The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c17.5

c17.5

The trefoil pattern is not uncommon in the Harappan culture, and is probably significant. It occurs on a red stone stand² and frequently on beads of steatite or steatite-paste³ where, as on the statue, the trefoils were filled and backed with red paint or paste. It is suggested that the intention was to imitate etched carnelian beads; but, though this is not impossible, hitherto no carnelian beads bearing this design have been found, and the supposition is that they were imported rarities. The trefoil pattern is found in Mesopotamia, Egypt and Crete in comparable associations, and seems likely to represent a common symbolism which may have extended to the Indus valley. The earliest occurrences appear to have been in Mesopotamia: a man-headed "bull of heaven", probably of late Akkadian period in the Louvre, is carved for trefoil incrustations,⁴ and others similarly ornamented come from Warka⁵ and from Ur.⁶ The last is of the IIIrd Dynasty, perhaps about 2200 B.C. It bears the symbols of Shamash the Sun-god, Sin the Moon-god, and Ishtar the Morning and Evening Star, together with the trefoils which probably represent stars. With similar intent trefoils appear (with quatrefoils) in Egypt on Hathor the Mother-goddess as Lady of Heaven, and are well exemplified by the Hathor cows which sustain couches in Tutankh-Amen's tomb (*c.* 1350 B.C.), and by a painted figure of the XVIIIth Dynasty from Deir el-Bahari.⁷ In Crete the symbol recurs on bull-head (or cow-head) "rhytons" of about the same period.⁸ The analogues from Egypt and Mesopotamia at least combine to suggest a religious and in particular an astral connotation for the motif, and support the conjecture that the Mohenjo-daro bust may portray a deity or perhaps a priest-king.