The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables c9.s1.3

c9.s1.3

Three distinctive seals - representing the object type that has remained most characteristic of the Indus civilization - were found at Harappa in the Punjab and published in 1875, 1886 and 1912.² But the full implication of these finds was not realized before excavations were started in 1920 at Harappa, and, by chance almost simultaneously, in 1922, at Mohenjo-daro in Sind, some 600 km south in the Indus valley. More seals of the same type were immediately found at both of these sites, and it became evident that an entirely unknown bronze-age civilization had come to light.³ This led to large-scale excavations at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa,⁴ followed by much more limited digs at Chanhujo-daro further south in Sind.⁵ The bulk of the Indus (or Harappan) seals and inscriptions available to research comes from these excavations in the 1920's and 1930's.