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Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

bbc.com

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Re: Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

#11

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

klyrs wrote: post #4
JetAlone wrote: post #2

Surely it was not officially called Mohenjo-Daro (Mound of the dead men) by its residents, in its heyday?

> While ancient writings often reveal the secrets of civilisations, this has not been the case with Mohenjo-daro, whose inhabitants used what's known as the Indus Valley Script. "It was a pictographic language with more than 400 signs. It is still not decoded," said my guide Solangi. Unless a written record of its name can be found and deciphered, that name will probably endure.

The Article mentions it was on trade routes all over Central Asia. Its name must be mentioned in other languages in other ancient cities. Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc would have mentioned this place by name.

Re: Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

#12

Post by 19f191ty »

willwinger wrote: post #5

As an ancient civilization with an undeciphered script, Indus Valley Civ. is mired in controversy and claims Religion wise though article claims an Egyptian link which is new to me, it has some clear Hindu associations like the Pasupathinath seal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupati_seal Script wise the contention and claim also comes from Tamil and Sanskrit. TED talk on this below https://youtu.be/kwYxHPXIaao

Pashupati is much, much older than modern concept of Hinduism. Many cultures around the time had a "Master of Animals" motif depicted l in their cultural artifact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Animals

You could call Rudra/Shiva as modern versions of that motif. But calling the figure in Pashupati seal as depecting a Hindu deity is probably not correct. IVC was pre-vedic after all. No doubt later cultures adopted IVC deities into their own pantheon. But IVC religion was likely very far from what we recognize as Hinduism. And probably closer to religions in Mesopotamia at the time. Egypt does seem further culturally than Mesopotamia to me though. So I find the Egyptian connection a bit tenuous as well.

Re: Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

#13

Post by vishnugupta »

I got interested in Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) while following a rabbit hole of trying to understand the population admixture of Indians. It is a truly fascinating civilisation. Here are some titbits that I found really interesting.

At it peak it was a spread over a truly gigantic geographical space. However the city architectures followed nearly same blue print. Which points to the existence of some kind of central planning.

It is known as a faceless civilisation because there wasn't an obviously kingly figure. No royal burials, no palaces, no extravagant houses etc., Of course there were rich and poor people but overall it seemed to be an egalitarian culture. Most houses are more or less uniformly well built.

The cities were divided into two sections; one part showing signs of more wealth than the other, suggesting ruling class of some sort. But again, it wasn't as if there was a king or as such.

There is no sign of war, destruction or violence. No weapons, no signs of burning/pillage etc.,

They traded with contemporary civilisations, predominantly with Mesopotamia.

Here's a good video but that's not easy find https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_s5EDxuL0Vs

Re: Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

#14

Post by random314 »

19f191ty wrote: post #12
willwinger wrote: post #5

As an ancient civilization with an undeciphered script, Indus Valley Civ. is mired in controversy and claims Religion wise though article claims an Egyptian link which is new to me, it has some clear Hindu associations like the Pasupathinath seal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupati_seal Script wise the contention and claim also comes from Tamil and Sanskrit. TED talk on this below https://youtu.be/kwYxHPXIaao

Pashupati is much, much older than modern concept of Hinduism. Many cultures around the time had a "Master of Animals" motif depicted l in their cultural artifact https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Animals You could call Rudra/Shiva as modern versions of that motif. But calling the figure in Pashupati seal as depecting a Hindu deity is probably not correct. IVC was pre-vedic after all. No doubt later cultures…

In particular pashupati is not mentioned in rgveda

Re: Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

#15

Post by erklik »

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #11
klyrs wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While ancient writings often reveal the secrets of civilisations, this has not been the case with Mohenjo-daro, whose inhabitants used what's known as the Indus Valley Script. "It was a pictographic language with more than 400 signs. It is still not decoded," said my guide Solangi. Unless a written record of its name can be found and deciphered, that name will probably endure.

The Article mentions it was on trade routes all over Central Asia. Its name must be mentioned in other languages in other ancient cities. Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc would have mentioned this place by name.

> Unless a written record of its name can be found and deciphered, that name will probably endure.

I think this still stands. Even if it has been mentioned, we'll have to find it and decipher. I would argue considering how famous it is in the nation, it'll be real hard to change the name even if the original is found.

Re: Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

#17

Post by omeysalvi »

All Indian students below the age of 13 have heard of Mohenjo-Daro. I don't remember what year's textbooks it was in for us but the author assertion that it is a place that "most people have never heard of" has almost a billion rebuttals.

Re: Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

#19

Post by erklik »

omeysalvi wrote: post #17

All Indian students below the age of 13 have heard of Mohenjo-Daro. I don't remember what year's textbooks it was in for us but the author assertion that it is a place that "most people have never heard of" has almost a billion rebuttals.

Add the almost 225 million or so Pakistanis too. About 1.5 billion people I'd say.

Re: Pakistan's lost city of 40k people

#20

Post by [deleted] »

vishnugupta wrote: post #13

I got interested in Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) while following a rabbit hole of trying to understand the population admixture of Indians. It is a truly fascinating civilisation. Here are some titbits that I found really interesting. At it peak it was a spread over a truly gigantic geographical space. However the city architectures followed nearly same blue print. Which points to the existence of some kind of cen…

[deleted]
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