Ancient Indus Civilization Blog

Seated male sculpture from Mohenjo-daro with shell inlay still remaining in one eye. The braided or combed hair lays back straight and a plain fillet or ribbon encircles the head and falls down the back of the neck. Two strands of a ribbon or braided hair hang over the shoulder. The stylized ear is a simple cup shape with a hole in the center. The upper lip is shaved and a short combed beard covers the lower jaw. The forward projecting head and large lips may reflect a specific personality or may be due to the particular style of carving. See also Men of Harappa and Ancient Indus Men's Hai… >

Richard H. Meadow at Harvard wrote in response to a question about whether the so-called unicorn seal depicts a mythical animal or a composite: "Some believe the one, some the other. There is no evidence for any unicorn - one horned beast - from the faunal record. A third belief is that it was a wild ox with the horns shown in profile. That is possible, although if so it is idealized and perhaps a conventional depiction. I go for either the depiction being of a mythical animal or of an ox with head in profile produced according to a particular convention - not necessarily an either/or interpr… >

The corbelled arch drain from the great bath in Mohenjo-daro is large enough to walk into. It has a small ledge on either side of the actual drain channel. See also Mohenjo-daro: City of Wells. >

One of only eight wells, public and private, that have thus far been discovered at Harappa. Most of the water used by the population probably came from the adjacent Ravi River. The curved wall was probably a large drain used during the latter stages of ancient Harappa, around 2,000 B.C.E. See also Mohenjo-daro: City of Wells. >

A steatite unicorn seal from Harappa with Indus script and dating to around 2450-2200 BCE. When pressed into clay the impression will be reversed. Since the Indus script may have been read from right to left, the last two signs visible at the top right hand edge of the seal would in fact be the last two signs of the inscription. See also Four Unicorns and A Unicorn Seal. >

Late Harappan Period dish or lid with perforation at edge for hanging or attaching to large jar. It shows a Blackbuck antelope with trefoil design made of combined circle-and-dot motifs, possibly representing stars. It is associated with burial pottery of the Cemetery H period, dating after 1900 BCE. See also Another Skeleton from Harappa. >

Two gold beads originally part of the same ornament found in Harappa in 2000. Thin gold foil was placed over the outside of a sandy core around a copper tube. For more information about gold and Indus culture, read Jonathan Mark Kenoyer's article Wealth and Socioeconomic Hierarchies of the Indus Valley Civilizations. For more golden jewelry, see also Composite Tubular Gold Bead and Ornaments and Jewelry. >

The "great bath" is without doubt the earliest public water tank in the ancient world. The tank itself measures approximately 12 meters north-south and 7 meters wide, with a maximum depth of 2.4 meters. Two wide staircases lead down into the tank from the north and south and small sockets at the edges of the stairs are thought to have held wooden planks or treads. At the foot of the stairs is a small ledge with a brick edging that extends the entire width of the pool. People coming down the stairs could move along this ledge without actually stepping into the pool itself. The floor of the … >

Further to the discussion of chimeras, among the first unicorn seals found by John Marshall at Mohenjo-daro in the 1920's was this one. He wrote: "The animal most often represented on the seals is the apparently single-horned beast ... There is a possibility, I think, that the artist intended to represent one horn behind the other. In other animals, however, the two horns are shown quite distinctly. In some respects the body of this beast, which is always a male, resembles that of an antelope of heavy build, such as the eland or oryx, and in others that of an ox. The long tuffed tail may belo… >

Fully and partially glazed faience tablets and other fired objects could be examined after the fire had cooled and the canister opened during experimental firings at the University of Madison, Wisconsin. The steatite molds were also included in the canister to see how they would be affected by this type of firing. For more on this experiment, see Reconstruction of Tablet Manufacture and Manufacturing Faience Tablets. >

Three clay sealings from the Harappa Phase levels (2600-1900 BCE) that may have come from large bundles of goods shipped to the site from a distant region. The clay does not appear to be the same type of clay as found near Harappa and each sealing has the impression of two different seals. >

From the school of careful excavations: a Kot Diji phase (2800-2600 BCE) coiled basketry impression unearthed at Harappa in 2000. See also Kot Diji Phase Kiln >

Terra cotta tokens or tablets from Harappa. In Area G, south of the gateway on Mound ET, excavators found a concentration of as many as 31 identical cylindrical terracotta tablets (top center), but it is not known what they could have been used for. Concentrations of tablets recovered through recent excavations at Harappa indicate that these tablets become popular during the late part of Period 3B (2450 B.C.E.) and continue on into the final phase of the Harappan occupation, Period 3C (2200 to 1900 B.C.E.). >

Nude male figurine or deity from Mohenjo-daro. Note the wide, spreading beard. He is wearing a broken headdress that may have had two curving horns. For additional information on the representation of masculinity, see also Men of Harappa A and Men of Harappa B. For more male and female figurines, see also Embodying Indus Life: Terra Cotta Figurines. >

Many large storage jars of the (Period 3) Harappa Phase (2600-1900 BCE) have writing inscribed along the upper portion of the vessel. This inscription includes a figure of a man with the bow and arrow sign in each hand. It is impossible to shoot two bows and arrows at the same time so this is clearly not a pictograph, but rather a combined symbol used as part of a Indus writing system. See also The Evolution of Indus Script. >