Coin Cache Unearthed at Mohenjo-Daro

MOHENJO-DARO, PAKISTAN—There have been very few excavations at the site of Mohenjo-Daro in southeastern Pakistan over the last century since its discovery. During this time, archaeologists have concentrated most of their efforts on conserving and restoring the fragile mudbricks of the 5,000-year-old city. But according to a report in the Times of Karachi, a team has just announced the discovery of a cache of copper coins weighing more than 10 pounds inside a wall of the site’s stupa, a Buddhist shrine erected in the early first millennium A.D. The coins have been removed to a laboratory for soil testing where they will be dated and their iconography studied. Syed Shakir Shah, director of Archaeology at Mohenjo-Daro, says that he sees this discovery “as a breakthrough, shedding light on the economic and cultural aspects of the ancient civilization” thousands of years after the site flourished as one of the earliest centers of the Indus Civilization. To read about the recent discovery of a rare Indus Civilization burial at the site of Rakhigarhi, go to "A Plot of Their Own."