Asia

New research reveals that the 4,000-year-old city of Mohenjo-daro defied the 'rules' of history by becoming more equal as it became more successful. For decades, historians have generally agreed that the progress of small villages as they evolved into cities came at the price of widening inequality. A small group of leaders, kings and priests, would inevitably seize control of the wealth and the gap between rich and poor would grow. However, a new study at the University of York delves into the archaeology of Mohenjo-daro, the Indus civilization's largest city, and shows the opposite was true. By analyzing house sizes across the ancient city, researchers found that Mohenjo-daro was not only more equal than its neighbors in Mesopotamia and