All is set for kicking off the three-day international conference on Mohen jo Daro scheduled to be held from February 9 to 11 at Mohen jo Daro, Larkana and scores of foreign delegates have already arrived here.
“The Sindh culture department and the National Fund for Mohen jo Daro (NFM) are hosting the conference,” said Minister Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities Syed Sardar Ali Shah in a statement released on Tuesday.
He said that it was expected that the recommendations of the conference would go a long way in resolving pending issues and helping studies find the right way forward.
He said that the arrangements for the international conference on Mohen jo Daro had been finalised and that it would be a historical event. “The last and only other event of this kind was held in 1973 by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto,” he said.
Shah said that the conference was an effort to bring together scholars from different countries to discuss and deliberate various academic questions pertaining to Mohen jo Daro as well as to propose measures for the conservation of the Indus Valley civilisation site from further deterioration.
Scholars from the US, Japan, Italy, Japan, Spain, France, and Britain, including Ayumu Konasukawa from Japan, Denys Frenz from Italy, Dr Carla and Dr Marco from Spain, Brad Chase and Dr. Richard Meadow from the US have already arrived in Karachi, where they were welcomed by Culture DG Khalid Chachar.
After a brief stay at their hotel, they visited the National Museum and took a keen interest in the exhibitions of artefacts from the Indus Valley and Gandhara civilisations.
The minister further said that the conference would be a unique event wherein the experts will discuss archaeology, ecology, geology, history, regional linkages, technology, and urbanism, in relation to Mohen jo Daro.
Palaeoosteology of the site and other themes, particularly the new emerging content of Middle Eastern linkages to the Indus Valley civilisation, are also expected to be discussed.
Conference Convener Dr Kaleemullah Lashari said that the Indus Valley civilisation had bagged a good amount of academic attention. “There is no doubt that in the institutions where work relevant to South Asia is undertaken have been instrumental in putting in place projects leading to extended studies on the Neolithic and Bronze Age sites throughout the region, spreading over to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and areas in the Persian Gulf,” he said.
He said that the conference will discuss new research, find out means of enlarging the scope of academic studies, forge new collaborations, consider the age old questions of preservation of archaeological ruins exposed to the natural and manmade reasons, and above all, the presentation of the Bronze-age sites.
