[Original 1931 text] "And now we come to two small statuettes which are more surprising even than the masterly engraving of the bull . . . .. When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed to so

These are the five most common terminal signs on the Indus Valley seals according to Iravatham Mahadevan's analysis (1982:316). The first sign (from the left), the most common in the Indus script (10% of all known signs), is read by him as denoting a

Iravatham Mahadevan believes that the terminal sign used here is actually a combination of two signs. The bottom part (figure carrying) denotes a bearer of office.

Photographed between 1922-27 and published in Sir John Marshall, Mohenjodaro and The Indus Civilization (1931).