Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.117

c12.117

From merchants and trade to writing and arithmetic is a reasonable enough transition: Speiser has put the whole relationship into a delightfully cynical phrase - ‘writing was not a deliberate invention, but the incidental by-product of a strong sense of private property’. It is not surprising, then, that the bulk of the inscriptions in the Harappā civilization that have survived are cut on stamp-seals, engraved with figures of animals or less often of gods and humans, and evidently used as a means of identifying the property of individuals (Fig. 22). Apart from the seal inscriptions, there are infrequent short stamped signs on pots or inscriptions scratched on after firing. A group of inscribed objects which stand alone are small copper tablets with inscriptions and outline engravings of animals.