Pakistan: 4,000-year-old Mohenjo-daro study finds ancient city grew more equal over time
Wire desk byline Sourced from Xinhua, Dawn, Arab News, Anadolu and Minute Mirror. Translated and abridged by the GSRRA Desk.
For decades, archaeologists argued that cities grew alongside inequality. As settlements expanded, wealth often moved toward rulers, priests, and elite families. A new study on Mohenjo-daro presents a different story.
Researchers from the University of York examined housing patterns in Mohenjo-daro, one of the largest cities of the Indus Civilisation. The city thrived between 2600 and 1900 BC in present-day Pakistan. Their analysis found lower inequality levels than those seen in other ancient urban societies. The gap between wealthy and poorer residents even shrank over time.
The team studied excavation records from earlier archaeological work at the site. They focused on the size of homes across the city and used Gini coefficients to measure economic inequality. Economists often use this system today to compare wealth distribution. Higher scores point to larger economic gaps.
Mohenjo-daro produced lower scores than cities in Mesopotamia and Bronze Age Greece. Researchers found another pattern as well. As the city developed, inequality dropped instead of rising.
House sizes became more similar during later periods of the city’s history. Differences between large and small residences narrowed to levels closer to early farming villages than major urban centers. At the same time, Mohenjo-daro expanded and grew more prosperous.
Reference Link:- https://archaeologymag.com/2026/05/mohenjo-daro-grew-more-equal-over-time/
Zamir Ahmed Awan is the founder and Chair of the Global Silk Route Research Alliance, a think tank in Islamabad. He studied engineering at Shanghai University in the 1980s, and years later he went back to China as Pakistan's science counsellor in Beijing, from 2010 until 2016, working on science and higher education cooperation between the two countries.…
