The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c17.141

c17.141

In some measure comparable with the seals is a series of small copper tablets, perhaps amulets, generally bearing pictograms on one side and an animal or semi-animal form in outline on the other. The outlines are filled with cuprous oxide and show red. The animals include the bull, "unicorn", elephant, buffalo, tiger, rhinoceros, and hare, and various monstrosities such as an addorsed double antelope, a composite bull-elephant, and a bull-man carrying a bow. In one instance the animal is replaced by a guilloche, which has been compared with pre-Dynastic and later Egyptian "endless rope" patterns.² It was thought that at Mohenjo-daro these tablets were especially characteristic of the "Late Period", which would presumably bring them into the second millennium B.C.