Indus Valley seals: tiny objects of mystery

Having enjoyed the new Bollywood epic Mohenjo Daro, I’m devoting this next post to Indus Valley seals: not just because they feature in the film’s plot but because (like the plot) they are quite mystifying. Even the film’s lead actor, Hrithik Roshan, looks beautifully perplexed.

Mohenjo Daro is one of the most important ancient cities so far discovered on the South Asian subcontinent, rivalled only by Harappa which was the first to be found. Both lie in the Indus valley in modern-day Pakistan and have been dated to the 3^rd millennium BC. To put that in context, they were of about the same period as the Minoans in Crete, and pre-dated the reign of Tutankhamun by several centuries.

Although both Harappa and Mohenjo Daro were large and probably wealthy cities, not many of their fine artefacts have survived. Among the most interesting, however, are some tiny pieces of steatite or soapstone, about 4cm square, intricately carved on one side and with a little handle on the back. Historians believe that these were used as seals, perhaps by tradesmen who wanted to mark bundles of goods. The image below from the Metropolitan Museum shows one of these seals (left) and its resulting imprint (right).

Before looking at the images on the seals, it’s worth noting that the symbols along the upper edge are examples of Indus Valley script, which remains undeciphered to this day. In the Internet age, it is humbling to come up against something like this. Until we find a Rosetta stone or an Alan Turing to decode the script, our understanding of the Indus civilizations will remain sadly incomplete.

The images on the seals are equally fascinating. The Met’s is a classic because the animal shown (which is surely a bull or buffalo) has been described by fanciful observers as a unicorn because it has only one horn. I’m not sure anyone truly believes this but it provides good fodder for lengthy academic argument.

Other seals have even more complex imagery. The one below (from the National Museum in Delhi) is famous because some believe that it depicts an early incarnation of the god Shiva, flanked by a rhinoceros, a buffalo, a tiger and an elephant. One of Shiva’s titles was “Lord of the Animals” or “Pashupati”, hence the seal is commonly referred to as the Pashupati seal.

 In the one below (from the Islamabad Museum), a religious ceremony seems to be in progress: in the upper left, a figure stands in a tree while another figure kneels in worship. To the right there seems to be a bull with a human face, while along the bottom is a row of seven women. One suggestion is that they are ancient ancestors of the Matrikas, the Hindu goddesses who always appear in a group of seven.

Some other seals are so strange that they must have been used for purposes other than trade. I can’t imagine how the one below (a horned woman attacking a tiger) would find favour among clients, unless the goods or services were very specific indeed.  Pest control, perhaps?

To be fair, there are some unusual corporate logos still in use today – I’ve never understood how a picture of bees swarming around a dead lion helps to sell Lyle’s Golden Syrup, for example (below). The slogan “Out of the strong came forth sweetness” doesn’t explain much.

But what if the seals’ undeciphered pictograms are actually slogans as well? “Unicorn Cattle Feed – nourish your mythical beast”. The key to the code must surely be found someday, perhaps in a dusty museum archive. Until then, it’s a waiting game.