A detailed look at the unicorn icon on Indus objects, incorporating the latest findings, even incomplete ones like the unicorn figurines shown from Ganweriwala. >
"Talcose stone was used primarily to make beads, seals and tokens, but also for inlay pieces, small figurines and sculptures. In contrast to faience, massive talc was not commonly used to produce either small vessels or bangles. Massive talc was also sometimes glazed, particularly the beads, usuall… >
The author describes how engravings on Harappan stamp seals allow the identification of particular artisans in the past and explains how 3D optical microscopy can be used on these engravings to reconstruct how past production events were undertaken by different individual carvers. >
A technical paper which rewards the follower with valuable insights and serves, on a platter as it were, some complex puzzles in Indus iconography for further cogitation to the reader. >
A very interesting and informative article that starts bringing the adjacent ancient state of Dilmun on the Arabian Gulf (many of the finds have been in present day Bahrain) to light, and what must have been a very rich trade and cultural relationship with ancient Indus cities. >
A superb, thought-provoking paper by one of the most imaginative and interesting of ancient Indus archaeologists, able to reconcile the bigger picture with data and suppositions that often fit together very nicely. They certainly do in this paper. >
A proof of this upcoming survey article by the dean of Indus script scholarship, Asko Parpola, is now available on Academia.edu; it will be published in the highly anticipated Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World (Cambridge, 2018). >
The writer, who teaches at CNRS/Université Paris-Saclay in France, has come up with a paper rich in historical and epigraphical associations that complexify and simplify thinking about one of the most important signs on Indus seals, "nearly ten percent of all textual matter." >
Steatite (soapstone) artifacts have been found at nearly every excavated Harappan period (2600-1900 BC) site and were the primary element used to make seals. >
The Indus civilization is in so many ways a puzzle wrapped in another puzzle. One of the most challenging with respect to seals are the terracotta seals of the adjacent and contemporaneous Ahar Banas culture. >
