The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables c4.s3: 3. The function and iconography of the Indus seals and tablets
The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables c4.s3
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3. The function and iconography of the Indus seals and tablets
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Preserved ancient seal impressions prove that the Indus seals have served as instruments of control in administration and trade, as in ancient West Asia.27 Some seal impressions have been made, undoubtedly by the potter, on wet clay pots before firing (cf., e.g., M-420 to 424). Other impressions have survived on clay tags, once attached to bales of goods whose integrity they thus guaranteed. The most important collection of such labels comes from the burnt warehouse of Lothal (L-124 ff.).28 The study of the seals and seal impressions in combination with their archaeological contexts and details of style and manufacture can significantly contribute to the understanding of the economic and administrative aspects of an ancient civilization.29
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The quality of the seal increases with its size, and the largest and most expensive seals must have belonged to important persons or institutions. Since the seals were probably worn in a visible
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Kohl's note ibid., xix. 24 The unique T-shaped seal H-165 may also be of NE Iranian origin. 25 Cf. Marielle Santoni, Sibri and the South Cemetery of Mehrgarh: third millennium connections between the northern Kachi Plain (Pakistan) and Central Asia, in: Bridget Allchin (ed.), South Asian Archaeology 1981, Cambridge 1984, 57; I.S. Masimov, Novye nakhodki pecatey epokhi bronzy c nizovie Murgaba, Sovetskaya Arkheologiya 1981: 2, 132-150. 26 The dating of the Indus civilization continues to be a controversial issue. Based on the Near Eastern contacts evidenced by the Indus seals and by cuneiform references to sea-borne contacts with the far-off country of Meluḫḫa since the times of Sargon the Great (c. 2350 B.C.), as well as radiocarbon dates, the time bracket for the mature urban phase is conventionally placed between 2550/2300 and 2000/1700 B.C. Cf. Bridget and Raymond Allchin, The rise of civilization in India and Pakistan, Cambridge 1982; D.P. Agrawal, The archaeology of India, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series 46, London 1982. 27 Cf. McGuire Gibson and Robert D. Biggs (eds.), Seals and Sealing in the Ancient Near East, Bibliotheca Mesopotamica 6, Malibu 1977. 28 See S.R. Rao, Lothal: A Harappan port town (1955-62), Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India 78, Vol. I, New Delhi 1979, 111-114. 29 Cf. E. Fiandra and P. Ferioli, A proposal for a multi-stage approach to research on clay sealings in protohistorical administrative procedures, in: B. Allchin (ed.), South Asian Archaeology 1981, Cambridge 1984, 124-127, with further literature. Ute Franke-Vogt (Freie Universität, Berlin) is preparing a doctoral thesis on the seals of Mohenjo-daro. Cf. also the forthcoming study of Paul Rissman referred to in fn. 84.
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fashion by their owners, as is suggested by the cord holes, they are likely to have secondarily functioned as indicators of the wearers' rank, seen at a distance by the size of the seal.³⁰
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³⁰ Cf. Asko Parpola, The relative size of the seals and other clues to the royal titles of the Harappans, *Tamil Civilization* 1986: 3-4, special number on the Indus script edited by I. Mahadevan (in press). 31 See M.S. Vats, *Excavations at Harappa*, Delhi 1940, Vol. I, 324ff. 32 Cf. E. Mackay, *Further Excavations at Mohenjo-daro*, Delhi 1938, Vol. I, 349-351. 33 Cf. Asko Parpola, On the Harappan 'yoke-carrier' pictogram and the kāvaḍi worship, *Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference-Seminar of Tamil Studies* held in Madurai, South India, 5-10 January 1981, Madras 1981, Vol. I, 2: 73-89; cf. also B. Hrozny', *Inschriften und Kultur der Proto-Inder von Mohenjo-daro und Harappa* (ca. 2400-2100 B.C.): Ein Entzifferungsversuch, *Archiv Orientalni* 13 (1942), 36. 34 For an analysis of the copper tablets, see Asko Parpola, Tasks, methods and results in the study of the Indus script, *Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society* 1975:2, 196ff. with fig. 12, and Paul Yule, *Figuren, Schmuckformen und*
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Some of the seals, such as M-319, are carved hollow and provided with a lid so that something - most probably a magic charm - could be kept inside. This has generally been taken to support the old hypothesis that the seals, besides their primary function as administrative instruments, also served as protective amulets. In addition to the script, the majority of the Indus seals contain iconographic motifs, whose clearly religious nature has suggested an amuletic function. The pictorial motifs not only rank among the very best preserved examples of Harappan artistic expressions but also provide some of the most important clues to the Harappan religion and to the accompanying inscriptions.
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In addition to being found on the seals, iconographic motifs are found in particular on "tablets". An important general characteristic of this category of objects is that they comprise many identical duplicates. The incised "miniature tablets" from the lower levels of Harappa are the earliest known examples of the fully developed Indus script.31 Later, incised tablets give way to embossed ones, often massproduced in moulds. Sometimes great numbers of similar tablets (especially H-252 ff.) have been found together, or their find places are very close to each other. This has suggested that most of the tablets, both the embossed and the engraved ones, may have functioned as tokens of votive offerings or of visits to temples.32
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The inscriptions of the tablets point to such a conclusion, too. Many of the tablets have on one side a U-shaped sign which looks like a pot drawn in profile; it is preceded by zero to four vertical strokes that clearly stand for numbers. In M-494 A and M-495 A, there is a sequence of three U-shaped signs in succession: this may be another way to write the sequence 3 + U occurring on numerous tablets and apparently meaning "three pots". Sometimes the U-shaped sign on the reverse of tablets is held in the hand of a kneeling or standing man-sign (cf. H-247 A). In the moulded tablets M-478 and M-479, the sign combination of 4 + U stands next to an iconographic scene where a kneeling worshipper extends a pot shaped like the U-formed sign towards a tree. Apparently the tree is sacred, and the man is presenting the pot (or according to the inscription, four pots) to it as an offering.33
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The engraved copper tablets of Mohenjo-daro form an unusual class of inscribed objects, in that their inscriptions and iconographic motifs are clearly interrelated; this is not so obvious in other classes of Indus inscriptions, although cases like the above cited tablets M-478 and M-479 may occasionally be found.34
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The interpretation of the iconography of the Indus seals and tablets constitutes a major scholarly challenge. Various comparisons have been made with the ancient West Asian glyptics as well as with the later art of classical India.³⁵ Although it is impossible to go into detail here, one further example may be briefly mentioned because of its intrinsic interest and also in order to point out that these two kinds of comparisons need not be mutually exclusive. Sir John Marshall's identification of a "Proto-Siva" in the buffalo-horned deity of a famous seal from Mohenjo-daro (M-304)³⁶ may well be correct, and so may be Alf Hiltebeitel's even more convincing identification of this figure as "Proto-Mahiṣa"37, although this deity and his "yogic posture" have close counterparts in the earlier glyptic art of the Proto-Elamites.³⁸ Comparative studies thus suggest that the Indus Civilization may have been an integral if marginal part of the West Asian cultural area and that there is an unbroken cultural continuity in South Asia from the Harappan times until the present day.
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³⁵ The excavation reports contain a substantial discussion of the iconography of Indus seals and tablets. See further, also for art history appreciation of the Indus glyptics, Heinz Mode, *Indische Frühkulturen und ihre Beziehungen zum Westen*, Basel 1944; id., *Das frühe Indien*, Stuttgart 1959; E.C.L. During Caspers, Some motifs as evidence for maritime contact between Sumer and the Indus Valley, *Persica* 5 (1971), 107-118 & pl. VIII-XI; id., Harappan trade in the Arabian Gulf in the third millenium B.C., *Mesopotamia* 7 (1972), 167-191; id., Sumer, Coastal Arabia and the Indus Valley in Proto-Literate and Early Dynastic Eras: Supporting evidence for a cultural linkage, *Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient* 22 (1979), 121-135; A. Parpola, New Correspondences between Harappan and Near Eastern Glyptic Art, in: B. Allchin (ed.), *South Asian Archaeology 1981*, Cambridge 1984, 176-195; A. Ardeleanu-Jansen, Die Kunst der Indus-Zivilisation, in: Michael Jansen, *Die Indus-Zivilisation*, Köln 1986, 211-235.
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³⁶ Cf. John Marshall, *Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization*, London 1931, I, 52ff.
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³⁸ See the last but one paper cited in fn. 35.