Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.136

c12.136

But the essential feature of the seals is that they belong to the class known as stamp-seals. Such seals were pressed directly on to the soft material used for sealing, in the normal manner of a modern seal or a signet-ring; further than that, the Harappā seals are usually square. Now the seal as a method of marking property is of great antiquity and its use is very widespread in the Ancient East, but one peculiar development, the cylinder-seal which is rolled on to the sealing to produce a continuous band of pattern or an oblong scene, is entirely a Sumerian invention, and its appearance in any ancient culture in prehistoric Western Asia can be attributed fairly confidently to Sumerian influence - as for instance the rare cylinder seals in prehistoric Egypt. The fact that cylinder seals are as rare in the Harappā civilization as they are in Egypt stresses the independence of the Indian culture of any but the most indirect and slight Sumerian influence, and the use of stamp-seals certainly cannot be attributed to that source.