Shell Conch Spoon: Published in ARASI 1924-25, Plate XXVII (e)
Terracotta Snake: Published in ARASI 1924-25, Plate XXVII (a). Title of Plate XXVII: ‘Harappa: Terracotta and Other Objects’
Field number for the spoon in Vats 1940, Vol. I: Ae 167 (p. 50).
Conch Spoon: Found from area Ae (Mound F), and mentioned by Sahni as a “conch spoon … which might have been for pouring libations to the manes” [ARASI 1924-25, p. 76].
Of the trench and the find Sahni noted: “The next or the lowest stratum reached in this area (Ae) lies at the depth of 8’ below the surface, and is occupied by a very narrow well with a diameter of 2’2”, the steaning wall being only 11” thick. It was cleared to a depth of 8’ and though it has so far yielded no objects of interest, it is now evident that the brick reservoir with its drain which was brought to light near this spot in 1923-24 must have belonged to this well and been used for the storage of water ablutions, etc. The portable antiquities found in this trench included a conch spoon (Plate XXVII, e) …, a tiny corroded copper disc (Ae. 33a) which might have been a coin, a small headless figure (Ae. 6) seated on a chair in the fashion of a Sumerian king and a bone awl or needle (Ae. 253), 5 ½” long.” [ARASI 1924-25, pp. 75-6]
Sahni reported the finds of the terracotta “snake” (Ab 207) in the area of “walls running parallel to each other without any party walls”, of Trench A (e).
“Other objects found in this area were a copper nail extractor; several seals with the usual device of a unicorn and a pictographic inscription; a large copper chisel (Ae 342) measuring 8 ¾” long by 2” wide with a broad cutting edge and a potsherd showing a peacock and a henfacing each other, a part of a quadruped, and a snake (A. 207); a miniature earthen pan of a jeweller’s weighing scale (Ab. 188); part of a steatite undulating ring (Ab. 193) created with a white faience; a pierced vase shaped earthen cage (Ab. 554) with a bird coming out of it, and another perched on the side.” [ARASI 1924-25, p. 77]
- Daya Ram Sahni, ARASI 1924-25, pp. 75-7.
Ab207 is Vats’s report is a painted potsherd, noted from ‘extensions Ab, As, Ad, and Ae in Mound F (p. 23)
“In order to trace some more walls of the two blocks of the Great Granary Mr. Sahni made a few stray extensions about the centre of Trench A both towards Extension Ah, the east and west. … he found from Stratum I an inscribed pointed ivory rod (No. Ab62, PI. XCIX, 643), and in association with Stratum II a cuboid chert weight [footnote 2: size 1.63 x 1.63 x 1.13 in.] (A616), a rectangular cake of red ochre (No. Abl04), a plano-convex rectangular steatite seal (No. Abl30, PL XCII, 269), half of a square faience sealing (No. Ab44, PI. XCV, 394) inscribed with a double square, a tiny rectangular faience sealing (No. Ab473) inscribed on both sides (PL C, 672), a pierced vase-shaped pottery cage (No. Ab554) showing one bird coming out from an aperture and another perched on the side (PL CXX, 22), a pear-shaped, flat bottomed pottery vase with horizontal flutes (No. Ab268, ht. 4 1/2 in., PL LXXI, 17, and PL LXX, 42), and a painted potsherd (No. Ab207), which shows a peacock and a hen facing each other, part of another quadruped, etc. (PL LXVIII, 54).” (p. 37)
Vats mentions the “large spoon of shell” among the finds in A(e) from Daya Ram Sahni’s excavations in Stratum III:
“Large spoon of shell. Size 7 ¼ x 6 ¼ in. No. Ae 167 ; Square H 9/15; Depth 4 ft. b.s.” (p. 50), with a unicorn seal, biconical bead of banded stone, two cubical stone weights, cubicle chert weight, small cone of shell handmade spouted feeding pottery vase and a terracotta cat (pp. 49-50)
NOTE: A shell spoon published in Vats 1940, Vol. II, Plate LXXXII, 4, greatly resembles the conch spoon. This object is from Mound F, ‘eastern extension of the Great Granary’, Stratum II, and listed with 37 other antiquities:
22. Shell spoon. PI. LXXXII, 4. Size 2 3/8 1 13/16 in. No. 156; Square J 8/25 ; Depth 4 ft. 6 in. b.s.” (p. 37)
- Vats, M.S. 1940, Vol. I, pp. 37; 49-50.