On a recent visit to Oxford, I used my iPhone to take a closer look at a diverse set of ancient Indus objects, some of them acquired after colonial times, in one of the world's great university museums.

Contained in Room 12, Early India, the collection highlights include a unique tablet (Image 6, above), only one side of which is visible to the visitor (see all three sides). There is also a gorgeous unicorn seal and sealing, also better viewed here. The rest of the objects are not available online though, and are shown here with minor corrections to the Ashmolean's captions below(carnelian.

There are also two Nal pots, from ancient Balochistan, discovered during colonial times around the time the first glimpses of the ancient Indus civilization were becoming apparent.

The Ashmolean is best known for its Near Eastern and Mesopotamian materials – including a wide variety of cuneiform tablets – which fill a number of the museum's galleries. Many of them were brought to Oxford during colonial times (indeed it was an Oxford Professor who helped deduce the ancient Indus civilization's antiquity). One display cabinet in Room 19, the Ancient Middle East, has a number of necklaces which seem very Indus-like; certainly some of the materials, like the carnelian, would have come from Gujarat and probably were traded between ancient Indus and Mesopotamian merchants (for a spectacular example, see Queen Puabi's Burial Shroud). The final images above show these assembled pieces and caption. There are also some counters or game pieces which look remarkably similar to ancient Indus ones. Finally, there is an Indus seal and sealing found in ancient Mesopotamia, one of the few such examples on display anywhere.

-- Omar Khan, July 2024

Start Ashmolean Museum captions

The Indus Civilization, 2500-1750 BC

Widespread finds of stone artefacts suggest that humans have occupied the Indian subcontinent for at least a million years, first as hunter-gatherers and later as farmers. India's first great urban civilization, contemporary with those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, flourished for several centuries around the Indus Valley region. This ancient civilization was first systematically explored by archaeologists in the 1920s. Its best known excavated sites are Mohenjo-daro and Harappa, xtensive and well-planned cities built of brick. Many aspects of the Indus culture remain mysterious. Its written documents, often in the form of small stone seals, are few and brief. The Indus script still remains undeciphered today.

1. Small terracotta jars or vessels, Indus Valley, 2500-1900 BC.
Gift of E.A.A. Joseph, EAX 7287-7289, gift of Revered C. King, E.A. 1974.1

2. Terracotta ball. Indus Valley, 2500-1900 BC. Balls of this kind may have been used for games like children's marbles.
EACH. 08

3a. Terracotta die. Mohenjo-daro, Sind, 2500-1900 BC. Gaming with dice has always been popular in India. This Indus cubical die is unusual in that its opposite sides add up to seven as in modern dice.
Gift of Lady Harrison, EAMD.025

3b. Terracotta bird whistle, Indus Valley, 2500-1900 BC. Now missing its head, this hollow bird vesel may have been used as a whistle.
EACH.07

4. Cubical weights, Mohenjo-daro Sind, 2500-1900 BC. Chert stone. Sets of graduated weights are typical Indus artefacts, found over a wide area.
EA MD.07-.09

5. Two terracotta bulls or oxen, Chanhu-daro, Sind, 2500-2300 BC. The larger animal has holes drilled at the neck, suggesting it was fitted to a model cart.
EACH.01, EACH.04

6. Terracotta triangular prism sealing, Mohenjo-daro, Sind, about 2000 BC. This three-sided sealing depicts a male cult figure seated in a yogic posture on a throne; a bull-like animal; and five characters in the Indus script.
EAMD.013

7. Square seal, Harappa, Sind [sic Punjab], about 2000 BC. Glazed steatite. Indus seals were commonly used to mark bundles of trade goods. This well-known type shows a one-horned bovine animal before a ritual offering stand, with characters in the undeciphered Indus script.
EA2009.6

8-9. Two Nal polychrome pots, Baluchistan, 2000-3000 BC. Nal and other sites in Baluchistan were important pre-Harappan pottery centres.
AN 1945. 4-5

Ancient Mesopotamia

10.-12. Precious Minerals. Carnelian (from Pakistan/northwest India [sic carnelian is usually fro Gujarat]) and lapis lazuli (from northeast Afghanistan) were prized stones for making beads. Lumps of stone were carried west overland and by boat.
About 2500-2000 BCE

13. Carnelian (from Pakistan/northwest India [sic see above] and lapis lazuli (from northeast Afghanistan) were prized stones for making beads. Lumps of stone were carried west overland and by boat. About 2500-2000 BC.

14. Cosmopolitan jewellery. The grave contained jewellery made from valuable materials, several of which were expensive imports. The bead necklace contains sheet gold and rock-crystal beads (probably from Iran), carnelain (from Pakistan [sic], and lapis lazuli (from Afghanistan). The large bead is made of onyx. The bracelet and perforated medallion are silver, and the pin and axe-head are copper.

15. Counters. Instead of Writing things down, officials sometimes used small clay tokens to keep track of their calculations. Each represented the number, and possibly the type, of goods being counted. These are made of stone which is unusual, but they may have done the same job – or they may have been pieces from a game.

16. Square seals. Craftspeople and traders brought their traditions with them. The square stamp seal and clay imprint of another seal were excavated in southern Iraq. Their shape and design are not Mesopotamian, however, but are typical of seals used in the Indus civilization of Pakistan and northwest India. About 2000 BCE.

End Ashmolean Museum captions

17. Exterior, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, July 2024.