No archaeological site like Moenjodaro unearthed in 100 years, laments expert.

HYDERABAD -- An archaeology expert has lamented that unfortunately, 100 years down the road after unearthing of Moenjodaro the country has not explored any other similar site though there must be more such cities and sites and 'we need to keep searching them'.

Prof Dr Mohammad Hameed, head the Department of Archaeology, Punjab University, said at the 7th Dr N.A. Baloch National seminar organised at a local hotel by Dr N.A. Baloch Institute of Heritage Research, Jamshoro, and Sindh Culture and Tourism Department on Sunday that a replica of Moenjodaro town should be created to connect present day society with the Indus Valley Civilisation to help people understand how human settlements functioned then and how people managed their economic life.

He emphasised the need for producing PhD scholars on Indus Valley Civilisation and exploring more such sites which had unfortunately not been done so far.

In his presentation on 'where do we stand after a century' in a session of the seminar on 'celebrating centenary of discovery of Indus Civilisation', the professor said that most of the exploration and research had been done by foreigners. 'We live here. It's our land and we understand issues with clear context of culture more than foreigners. But unfortunately, we lag behind in research on Indus Civilisation,' he said, wondering could indigenous experts challenge foreigners' work.

He said: 'We can preserve Moenjodaro effectively after making research-driven endeavours'. The Moenjodaro population presented the concept of urbanised living with sectoral approach. 'It shows their economic life was prosperous. They used to store grain and had better urbanised planning. We need to understand how decline had set in,' he said.

Mr Hameed said that Indus Civilisation held central place in the identity of the region followed by Gandhara, Mughal, Sikh and then colonial civilisations.

He praised the fact that Sindh had done some better work for the preservation than other provinces. 'Population of that era must have ideas of celebrating festivals and towns as well as villages. But we aren't able to explore more cites,' he said.

He said their regional variations and settlement patterns needed to be explored.

'Unfortunately, 100 years down the road we haven't explored any other site of note. There must be more such cities and sites. We need to keep searching them,' he said. He said that the people of Moenjodaro believed in 'life after death' regardless of their...