NOVEL NEXT Chapter 961 City Ruins
Judging from the overall excavation, this ancient city named after the surrounding small village Mohenjodaro has a fairly clear construction plan. Generally speaking, the layout is scientific and reasonable, and it already has some characteristics of a modern city. .
The entire city is rectangular, and the blocks in the upper and lower cities are divided into a checkerboard pattern by vertical and horizontal streets. Among them, there are also broad avenues running east-west and north-south.
Most residential buildings are two-story buildings with no windows on the street side to avoid dust and noise. Almost every excavated dwelling has a bathroom, toilet, and associated underground drainage system.
In addition, most houses have a courtyard in the center and living rooms around it. The impression given is that the city is clean and beautiful, and residents live a peaceful and comfortable life. This city has reached a very high level of civilization,
What's interesting is that the entire city, especially the upper city, was obviously built after unified planning, so many buildings here have some common features.
For example, the entire city is like a chessboard, and each residential area is 366 meters × 183 meters square. The city's main streets are 10 meters wide, with 2.4-meter-wide alleys between residences.
At the same time, each house has 6 to 10 rooms and a yard. All buildings are made of red bricks. It is also equipped with a complete sewer system.
The reason why sewers are mentioned repeatedly is not because Liang En has a hobby for such places, but because South Asia as a whole has many problems with urban sewage due to various reasons such as economy, population, religion, etc.
Therefore, in comparison, this ancient city ruins appears to be much cleaner overall. At least the level of sewer construction is no less than that of some modern cities.
Of course, the exquisite design of the entire city is not just the planning of the rooms or the underground sewers, but is reflected in all aspects of the entire city.
For example, take the red bricks in urban buildings as an example. It is not an easy task to bake such a large number of red bricks at one time and ensure that the specifications are almost the same.
At least before the industrial age, this method of firing red bricks required a lot of human effort, and the organizational capabilities and productivity behind this could not be achieved by just finding a few people. There must be a strong organization.
To give the simplest example, firing red bricks requires a lot of fuel, and as a prosperous city, there is not much fuel around the city that can be used for making brick kilns.
After all, if you want to bake red bricks, even this original red brick requires sufficient temperature, and this is obviously not something that can be solved simply by burning grass. You must use charcoal.
For a city with a long history of development, it is not easy to find enough firewood, so firing so many bricks represents strong organizational and mobilization capabilities behind the scenes.
In addition, what impressed Liang En and the others the most was the design of the city walls. When they were in the middle of the two remnant walls that were just excavated, they could feel the cool breeze. .
There is no doubt that ancient architects' clever use of monsoon winds for natural ventilation was obviously very valuable in this hot South Asian subcontinent. At least it can prevent people from suffering from severe heatstroke by the hot and humid river.
In addition, Liang En and the others also found many very valuable things. For example, when he and Joan of Arc were excavating an ancient building in the upper city, they accidentally found some broken statues.
One of the most eye-catching ones was a statue that seemed to be a leader like the Pope. After spending a while to clean up and piece together the statue that had become fragments, they found that the statue was very beautifully made.
He wears a hairband on his head, a beard on his face, and a large cloak decorated with a three-petal flower pattern slung over his left shoulder. His eyes are slightly open, showing a thoughtful look. It reflects a temperament that coexists with bravery and calmness.
In addition to this statue, another exquisite cultural relic is a statue of a dancing girl. Her entire body of clothing is almost negligible. Her overall shape is lifelike with her hands on her hips and her head raised, showing a proud and dignified expression.
I have to say that these sculptures do look beautiful. If he hadn't failed to obtain a card, Liang En would have even thought that these sculptures were the core of this ruins.
However, after realizing that these sculptures were not their target, Liang En and the others set their excavation target in the upper city area, because in Liang En's memory, this upper city area should have the most valuable place in the entire ruins.
"Mr. Liang, we found something interesting." Just half a month after starting work, the team that cleared out a large area of ruins finally discovered something wrong during the excavation process.
"There seems to be a lot of asphalt in this place. At first we thought it was where the other party stored asphalt, but later we found out that it should be a waterproof layer."
"That is to say, this is a water storage facility." Liang En said to the student from the University of Peshawar in local Urdu, "This is indeed worth checking. We'd better check this first." How big is the area of the building?”
Everyone agreed with the requirements for inspecting this ruins, because this ruins is not on flat ground, but on a hillside with a height of about 12m.
Considering that no pressurized water transmission facilities existed in the past, such a reservoir looks strange from any angle.
After all, transporting water to such a height is a very thankless task, so there must be a reason for doing so. Regardless of the reason, it fully proves the importance of this place.
After the location was determined, the excavation work suddenly became much smoother. After all, the biggest difficulty in the excavation work here was to determine the target. After the target was determined, it was not difficult for professionals to dig.
Therefore, in just a day or two, they roughly figured out what the situation in this pool was and completed the most basic exploration work.
The entire pool is 12 meters long and 8 meters wide. It is surrounded by stone bricks and the bottom is coated with resin and asphalt for waterproofing. Some furnace-like equipment was found in the surrounding houses, apparently used for heating water.
As for why they judged that this was a pool, in addition to the natural asphalt waterproof layer at the bottom, the most important thing was that they found a water supply and drainage system around it, which also allowed them to confirm that this was not the granary they initially suspected.
"Did the ancient Indians start taking hot baths on a large scale?" After confirming the situation of the entire system, Joan of Arc showed a somewhat curious expression. "This is so enjoyable."
"Bathing is naturally very important in India. After all, in this hot and humid environment, if I don't take a bath, my body will be sticky." Liang En said with a smile.
"But this bathhouse is not like that. It is very likely that bathing is just a formality, and the real core lies in some kind of religious activity."
"After all, this bathhouse is located at a commanding point in the city, and according to tradition, rooms built at the highest points of these ancient cities are often used for religious activities."