:00,542 --> 00:27:03,667
suggesting political
or religious upheaval.

365
00:27:04,750 --> 00:27:08,958
Early archeologists claimed
massacres by invading Aryans.

366
00:27:09,417 --> 00:27:13,125
But the limited evidence
from Mohenjo-daro has been debunked.

367
00:27:13,750 --> 00:27:18,458
It was more likely a combination
of climate change, internal problems,

368
00:27:18,542 --> 00:27:22,458
possibly disease,
and the breakdown of trading networks.

369
00:27:24,458 --> 00:27:28,792
No certainty at all,
but we do know that the unicorn vanished.

370
00:27:30,875 --> 00:27:33,958
So did writing for the next 1,000 years.

371
00:27:37,458 --> 00:27:40,750
Mohenjo-daro, however, was not abandoned.

372
00:27:41,250 --> 00:27:43,958
It was settled
by people of the Jhukar culture

373
00:27:44,167 --> 00:27:47,375
that followed for centuries,
and then Buddhist rule.

374
00:27:48,958 --> 00:27:51,375
Just as their civilization was ending,

375
00:27:51,459 --> 00:27:55,500
ancient Indus people brought
their seals to the Arabian Gulf.

376
00:27:56,333 --> 00:27:59,667
Many well-funded excavations
are underway there today.

377
00:28:00,333 --> 00:28:05,374
I am hopeful that they will find
a bilingual inscription with Indus signs

378
00:28:05,458 --> 00:28:07,208
and those of another language.

379
00:28:07,667 --> 00:28:10,250
That would really
help us decipher the script.

380
00:28:12,875 --> 00:28:16,125
I think that AI can also
help us understand the writing.

381
00:28:16,417 --> 00:28:19,250
Prizes are being offered for decipherment,

382
00:28:19,625 --> 00:28:24,583
but there is no public database
of inscriptions to test AI models against.

383
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:29,708
The best we have
is Mahadevan's from the 1970s.

384
00:28:30,375 --> 00:28:32,167
A dedicated German scholar,

385
00:28:32,292 --> 00:28:36,292
Dr. Andreas Fuls,
maintains a much bigger database,

386
00:28:36,646 --> 00:28:38,880
but it is not properly resourced.

387
00:28:41,375 --> 00:28:44,200
There are thousands
of uncatalogued inscriptions.

388
00:28:45,625 --> 00:28:49,083
The leading living scholar,
the brilliant Finnish professor

389
00:28:49,167 --> 00:28:53,042
Asko Parpola, is 84, and has no heirs.

390
00:29:05,875 --> 00:29:11,375
5. THE FUTURE

391
00:29:14,125 --> 00:29:16,833
Urban dust from 4,000 years ago

392
00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:19,917
is what we are breathing
as we walk through the site today.

393
00:29:24,125 --> 00:29:26,750
Everyone agrees that the ancient Indus

394
00:29:26,834 --> 00:29:30,250
is the mother
urban civilization in South Asia.

395
00:29:30,542 --> 00:29:33,917
But it took a while
for Pakistan to embrace this heritage.

396
00:29:34,792 --> 00:29:38,042
The nation's founder
never visited any Indus city.

397
00:29:38,625 --> 00:29:43,500
Here is my late friend Dr. Dani,
a Sanskrit scholar before partition,

398
00:29:43,708 --> 00:29:46,083
and leading archeologist afterwards.

399
00:29:46,917 --> 00:29:50,250
DR. DANI: Today,
as far as Indus civilization is concerned,

400
00:29:50,792 --> 00:29:56,000
it's a part of the cultural
and historical heritage of Pakistan.

401
00:29:56,084 --> 00:29:57,791
STATE BANK OF PAKISTAN

402
00:29:57,875 --> 00:30:03,083
In Pakistan today, Indus archeology
has become a source of pride.

403
00:30:04,167 --> 00:30:06,249
The Sindh and Punjab governments

404
00:30:06,333 --> 00:30:11,083
are investing more and more
in preservation and excavation.

405
00:30:11,167 --> 00:30:15,917
VISUALIZING CARE: MUDBRICK AT MOHENJODARO

406
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,083
Earlier, we didn't see Pakistanis here.
Pakistanis didn't

407
00:30:22,708 --> 00:30:24,625
MOHAMMAD ILYAS:
come to Mohenjo-daro.

408
00:30:24,792 --> 00:30:26,542
Mostly Japanese came.

409
00:30:26,626 --> 00:30:27,792
And other foreigners.

410
00:30:29,125 --> 00:30:31,958
So we said, "Why don't Pakistanis come?"

411
00:30:32,158 --> 00:30:33,792
They didn't see the value.

412
00:30:33,876 --> 00:30:38,417
Gradually,
the number of Pakistanis increased.

413
00:30:38,833 --> 00:30:41,375
Now, there are fewer foreigners
and more Pakistanis.

414
00:30:43,583 --> 00:30:47,416
The ironic legacy of partition
is that the best-known Indus cities

415
00:30:47,500 --> 00:30:52,292
are in Pakistan, but the resources
and broadest interest are in India.

416
00:30:53,875 --> 00:30:56,666
IRSHAD ALI SOLANGI:
Many Indians are eager

417
00:30:56,750 --> 00:30:58,125
to visit Mohenjo-daro

418
00:30:58,325 --> 00:31:00,249
and they give me a WhatsApp call

419
00:31:00,333 --> 00:31:02,583
and request
that as they cannot get a visa,

420
00:31:02,667 --> 00:31:04,917
I should arrange
a video visit of Mohenjo-daro

421
00:31:05,250 --> 00:31:10,417
so I give them
a 2-hour video visit of Mohenjo-daro.

422
00:31:11,208 --> 00:31:12,292
Unfortunately,

423
00:31:12,458 --> 00:31:16,750
bits and bytes are increasingly
the only things that can easily cross

424
00:31:16,834 --> 00:31:22,583
a border that's so heavily militarized,
you can see the floodlights from space.

425
00:31:24,333 --> 00:31:31,083
INDO-PAK BORDER @ WAGAH/ATTARI

426
00:31:34,833 --> 00:31:36,917
Despite the two billion people who claim

427
00:31:37,001 --> 00:31:39,708
direct heritage
from the Indus civilization,

428
00:31:40,208 --> 00:31:44,000
research and excavations
are woefully underfunded.

429
00:31:44,125 --> 00:31:47,375
There's not a single
university department anywhere

430
00:31:47,459 --> 00:31:48,667
devoted to it.

431
00:31:53,833 --> 00:31:57,666
For modern Indians,
the question is whether the profound sense

432
00:31:57,750 --> 00:32:03,125
of connection to Mohenjo-daro
can translate to a better relationship

433
00:32:03,375 --> 00:32:05,333
with the Pakistanis living there now.

434
00:32:12,167 --> 00:32:15,583
For modern Pakistanis,
the issue is how to embrace

435
00:32:15,667 --> 00:32:18,958
an ancient past
that reaches across borders

436
00:32:19,042 --> 00:32:25,333
only decades old and does not quite fit
a largely Muslim national ideology.

437
00:32:27,542 --> 00:32:29,542
LAHORE, 1948

438
00:32:30,792 --> 00:32:34,750
Perhaps we might best think
of the ancient Indus civilization

439
00:32:34,943 --> 00:32:36,958
as a Bronze Age supernova

440
00:32:37,042 --> 00:32:40,875
in the positive sense,
scattering its precious elements

441
00:32:41,042 --> 00:32:44,208
throughout South Asia,
and much further too

442
00:32:44,500 --> 00:32:47,625
QUEEN'S BURIAL SHROUD
MESOPOTAMIA ~2500 BCE

443
00:32:48,667 --> 00:32:52,542
Long Indus carnelian beads
were prized in Mesopotamia.

444
00:32:53,000 --> 00:32:58,708
In fact an Indus style of gold,
carnelian and lapis was popular

445
00:33:00,500 --> 00:33:04,250
throughout the ancient world.
KISH, IRAQ, ~2500 BCE

446
00:33:07,042 --> 00:33:12,208
How far did
ancient Indus ideas also travel?

447
00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:18,625
One thing that remains with me

448
00:33:18,709 --> 00:33:21,916
from my first visit
to Mohenjo-daro in 1972

449
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:24,000
was that it feels so ancient,

450
00:33:24,708 --> 00:33:29,542
so tied to tradition,
and yet so open and welcoming of others.

451
00:33:30,708 --> 00:33:33,333
SHEIKH JAVID ALI SINDHI
TOUR GUIDE - AGED 13

452
00:33:33,417 --> 00:33:35,375
We have so many villages all around.

453
00:33:35,459 --> 00:33:37,958
There, the elderly people,
tell this story.

454
00:33:38,583 --> 00:33:42,500
Whenever a person wanted
to settle inside Mohenjo-daro,

455
00:33:42,708 --> 00:33:44,375
When he arrived with his family,

456
00:33:44,459 --> 00:33:46,458
SHEIKH SINDHI:
the people of Mohenjodaro

457
00:33:46,542 --> 00:33:49,292
each of the house owners
used to give him one brick,

458
00:33:50,034 --> 00:33:52,458
that this is a gift for you, one brick.

459
00:33:52,667 --> 00:33:55,208
In this way,
he collected so many hundreds

460
00:33:55,292 --> 00:33:59,124
and thousands of bricks
from the local people living here.

461
00:33:59,208 --> 00:34:05,292
In this way, he used to build,
in excellent way, his house.

462
00:34:09,125 --> 00:34:11,583
Brick sharing is just as important today.

463
00:34:11,958 --> 00:34:13,917
Like new immigrants to a city,

464
00:34:14,250 --> 00:34:16,417
tools like molecular analysis,

465
00:34:16,625 --> 00:34:21,958
DNA testing, and AI are opening
whole new sectors of investigation.

466
00:34:22,500 --> 00:34:24,000
Properly resourced,

467
00:34:24,292 --> 00:34:28,333
they could make the coming years
incredibly exciting for research.

468
00:34:32,417 --> 00:34:35,792
The box on what
ancient Indus civilization was all about

469
00:34:36,000 --> 00:34:37,792
has only just been opened.

470
00:34:38,667 --> 00:34:42,000
It could rewrite
the history of the Indian subcontinent

471
00:34:42,250 --> 00:34:44,083
and the wider world beyond.

472
00:35:02,250 --> 00:35:06,500
WRITER/DIRECTION/CAMERA
OMAR KHAN

473
00:35:06,584 --> 00:35:10,667
CO-WRITER/EDITOR/MOTION GRAPHICS
RICHARD LEVIEN

474
00:35:10,751 --> 00:35:14,833
ILLUSTRATIONS
KYLE AARON GOLUB

475
00:35:14,917 --> 00:35:19,000
3D ANIMATIONS/IMAGE ENHANCEMENT
RAHUL VERMA

476
00:35:19,084 --> 00:35:23,292
GOOGLE MAPS ANIMATIONS
YAHYA JAVED