It’s not an exaggeration. If it has been nearly a 100 years since the first diggings in Mohenjo-daro in 1921-22 unveiled a new Bronze Age Civilisation, it has been over 50 years since Jansen got “married” to this sophisticated riddle of a city that left behind many questions when it vanished without a trace in 1900 BC.

He was 23 when he boarded a train from Peshawar to Sukkur, arrived at Dokri station at 3am, rested in the retiring room whose guestbook bore handwritten comments of famous previous travellers including British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, and travelled 10km on a tonga to Mohenjo-daro. “I’ve never forgotten the first view of the stupa in the morning light,” says Jansen, who spent ten winters in Sindh’s tents as director of German Research Project on Mohenjo-daro working with an international team of researchers.