were mere pottery jars placed at the mouth of
pits were brick-built and even had steps leading inside, allowing access for
cleaning.
    A point that may be of some interest is that there is no system of street
drainage at Kalibangan, though soakage jars were occasionally placed outside
to hold water from the house drains of wood or brick. In view of this, it is
tempting to link the Harappan system of drainage with the general material
standard of the city. Kalibangan, if its uniformly mudbrick-built houses and
comparative paucity of finds are any indication, seems to be a poorer city
than Lothal or Mohenjodaro.
Provision for Wells
A large number of burnt brick-built wells seem to have been another organic
feature of Harappan civic planning. It is from Mohenjodaro that one gets the
most extensive evidence. It must have been serviced by at least 700 wells,
with an average frequency of one in every third house. The inside diameter of
the wells varied between 2 ft and 7 ft 6 ins, but the usual size is 2 ft 2 ins.
Usually round, the wells were sometimes elliptical. They were made of
specially designed, wedge-shaped bricks. In most cases they lay within the
house, but occasionally, they were placed between two houses. The latter was
probably intended for public use. The wells occur at other sites also but they
are rare in the eastern mound of Kalibangan. Needless to say, a water supply
network on this scale within the actual city itself, was unheard of at this
period. Contemporary Egyptians and Mesopotamians, for instance, had to
fetch water manually, bucket-by-bucket, from the river and then store it in
tanks at home in the city.
Uniformity of House Construction
The Harappan houses also impress us first with their general uniformity.
Wood must have been used extensively, along with brick; at Mohenjodaro,
considerable evidence was found for the combined use of baked brick and
wooden architecture. Remains of staircases, usually steep and narrow,
suggest in some cases, an upper storey.
    The roofing was of mud-plastered reed matting, supported by timber. The
plastering was normally of clay.   The mortar used was also clay, though the