Saturday, October 28, 2006

Mound of the Dead

On the second day of Eid I visited Moen Jo Daro with my mathematics teacher of school days. The ruins of Moen Jo Daro or Mound of the Dead lie 300 km north of Hyderabad on the banks of river Indus. The purpose of the visit was to see the genius of the people of Indus valley civilization that existed between 2500-1500 BC. After a journey of over 4 hours when we reached MJD we found a huge number of people visiting the place to enjoy the Eid holidays. My mathematics teacher was conducting a research to show the mathematical advancement of the dwellers of MJD and the use of mathematics in the construction of their city. My teacher said that people of MJD were far advanced in mathematics and the Greeks had learnt most of the mathematical concepts from the people of Indus valley civilization. He pointed to the number of wells of different sizes in MJD and told that it was likely these people knew the use of Pi to make wedge shaped bricks to construct these wells. After spending 3 hours on the site we returned back to Hyderabad just after dusk. On the way back my teacher told me about many links between Indus valley and Greece. There are many words common in Sindhi (language of the land of MJD) and Greek. It was a learning of high class and a holiday well spent.

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