Ancient Indus Civilization Blog

"The cylinder seals of Mesopotamia constitute her most original art," wrote the scholar Henri Frankfort, and much the same has been said about the very different square stamp seals used by the ancient Indus civilization. Cylinder seals are "small, barrel-shaped stone object[s] with a hole down the center, rolled on clay when soft to indicate ownership or to authenticate a document . . . used chiefly in Mesopotamia from the late 4th to the 1st millennium BCE." Many of the handful of cylinder seals found at ancient Indus sites or Mesopotamian ones with Indus themes are collected below. 1. I… >

"The favorite toy seems to have been a little pottery cart, to judge from the number of specimens, usually in a damaged condition, which have been found. These miniature carts are practically . . .." >

"The economy of these people must have relied largely on agriculture. Although no cereals were found in the course of excavating the discovery of a ploughed field [1], situated to the south-east of the settlement outside the town-hall, is highly significant." >

John Marshall could hardly believe his eyes when this red jasper statuette was found by M.S. Vats at Harappa: ". . . it seemed so completely to upset all established ideas about early art. Modelling such as this was unknown to the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece, and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely have been made." >

"For the astounding remains of Mohenjo Daro, discovered in 1922 and excavated during the following years, are for the most part in a state of utter disintegration and decay and are rapidly approaching the point of total destruction." >

Exciting news the same week of ancient Indus finds in Botad village in Sarashtra 50 miles from Lothal, including beads and the evidence of industry. And at the giant site of Rakigarhi in Hisar, 15 more skeletons were found in Mound 7. Last year was exciting for its find of 5 skeletons, all of which together should enable DNA and other analysis. >

"The humped bull (Bos indicus) has a long and special association with India. Its association with Siva, its all pervading holiness and its basic usefulness in agriculture and commerce for than four millennia are too well known to need description. Its peculiar importance extends back to prehistoric times." >

However incredible this may seem, there now seems to be good genetic and material evidence that sailors from India arrived in Australia from either Sindh or South India at the height of the ancient Indus civilization. They brought with them some technologies and a type of dog that forever changed Aborigine culture. As principal scientist Irina Pulgach at the Max Planck Institute writes, "Their findings suggest substantial gene flow from India to Australia 4,230 years ago. i.e. during the Holocene and well before European contact. Interestingly this date also coincides with many changes in th… >

"Thus the main motifs of the seal tablets emphasize two cultural phenomena. The first is that there was a rich mythopetic basis for the use of these motifs. The second is that the main motifs emphasize pan-settlement relationships, i.e. something held in common by the society at large, namely, the sodality to which the individual belonged. In contrast, we can assume that the Harappan writing identifies the indivudual who bears the seal tablet since the sign order is rarely duplicated. Here then is a clue to the meaning of the writing as it appears on seal tablets. With high probability it des… >

"Bone and ivory counters with circles and lines, carved in ways that do not correspond to dice, may have been used for predicting the future," writes Mark Kenoyer about these objects in Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (p. 120). The counter on the right has a duck ornament at one end, the counter on the left has a double duck ornament on the end. The larger one may be a stylized figurine with triple circle motifs incised on both faces. What do you think these objects were used for? >

"I stood on a mound of Mohenjo-daro in the Indus valley in the northwest of India," wrote Jawaharlal Nehru in The Discovery of India (1946), "and all around me lay the houses and streets of this ancient city that is said to have existed over five thousand years ago . . ." >

An 8 year effort that began on Sept. 13, 2008 to publish quality ancient Indus civilization content on Facebook reaches a milestone. >

"The discovery of a rich hoard of Harappan jewelry from the village of Mandi (29-26 degrees 10' North, 77 degrees 34-35'E) in Muzzaffarnagar district, western Uttar Pradesh, has surprised the archaeological world for several reasons. First, Mandi is located to the east of the Yamuna river, and this area has been considered peripheral to the main distribution area of the Harappan civilization." >

"With the exception of First Street, the most impressive thoroughfare in the DK Area, Southern Portion," writes the early excavator of Mohenjo-daro, Ernest J.H. Mackay, "is unquestionably Low Lane which runs practically parallel with it. This is chiefly because the depth to which it has been excavated and its narrow width increase the apparent height of the houses on either side. But the street has preserved its character and identity from the Intermediate III (XVI., 2.) onwards to the Late I Phase (Pl. XX). The facades of most of the houses as far as the northern limit of Block 6 ar… >

S.K. Rao wrotes: "It is relevant to record here a local tradition regarding Lothal, which is considered a sacred place for Vanuvatimata, the sea-goddess who is represented by stones placed in a small enclosure of bricks built in the south-east corner of the mound." >