Ancient Indus Civilization Blog

"The earliest representation of a unicorn is found on seals and sealings from sites in the northern Indus region, dated to c. 2600 BCE," writes Jonathan Mark Kenoyer. "This motif is not reported from any other contemporaneous civilization and appears to be unique to the Indus region. The unicorn motif continued to be used throughout the greater Indus region for over 700 years and disappeared along with the Indus script and other diagnostic elements of Indus ideology and bureaucracy c. 1900 BCE (Kenoyer 1998; Possehl 2002). The unicorn motif found on seals and other forms of Indus iconography … >

The film Mohenjo Daro opens in the remote village of Amri, where Sarman (Hrithik Roshan) and his friends wrestle a large crocodile in a riverine gorge. Amri is shown as a remote farming village from where the villagers travel to Mohenjodaro as it offers a bigger market for their wares. In this post we shine a light on the archaeological evidence from the ancient site of Amri, which lies on the western bank of the Indus, about 160 km south of Mohenjodaro. The archaeological importance of Amri was demonstrated in 1929 by the excavations of N.G.Majumdar, who discovered there, for the first t… >

The seal that the publicity emblem (above) for the film Mohenjo Daro is actually based on (below) offers the opportunity to look at one of the most unresolved issues in ancient Indus studies: what was the so-called one-horned unicorn, and where did it come from? Drs. Parpola and Kenoyer have two different perspectives. Asko Parpola writes "One broken round Indus seal from Mohenjodaro, M-417 (below), shows animal foreparts (protomes) arranged in a whorl. The animals preserved include the tiger, the Indian bison, the 'unicorn' bull, and the "'unicorn' with two zebu-like "horns". The oc… >

A wide-ranging interview with one of our ancient Indus scholars, author and archaeologist Shereen Ratnagar. >

"On another seal, No. 510 [in Mackay], a buffalo appears to have attacked a number of people who are lying on the ground around him in every conceivable attitude," writes the excavator Ernest Mackay. "It is undoubtedly the wild rather than the domesticated species that is represented in on this seal, an altogether finer animal which stands 16 to 16.5 hands high at the shoulder. Unlike the domesticated variety, it is very truculent and when wounded is very savage; it was, therefore, a fitting vahana or vehicle for Yama, the god of death. "The little drama depicted on this seal may … >

Will the movie Mohenjo Daro open the floodgates of popular interest in the ancient Indus civilization? What do you think? Twenty-one years into running Harappa.com, the release of Mohenjo Daro is a landmark for interest in the subject (traffic in the last few days has doubled to five thousand people a day). >

1. A clay sealing from the Harappa Phase levels (2600-1900 BCE) that may have come from a large bundle 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 has the impression of two different seals. 2. A clay sealing from the Harappa Phase levels (2600-1900 BCE) that may have come from a large bundle 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 has the impression of two different seals. >

Mohenjo-daro has been called the "city of wells." Mark Kenoyer writes: "On the basis of the number of wells found in the excavated areas, Michael Jansen has calculated that the city may have had over 700 wells. In contrast Harappa may have had as few as 30, since only 8 wells have been discovered in the areas excavated so far. The difference between these two cities may be that Mohenjo-daro had less winter rain and may have been situated far away from the Indus river. At Harappa a large depression in the center of the city may represent a large tank or reservoir accessible to the inhabitants … >

An interesting story in light of all the speculation about water issues at the same time, roughly 1900 BCE, in the ancient Indus valley. There was possibly a trading relationship with ancient China. Water, too little or too much, must have been a factor in the rise and fall of Bronze Age civilizations. >

A revealing story about Rakigarhi highlights how, like in the case of Mohenjo-daro, the challenges of preserving ancient Indus cities even after they are discovered, remain enormous. >

Discarded ancient Indus sherds, after archaeologists have sifted through them and cleaned them. This pottery debris from excavations at Harappa covers hundreds - if not a thousand – years of habitation, far longer a period than say modern times. One can imagine each sherd having its own story, connected to another sherd now far away in the pile, the centuries layered upon each other in the sunlight. 1 and 2. Sorted and discarded pottery sherds from continuing excavations at Harappa since 1985. 3. Earth and debris excavated from the houses and streets of DK-I area was dumped directly onto … >

A nice piece on students on replicating Harappan techniques in Wisconsin in 2016 with Mark Kenoyer shows how much we have to learn about the complexity of ancient manufacturing. >

"Astronomy, including the use of a star calendar, played an important role in ancient Mesopotamia, and deeply influenced its religion: all the main gods were symbolized by particular stars or planets. In West Asia, one or two "star" symbols placed near the head distinguished divinities in pictorial representations. The practice seems to have been borrowed by the Indus civilization, for a seal from Mohenjo-daro depicts an Indus deity with a star on either side of his head enclosed by a pair of curved horns. (Asko Parpola, The Roots of Hinduism, p. 272). Elsewhere he writes: "Indus signs (in… >

Lots if interesting stuff here, including "It had been widely assumed that these first farmers were from a single, genetically homogeneous population." >

In connection with the recent post about Indus discoveries in Oman, we note that the archaeologist who discovered the first definitive evidence of Bronze Age trade between Balochistan and the Gulf, Beatrice de Cardi, just died at the age of 102. She worked with Sir Mortimer Wheeler who lent her "his foreman, Sadar Din, a minor official of the Pakistani Archaeological Department who, despite being illiterate, had an extraordinarily retentive memory for archaeological sites and taught her what to look for. Together they located some 47 archaeological sites . . .." >