{"it":{"id":"W11A22","kind":"artifact","sub":"Authenticated","name":"Mohenjo-daro (skeletons/nuclear claim)","place":"Sindh","mat":"mud brick","dims":"~300 ha; Great Bath 12x7x2.4 m","loc":"in situ Sindh, Pakistan (UNESCO 1980)","acc":"n/a","find":"rediscovered 1920s; Marshall, Wheeler 1945, Dales 1964-65","flag":"genuine ancient","src":[101,352],"lat":27.329,"lon":68.139,"tags":[],"sum":"Mohenjo-daro's name is often translated as 'Mound of the Dead', and some writers claim skeletons in its streets show an ancient nuclear blast.","why":"A few scattered skeletons were once read as a massacre, and later as nuclear victims. Excavators showed they came from different times, and no study supports a blast.","nfacts":7,"nsrc":3,"yt":"Read Dales's 1964 report on the skeletons.","rel":["ASI-012"],"hook":"Nine seasons of digging found 37 skeletons. Writers turned them into victims of an ancient nuclear blast."},"S":{"101":["Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"],"352":["Wikipedia: Mohenjo-daro","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro"]},"rec":{"id":"W11A22","alias":[],"ms":[{"a":"site_area","v":"300","u":"ha","unc":"est","by":"","yr":"","m":"","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W11M075","s":["W11S61"],"c":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"},{"a":"great_bath","v":"12x7x2.4","u":"m","unc":"","by":"","yr":"","m":"","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W11M076","s":["W11S61"],"c":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"},{"a":"citadel_height","v":"12","u":"m","unc":"approx","by":"","yr":"","m":"","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W11M077","s":["W11S61"],"c":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"},{"a":"dancing_girl_height","v":"10.5","u":"cm","unc":"","by":"","yr":"1926","m":"","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W11M078","s":["W11S61"],"c":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"},{"a":"priest_king_height","v":"17.5","u":"cm","unc":"","by":"","yr":"1927","m":"","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W11M079","s":["W11S61"],"c":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"},{"a":"ruler_unit","v":"34","u":"mm","unc":"subdivision accuracy 0.13 mm","by":"","yr":"","m":"","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W11M080","s":["W11S61"],"c":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"},{"a":"distance_to_Larkana","v":"28","u":"km","unc":"","by":"","yr":"","m":"","b":"S","t":"MEASUREMENT","id":"W11M081","s":["W11S61"],"c":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"}],"lab":[],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[{"a":"museum_accession","r":"not in staged/legacy artifact record (free sources)"}],"dat":[],"aa":[{"id":"AA175","a":"Skeletons show ancient nuclear blast","who":"fringe (claimant source not yet opened)","main":"No source opened this wave supports radioactivity; claim unsourced here","ms":"W11S61","st":"no data","n":"","nl":"1"}],"ac":[],"me":[],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"art":{"claimed_anomaly":"Skeletons show ancient nuclear blast","mainstream_reading":"No source opened this wave supports radioactivity; claim unsourced here","provenance_flag":"genuine ancient","current_location":"in situ Sindh, Pakistan (UNESCO 1980)","find_circumstances":"rediscovered 1920s; Marshall, Wheeler 1945, Dales 1964-65","claimant":"fringe (claimant source not yet opened)","status":"no data","dimensions":"~300 ha; Great Bath 12x7x2.4 m","material":"mud brick","date":"","culture":"","museum_accession":"n/a","b":"S","s":["W11S61"]},"sub":[],"src":[{"id":"S0341","t":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"},{"id":"W11S61","t":"Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"},{"id":"S0539","t":"Wikipedia: Mohenjo-daro","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro"},{"id":"VW11A22-4","t":"G. F. Dales, Expedition 6(3)","u":"https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/the-mythical-massacre-at-mohenjo-daro/"},{"id":"VW11A22-5","t":"UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro","u":"https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/138/"},{"id":"VW11A22-6","t":"Open Library: Library of Congress MARC record","u":"https://openlibrary.org/show-records/marc_loc_updates/v37.i20.records.utf8:1117795:876"}],"sum":"Nine seasons of digging at Mohenjo-daro, from 1922 to 1931, turned up some 37 skeletons from the Indus period, by the count of the archaeologist George F. Dales. A handful lay in twisted groups, and from that handful grew two stories: a massacre by invaders, and later an ancient nuclear blast.\n\nMohenjo-daro, in Sindh, Pakistan, was one of the great cities of the Indus civilisation. It flourished from about 2500 BCE, may have held at least 40,000 people, and was abandoned by about 1700 BCE. Its grid of brick streets, drains and the Great Bath made it, in 1980, the first site in South Asia on the UNESCO World Heritage List.\n\nWhat is hard to pin down is why the city ended. Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who dug there in 1945, wrote that \"Indra stands accused\", blaming Aryan invaders for the dead.\n\nIn 1964, in his paper \"The Mythical Massacre at Mohenjo-daro\", Dales showed that the skeletons came from different levels and dates, not one event, and asked where the weapons and burned fortresses were. Today most scholars point to slower causes, such as shifting rivers, flooding and a decline in trade. In a 1979 book David Davenport and Ettore Vincenti claimed that fused bricks and pottery showed an atomic blast. The fused material is better explained as kiln-made ware, and no study reports radioactive bones.\n\nIf the city faded slowly, why do so many of its retellings end with a single day of fire?","qs":["Indus cities faded rather than fell in a day. Why do we prefer stories of sudden destruction to slow decline?","Only 37 skeletons came from nine seasons of digging. What does that say about where the people went?","What evidence would a real ancient blast leave that an excavator could test?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Mohenjodaro_-_view_of_the_stupa_mound.JPG/1280px-Mohenjodaro_-_view_of_the_stupa_mound.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mohenjodaro_-_view_of_the_stupa_mound.JPG","title":"Mohenjodaro - view of the stupa mound.JPG","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"Saqib Qayyum","cap":"A view of the Buddhist stupa in the background located in the higher settlement to the west, generally referred to as the citadel mound, and it is mostly compri"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c4/Archaeological_Ruins_at_Moenjodaro-108221.jpg/1280px-Archaeological_Ruins_at_Moenjodaro-108221.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Archaeological_Ruins_at_Moenjodaro-108221.jpg","title":"Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro-108221.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0 igo","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/igo/deed.en","by":"Junhi Han","cap":"Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro (Pakistan)"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Disha_Kaka_Boat_with_Direction_Finding_Birds%2C_model_of_Mohenjo-Daro_seal%2C_3000_BCE.jpg/1280px-Disha_Kaka_Boat_with_Direction_Finding_Birds%2C_model_of_Mohenjo-Daro_seal%2C_3000_BCE.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Disha_Kaka_Boat_with_Direction_Finding_Birds,_model_of_Mohenjo-Daro_seal,_3000_BCE.jpg","title":"Disha Kaka Boat with Direction Finding Birds, model of Mohenjo-Daro seal, 3000 BCE.jpg","lic":"CC0","licurl":"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en","by":"Gary Todd","cap":"Disha Kaka Boat with Direction Finding Birds, model of Mohenjo-Daro seal, 3000 BCE. Maritime Heritage Gallery, India National Museum, New Delhi. Complete indexe"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Great_bath_view_Mohenjodaro.JPG/1280px-Great_bath_view_Mohenjodaro.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_bath_view_Mohenjodaro.JPG","title":"Great bath view Mohenjodaro.JPG","lic":"CC BY-SA 3.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0","by":"Saqib Qayyum","cap":"The Great Bath. A 2.4m deep, 12m long, and 7m wide pool known as \"The Great Bath\" is located at the centre of the Citadel, is made of fine baked waterproof mud ","alt":"The Great Bath. A 2.4m deep, 12m long, and 7m wide pool known as \"The Great Bath\" is located at the centre of the Citadel, is made of fine baked waterproof mud"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/93/Moen_Jo_Daro_%28The_Mond_of_the_Deads%29.jpg/1280px-Moen_Jo_Daro_%28The_Mond_of_the_Deads%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Moen_Jo_Daro_(The_Mond_of_the_Deads).jpg","title":"Moen Jo Daro (The Mond of the Deads).jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","by":"Gaffar772","cap":"This is a photo of a monument in Pakistan identified as the","alt":"Mohenjo-daro (skeletons/nuclear claim)"}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":[{"v":"2500 BCE","h":"One of the world's first major cities","s":[100]},{"v":"34","u":"mm","h":"Ruler units in decimals, accurate to 0.13 mm","s":[100]},{"v":"6.7","u":"mm","h":"Precise line spacing on an incised shell","s":[100]},{"v":"~300 ha","h":"Recorded dimensions: ~300 ha; Great Bath 12x7x2.4 m","s":[205]}],"hs":{"100":["Wikipedia: Mohenjo-daro (and sources cited there)","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro"],"205":["Wikipedia Mohenjo-daro","https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohenjo-daro&oldid=1376909925"]},"lh":{"s":"img/h/W11A22.webp","w":1280,"h":960,"o":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/03/Mohenjodaro_-_view_of_the_stupa_mound.JPG/1280px-Mohenjodaro_-_view_of_the_stupa_mound.JPG?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail"}}