Kot Diji

The first stage of the Indus civilisation, under a Talpur fort

An ancient town of the Indus Valley Civilisation, thought to have been lived in from around 3300 BCE, about 45 km south of Khairpur in Sindh on the east bank of the Indus, across the river from Mohenjo-daro. The remains are in two parts: a citadel on high ground about 12 m up, and the town around it. When F. A. Khan dug here in 1954 and 1955 he found convincing evidence of the early, formative stage of the Indus civilisation, and Kot Diji became the type site of the culture now called Kot Dijian; the Pakistan Department of Archaeology excavated again in 1955 and 1957. Above the ruins, on the ridge of a steep and narrow hill at the foot of the Rohri Hills, stands Kot Diji Fort, built around 1790 by Mir Suhrab, the Talpur ruler of Upper Sindh, who reigned from 1783 to 1830. The fort is well preserved, and a walk along its walls looks out over the plain where one of the oldest towns on the Indus grew.