Proto-Elamite Writing in Iran
Early writing or sign systems were fragile. They could disappear leaving seemingly little trace in the systems that followed. This is true of the ancient Indus sign system. It is also true of the proto-Elamite one.
352 peer-reviewed articles from leading journals about the latest discoveries about the ancient Indus civilization, its antecedents and contemporaries in the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia, during the Bronze Age 3500-1700 BCE by the world's ancient Indus archaeologists and scholars.
Counter-intuitive influence of Himalayan river morphodynamics on Indus Civilisation urban settlements
This is a really important article in that it shows how modern scientific tools and techniques can be used to cast surprising light on the assumptions and conclusions [myths?] that are often drawn from the limited set of evidence archaeologists have to work with.
Artifact Reuse and Mixed Archaeological Contexts in Chatrikhera, Rajasthan
"Studying the reuse and recycling of artifacts in contemporary contexts aids in the understanding of such actions in the past," write the authors (p. 486), who provide ample evidence that this is the case and offer another lens through which one can interrogate archaeological findings
On the Development of Indus Technical Virtuosity and Its Relation to Social Structure
This paper focusses on "the distinctive Indus characteristic of inventing and diffusing elaborated techniques for the production of small, valuable objects, especially ornaments."
Early Villages from Baluchistan to Western Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat
There are not many comprehensive summaries of the development of agriculture in the western subcontinent. This 50 page piece from the book History of Ancient India II: Protohistoric Foundations (2014) is a welcome exception and explores the development of early agricultural villages from Balochistan to Gujarat and their role in the rise of the Harappan Civilization.
The Story of an Ancient Dock: Lothal in the History of the Indian Ocean
Shereen Ratnagar writes with a crystalline, no-nonsense intelligence about Lothal and its famous "dockyard" in a way that both uplifts and contextualizes this strange feature of a relatively small Harappan site.
Inscribed Unicorn Seals from Bagasra, Gujarat: A Comparative Analysis of Morphology, Carving Styles, and Distribution Patterns
The substantial article examines seven inscribed unicorn steatite seals from the Indus site of Bagasra (Gola Dhoro), in Gujarat. These seals are important for understanding the craft industry of the Indus Civilization.
Beas Landscape and Settlement Survey: Harappan Sites at Dunyapur/Lodhran – Punjab, Pakistan
Often archaeology is all about digging deep, trying to get to the bottom layers on a site, intensively recording depths and detail. Sometimes it is about casting a wider net, in this case a larger area near an old bed of the Beas River in Punjab.
Domestic food practice and vessel-use at Salūt-ST1, central Oman, during the Umm an-Nar period
A Sherlock Holmes-style investigation into over four thousand year old pots to determine, as best as modern lipid residue analysis allows, the foodstuffs that they once held to draw a bigger and better picture of food practices on the Arabian Gulf during the so-called Umm an-Nar period (ca. 2700-2000 BCE). Many of these pots were imported ancient Indus Black-Slipped Jars.
Lithic Blade Implements and their Role in the Harappan Chalcolithic Cultural Development in Gujarat
Lithic (stone) tools were the machine tools of the Bronze Age. This very well-written article shows how "the study of stylistic difference and technological continuities and discontinuities observed in lithic assemblages at ancient sites can provide important new information regarding the spread and development of Harappan Civilization as well as about other regional Chalcolithic cultures."
Markers and agencies of anisotropy in the Indus sign system
"This paper reports a broad range of new observations about sign behaviour in relation to and independently of animal behaviour on Indus seal-impressions," writes the author.
The Harappan ‘Veneer’ and the Forging of Urban Identity
This thought-provoking paper explores the widespread similarity and standardization in material culture across the Indus Valley Civilization, termed by others as the ‘Harappan Veneer’.
Who Were the ‘Massacre Victims’ at Mohenjo-daro? A Craniometric Investigation
This 40 page paper presents an in-depth analysis aiming to elucidate the biological affiliations of individuals found in atypical burial contexts at Mohenjo-daro through craniometric studies.
Archaeological Field Research in Pakistan since Independence: An overview
This 1990 article from the Deccan College Bulletin's Memorial volume for H.D. Sankalia, an eminent Indian archaeologist, is a summary in one place of the archaeological work done in Pakistan after 1947. Much of this is relevant to wider than national boundaries.
Holocene people and sea-level changes along the northern coast of the Arabian Sea (Pakistan)
This paper develops a key theme relating to the origins of the ancient Indus civilization – the very different geographical reality in the Indus delta and the Arabian coast in the millennia preceding its rise.
The Origins of the Indus Civilization
As Dr. Rafique Mughal leads the first major excavation at the site of Ganweriwala in the Cholistan desert – an exceptionally exciting development in ancient Indus archaeology – it is well worth reviewing his earlier papers, many of which were published in Pakistani archaeological journals forty or more years ago.
Fish Symbolism in Indus Valley Epigraphy and Protohistoric Accounts
The writer, who teaches at CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay in France, has come up with a paper rich in historical and epigraphical associations that complexify and simplify thinking about one of the most important signs on Indus seals, "nearly ten percent of all textual matter."
The Short-Horned Bull on the Indus Seals: a Symbol of the Families in the Western Trade?
A superb, thought-provoking paper by one of the most imaginative and interesting of ancient Indus archaeologists, able to reconcile the bigger picture with data and suppositions that often fit together very nicely. They certainly do in this paper.
The Amri Chalcolithic Phase in Sindh (Pakistan): What We know and What We Should Know
Very little is known about the so-called "Amri Phase," as this author refers to an apparently pre-Indus civilization site in Sindh that dates to the 4th millennium BCE.
Animal movement on the hoof and on the cart and its implications for understanding exchange within the Indus Civilisation
It seems to be an adage around the ancient Indus research that solving one mystery simply surfaces another. This is the case with this paper. It takes on the question of ground – land – transportation in ancient Indus times only to find that larger answers around transport remain fuzzy.
Semantic scope of Indus inscriptions comprising taxation, trade and craft licensing, commodity control and access control: archaeological and script-internal evidence
The author brings together a great deal of information to argue that "inscribed stamp-seals were primarily used for enforcing certain rules involving taxation, trade/craft control, commodity control and access control," and in relating stamp seals and tablets, that "such tablets were possibly trade/craft/commodity-specific licenses issued to tax-collectors, traders, and artisans," (p. 1).
Indus Valley: Early Commercial Connections with Central and Western Asia
A must-read paper for those fascinated by the extensive trade networks that the ancient Indus civilization was integrated with. Infused with the latest research from the many regions in question, it summarizes and delves into the evidence of people, texts, animals, minerals and plants to seals and weights, pottery, stone, metal and ivory objects, statues, games and toys and more.
Peaceful Harappans? Reviewing the evidence for the absence of warfare in the Indus Civilisation of north-west India and Pakistan (c. 2500-1900 BC)
Whether or not the ancient Indus civilization was peaceful or not has intrigued a number of scholars and led to books like Jane McIntosh's A Peaceful Realm (2001). The apparent lack of weaponry and depictions of warfare, possibly ideas on the supposed egalitarianism of Indus civilization have led to a preponderance of this hypothesis.
Lakheen-Jo-Daro, an Indus Civilization Settlement at Sukkur in Upper Sindh (Pakistan): A Scrap Copper Hoard and Human Figurine from a Dated Context
We know so little about so many Indus sites, including ones that are buried beneath modern cities and may never be discovered. One such potentially large settlement is Lakheen-Jo-Daro, sometimes also called Lakhan Jo Daro, bits of which have been found in and around the modern city of Sukkur, Sindh, on the Indus River, just across the monumental chert deposits in the Rohri Hills.
Craniofacial reconstruction of the Indus valley civilization individuals found at 4500-year-old Rakhigarhi cemetery
The first cranio-facial reconstructions of two bodies found in an Indus-era cemetery in Rakigarhi were published not too long ago; both subjects, known as 7.2 A1 BR02 and 7.2 A2 BR36 are shown above.
Gonur Depe - City of Kings and Gods, and the Capital of Margush Country (Modern Turkmenistan)
One of the most interesting trends to follow around ancient Indus studies is the increasing amount of research and knowledge of neighboring cultures and civilizations in time and place: the ancient Arabian Gulf, Mesopotamia, Central Asia (not to mention South and East India, even Southeast Asia).
Painted Indus Script on Ceramics and Steatite: New Insights on Indus Script Calligraphy and Function
A careful look at one of the least studied forms of Indus writing. "The painting of script on pottery. Painting script requires a specially prepared brush that could have been the same as that used for decorating pottery, but would have been selected to have the appropriate size and shape for the size of the script being painted."
Recurring summer and winter droughts from 4.2-3.97 thousand years ago in north India
This highly technical and scientific paper brings together all the recent evidence from Dharamjali Cave in the Himalayas over a 230 year period around 2000 BCE, when the ancient Indus civilization was in decline, to show "that repeated intensely dry periods spanned multiple generations. The record highlights the deficits in winter and summer rainfall during the urban phase of the Indus Civilization, which prompted adaptation through flexible, self- reliant, and drought-resistant agricultural strategies."
An Indus Scale
Chapter 5 from Sudeshna Guha's bestselling A History of India Through 75 Objects (2022), includes a little-known object described as a ‘measure of length’ by Ernest Mackay.
Forgotten Islands of the Past: The Archaeology of the Northern Coast of the Arabian Sea
The author, who has been working in the larger region for decades exploring the long history of human habitation and industry going back tens of thousands of years, turns his attention to the geographic changes in the Indus delta region through the Bronze Age and what recent work shows us were the curious "islands" that once existed in lower Sindh (Dholavira, in Gujarat, is another example of such a later settlement).