MOHENJO-DAEO — MACKAY 433 



the fourth and third millenia B. C. — and here a not unnatural envy 

 of the comparative ease with which it is possible to give a story of 

 the vicissitudes of Ur must be admitted — the absence of wall deco- 

 rations makes the picturing of contemporary life less easy than 

 elsewhere; it is a matter of slowl}^ piecing together minute bits of 

 evidence. The people of Mohenjo-daro were not artists in the sense 

 that they wished to surround themselves with beauty and adorn- 

 ment. From the paintings and sculptures on the tomb, and temple, 

 and palace walls of Egypt, a great deal has been learned about 

 their religious and domestic life, and of their arts and crafts, even 

 to the making of bread and of wine; the goldsmith, the basket 

 weaver, the ropemaker all ply their trades before our eyes. In 

 Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia we see the life of the times portrayed 

 in inlay, or sculptures, or colored tiles. The farmer of the Tell al 

 ''• Ubaid inlay milks his cow from behind ; the king of Kish drives 

 his prisoners before him; we see Ur-Nammu carrying his basket of 

 bricks to build the temple tower at the Moon god's command ; and 

 the Assyrian monarch hunts or storms his enemy's defenses and flays 

 him after defeating him in battle. 



All this information we miss in the Indus Valley cities; nor is 

 one justified in assuming that wall decorations once existed, but have 

 l^erished. Traces there are here and there of plaster upon the walls, 

 but quite insignificant; nor do they show any signs of having been 

 adorned with anything more than roughly executed bands of color. 

 Inlay there is, but almost solely geometrical in design and clearly 

 used for the ornamentation of boxes and furniture rather than of 

 walls. Sculpture is represented among the finds, but confined to 

 crudely carved statues ; in stone working there is nothing approach- 

 ing the artistry and skill of execution of the mural scenes of Egypt 

 and Assyria, save the engraving of the seals. The art of glazing was 

 practiced in the Indus Valley ; but it was only applied to the manu- 

 facture of small articles of personal adornment, pieces of inlay, and 

 model animals. 



Yet, for all this lack of direct assistance on the part of the dwellers 

 in Mohenjo-daro, it has been possible to build up a quite vivid pic- 

 ture of their everyday life, their religion, occupations, and sur- 

 roundings. And there is always the hope of some unexpected find 

 to buoy up the excavator at his work. He never knows what the 

 day may bring forth from Pandora's box of secrets. 



At the zenith of its prosperity, Mohenjo-daro was clearly a large 

 and important place. Its massive public buildings and solid, com- 

 fortable houses covered about a square mile — all made exclusively of 

 burnt brick, save where mud-brick fillings served to make high plat- 

 forms of the ruined older buildings, on which to raise the later ones 



