A rare white marble cylinder seal from Jiroft. A brand new paper by Massimo Vidale and Dennys Frenez, Indus Components in the Iconography of a White Marble Cylinder Seal from Konar Sandal South (Kerman, Iran) provides a detailed analysis of this seal found at the recently discovered site of Jiroft . Well used, and apparently worn at the wrist, it testifies to the multiple cultural and trade connections between the Indus civilization and its western neighbors. It also suggests many more discoveries and insights into Indus civilization will come from material found at and connected to Jiroft.

Read Massimo Vidale's paper Indus Components in the Iconography of a White Marble Cylinder Seal from Konar Sandal South (Kerman, Iran).

The first part of the article summarizes what we know about the Jiroft civilization so far, its apparent origins in the late 5th millennium BCE, how it flourished at the height of the Indus civilization, and the tantalizing facts about connections between the two. Could it have been the ancient nation and state of Marhashi/Parahshum about which so little is known but which would have been at the cross-roads of so many cultures? What could have been the function of these so-called whorl seals, only found so far here, at Mohenjo-daro, Allahdino and Kalibangan?

Cylinder seal photograph courtesy of Halil Rud Archaeological Project. Paper first published in April 2015 in South Asian Studies.