Case file No. 06 · The ancient past and faith
The Indus city of Mohenjo-daro was destroyed about 4,000 years ago by a nuclear explosion. Its skeletons are radioactive and the ground contains glass fused by heat.
No evidence for an explosion. The city declined slowly.
Excavators found no crater, no explosion layer and no radioactive remains. Only a few dozen skeletons were found, in different layers and none on the street surface at one time. The Indus cities declined as rivers and climate changed.
The nuclear-war story is told in a 1979 book by Davenport and Vincenti [5] and repeated in many documentaries. Mohenjo-daro was a large city of the Indus civilization, occupied from about 2500 BCE and abandoned gradually by about 1900 BCE [2][3]. Excavators have found no crater, no blast damage pattern and no published measurement of radioactivity. Fewer than fifty skeletons were found at the site, and not in one layer, so there was no single sudden mass death [1][2]. Geological work shows that the rivers around the Indus cities shifted and that rainfall fell, which fits a slow decline [4].
Claims that supporters often repeat and that we looked for but could not confirm in a reliable source.
In 1964 the archaeologist George Dales re-examined the human remains found at Mohenjo-daro. He found that the roughly three dozen sets of remains came from different periods, separated by decades or even centuries, with no sign of weapons or battle, so there was no mass death in a single moment. The popular story of a city massacred in its streets came from poor reading of early reports [1].
Geological studies of the Indus plain show that the rivers the cities relied on shifted course and that monsoon rainfall weakened over centuries. Farming became harder and people moved toward better-watered regions [4]. Excavations show a decline over generations, with poorer building and less trade [2][3].
A nuclear blast on the ground leaves a crater or a wide area of fused ground, and traces of long-lived radioactive isotopes that stay measurable for thousands of years. Excavators at Mohenjo-daro report ordinary mud-brick ruins, with no crater and no such trace [2].
Indus craftspeople made pottery, bricks and faience in kilns that reached high temperatures. Slag, fused bricks and overfired pottery are normal products of such kilns, and are found in many ancient cities [2].
Archaeologists still discuss exactly why the Indus cities declined, how much was climate and how much was social change, and where the people went [3][4]. The Indus script is still undeciphered.
Be careful with claims such as “radioactive skeletons” when they cite no laboratory or paper. Ask who measured it, with what instrument, and where the results are published.
15 November 2026: First publication. Verdict: No evidence.