‘Mohenjo-Daro’ or ‘the mound of the dead’

The people of the Sindh province of current-day Pakistan were the ones who coined the name ‘Mohenjo-Daro’. The name, in Sindhi, means ‘the mound of the dead’.

Mohenjo-Daro, the 5000-year-old ‘modern’ city, of the Indus Valley Civilization, was discovered by Indian archaeologist Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay, better known as R.D. Banerji. While working in the Sindh province, in the year 1922, R.D. Banerji noticed raised mounds, tools like scrapers and stone blades, and seals, strewn around. One thing led to another and an entire city was unearthed!

Going by certain findings from the site, it was also believed that the city could have been called ‘Kukkutarma’, a Dravidian term meaning ‘the city of cockerels’, based on the significance of domesticated chicken during the civilization.

Since the city was dug out into existence, the locals gave it the moniker ‘the mound of the dead’, or ‘Mohenjo-Daro’.