Figure 6.18 Incised triangular terra-cotta cake from Kalibangan (after Thapar 1975)
The pottery painting style of the Indus Civilization is never found as a high proportion of the total pottery assemblage. The only site in Sindh where statistics are available is Allahdino, where it is 3 or 4 percent of the total inventory. Red-slipped pottery is about a quarter of the inventory there. This painting style is entirely absent in the Sorath Harappan, and it has a provincial sense in the Eastern Domain, something that needs more rigorous definition. The Kulli Domain has its own painting style, related to but different from the Mature Harappan painted ware discussed here. The classic painting style is found in the Sindhi, Cholistan, and Harappa Domains.
At first glance this style might look rather slapdash. The lines tend to be thick and variable in width and density, often continuing past the point at which they should have stopped. The painting is not carefully controlled and there is an effort to cover the entire design area with work, a pronounced tendency toward horror vacuui. But, on closer examination, one can find order here, a plan for the layout and execution of each painted vessel.
CONCLUSION
Several points emerge from this discussion of Mature Harappan art. The best of the sculpture of the Indus Civilization are the red jasper torso from Harappa and the bronze dancing girl from HR Area of Mohenjo-daro. In terms of its artistic merit, the jasper torso is comparable to the achievements made on the seals, which allows me to not doubt its authenticity.
Figure 6.19 A scene from New York titled “Sunrise, Greenwich Village” (1989) (from The New Yorker, April 10, 1989, page 99; drawing by Cline; copyright © 1989; The New Yorker Magazine, Inc.)
The differences between Harappa and Mohenjo-daro in terms of the sculpture in the round is worthy of note. The red jasper torso and gray stone torso are the only pieces of note from Harappa, and there is nothing that is very much like them from Mohenjo-daro. The two bronze dancing girls and the eleven other major pieces that have been found at Mohenjo-daro are vastly larger in terms of number and once again do not have parallels at Harappa. The two cities that we know best are simply very different in terms of the corpus of sculpture in the round. It is as though they were not even of the same culture. It is also interesting to note that these are the only two Mature Harappan sites to have produced high-quality stone sculpture in the round. There is none at Chanhu-daro, Kalibangan, Banawali, or Lothal. One poorly preserved seated male has been found at Dholavira.
Figure 6.20 Centaur-like creature (after Marshall 1931i)
There are many pieces in this repertoire of Harappan terra-cotta art that are alive with a sense of humor. The animal puppets come across in this way. It does not require much imagination to visualize an Harappan parent or grandparent delighting in play with a child, showing it how the bull can shake his head, or using it to pull a model cart. Some of the simpler terra-cotta figurines convey the same sense of delight and play; simple toys to amuse people, young and old, each in their own way, often sharing the pleasure. These objects offer the most human face of the Indus Civilization, a sociocultural system that can often appear to be quite severe. At Mohenjo-daro one thinks of most of the citizens closeted in their brick homes, hidden behind the immense, unbroken outer walls, living a rather private even austere life. But the art, especially the figurines, tell us that there was another side to these people equally important to understanding them and their lives.
The Indus black-on-red painting style is not just a slapdash, hurried way of the painting. The artists who created these vessels did have a plan, a model for painting. A relatively small percentage of Indus ceramics were decorated in this fashion, and one wonders how the artists that practiced this art were organized. With so little painting being done at any one site, who were the painters trained in this canon? How was the style maintained if there were many painters spread over the million or so square kilometers of the Indus world? This may suggest that there were small numbers of highly skilled, well-trained ceramic painters who did this work, and most of the other potters did not. These black and red ware painters could have been located at permanent workshops or could have traveled to various settlements and done their work on site. Or both these modes of production may have occurred, and even this could have changed over the 600 years of the Indus Civilization.
Figure 6.21 An Indus painted jar (after Mackay 1942)
Finally, there seems to be a great disparity between the very best of the art of the Mature Harappan and the rest. While the seals are numerous and demonstrate without doubt that there was widespread appreciation of art and high-quality craftsmanship, the rest of the material by and large is of distinctly lesser merit. There are relatively few pieces that bridge the differences—it seems to be either very, very good, as with the red torso and the dancing girl, or artistically somewhat lacking, and it seems to me that this is a statement of some sort on the civilization as a whole.
NOTES
1 Vats 1940: 74—75.
2 Marshall 1931d: 46.
3 Vats 1940: 75.
4 Marshall, in Vats 1928—29: 79.
5 Marshall 1931d: 47; the seal is published in Marshall 1931a, seal number 337.
6 Wheeler 1968: 86, 89.
7 Vats 1940: 22.
8 Wheeler 1968: 86, 89—90.
9 Ardeleanu-Jansen 1984; see also Mackay 1931g.
10 Sahni 1926—27: 81.
11 Huntington 1985: 16.
12 During-Caspers 1987.
13 Piggott 1950: 150.
14 Piggott 1950: 111.
15 Marshall 1931d: 44.
16 Marshall 1931d: 45.
17 Hawkes 1982: 367, quoting Wheeler.
18 Mackay 1930—34: 60.
19 Mackay 1925—26: 90—91, pl. XLIIIa; see Possehl 1999b: pl. 2.25 for a staged photograph of the recovery of the priest-king.
20 Mackay 1931c: 237.
21 Mackay 1931g: 357.
22 Mackay 1931g: 357.
23 Mackay 1931g: 357, n. 2.
24 Mackay 1931g: 357.
25 Wheeler 1968: 86.
26 Mackay 1931g: 357.
27 Mackay’s first statement is in Marshall 1925—26: 91, but see Mackay 1931g: 357, where he changes his mind suggesting it represents a deity; see also Marshall 1931e: 54 and Wheeler 1953: 65, and 1968: 87.
28 Ardeleanu-Jansen 1991: 167—69.
29 Parpola 1985a, 1985b.
30 Parpola 1985a: 387; Hiltebeitl 1978.
31 Ardeleanu-Jansen 1984: 140.
32 Wheeler 1968: 52—53; see also Jansen 1985.
33 Mackay 1931g: 359.
34 Mackay 1931g: 358—59, pl. C, 1—3; Ardeleanu-Jansen 1991: 166.
35 Mackay 1931g: 359.
36 Mackay 1931g: 358, pl. XCIX, 7—9.
37 Mackay 1931f 339.
38 Mackay 1937—38: pl. LXXV, nos. 3, 9, 10.
39 Stein 1931; C. Jarrige 1984; Possehl 1986b.
40 C. Jarrige 1984: 130.
41 Mackay 1937—38: pl. LXXIV, no. 26.
42 Marshall 1931i: pl. XCV, nos. 1, 2, 3; Mackay 1937—38: pl. LXXIV, nos. 21, 22, 26, pl. LXXXVI, nos. 1—4.
43 Marshall 1931i: pl. CIX, nos. 227, 230; see also Shah and Parpola 1991: 151, M-1224.
44 Dales 1968a.
45 Marshall 1931i: 549, pl. CLIII, 38; Mackay 1937—38: pl. LXXVII, nos. 3, 12, and pl. LXXXI, nos. 8, 14.
46 Possehl, 1994.
47 Barth 1969: 9—38.
48 Possehl 1999b: 173—231; Meadow 1993.
49 Ardeleanu-Jansen 1984, 1987; see also Pittman 1984: 88; Allchin 1992.
CHAPTER 7
The Indus Script
INTRODUCTION
Writing is one of the hallmarks of civilization. I think of it as symptomatic of the size and complexity of ancient urban systems, be it the archaic state or a more corporate organization such as the Indus Civilization.1 They all have large volumes of information to record, process, retain, and transmit. These include accounts and economic records, dynastic histories, ge
nealogies, religious and ideological documents, literature, and personal identifiers. People who lived in most archaic complex sociocultural systems found it expedient to “write it down” as a fix for these practical information problems. There is a more active, aggressive aspect to writing, too, with the manipulation of information, like accounts, history, especially dynastic history, and genealogy. Writing could be easily used to gain political and personal advantage.2
We do not know much about the sociocultural locus of writing in the Indus Civilization. There are no accounts, at least among the documents we have, so it does not look like a writing system that was deeply embedded in economics. The best-known written documents are the small stamp seals, and these seem to have been personal identifiers, with messages that seem to be names, titles, places of affiliation, and the like. There is no Indus written literature, but literacy, or control over some of the Indus writing, was widespread. For instance, there are thousands of examples of Indus messages scratched onto the surfaces of ordinary fired pottery. This indicates that ordinary people probably controlled some small part of the writing system and used it in their daily lives. Potters put stamped messages on wet pots that were probably used by ordinary people in their daily lives. These messages must have had meaning to the people who used the pots. There are many things yet to be learned about the Indus script, not the least of which is how to read it.
In spite of many claims to the contrary, the writing system of the Indus Civilization remains undeciphered. It is one of the unsolved puzzles regarding the peoples of the ancient cities of the Indus. Perhaps some qualification is needed for this claim, in the sense that none of the would-be decipherers can demonstrate that their reading of the script is the correct one. This being the case, there is the logical possibility that one of them is correct, in whole or part; we just cannot prove it! A review of the most important decipherment efforts is available.3
SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON INDUS SEALS AND THE WRITING SYSTEM
The Indus script is found principally on stamp seals, pottery, and copper—bronze tablets, tools, and weapons (figure 7.1). No writing has been found on organic materials like paper, papyrus, leaves, or bark. Important sources on the Indus script include two concordances.4
No one has an exact count of the number of inscriptions, but in 1977 I. Mahadevan included 2,906 texts. The number has not changed substantially since then, although several new seals and other glyptic materials have been reported from new excavations at Harappa, Dholavira, and Rakhigarhi.5 The total number might have grown to something approaching 3,100. This does not count most of the graffiti (stray single signs and symbols on pottery) that occurs with great frequency. Using the Mahadevan concordance, about 87 percent of all Indus inscribed materials come from Mohenjo-daro and Harappa (table 7.1). The large number of “other” objects from Harappa reflects the presence of 272 “miniatures,” very small objects inscribed with simple messages (figure 7.2).
Table 7.1 Inscribed material from various Mature Harappan sites
Figure 7.1 A selection of Indus seals (various sources)
The animal devices on the stamp seals have been enumerated by Mahadevan, as presented in table 7.2.
The Seals Themselves
The typical stamp seal is square to rectangular, 2 to 3 centimeters on a side, but larger and smaller examples exist. Fairservis has the best description of seal cutting.6 It seems that a grid was used to lay out the placement of the devise and the line of script above it. However, there are instances where the logographs are cramped at the end of the inscription, so the planning process was not perfect (figure 7.3).7 The seal was cut with sharp tools, probably of flint and/or copper—bronze. The analysis of the “micromorphology” of seal cutting and design has led to some interesting suggestions about the unicorn-type seal, which is the most frequent device.
P. Rissman undertook the first analysis.8 Using the decorative elements on the head and neck of the unicorn, and the stand or “brazier” in front of it, he constructed a contingency table that reveals two groups of unicorn seals: (1) the hatched-faced type found in the north around Harappa as well as Cholistan, and (2) those with collared necks and straight cages on the brazier, found in the south, around Mohenjo-daro.
U. Franke-Vogt undertook the second analysis.9 She deals with the unicorn seals from Mohenjo-daro. Franke-Vogt made a determined effort to replace these objects in their horizontal and stratigraphic contexts. Her examination of the resulting distribution tables demonstrates that the seals are not randomly distributed at the site.10 For example, they are relatively rare on the Mound of the Great Bath, where only 25 percent of the expected number of seals was found. HR and VS Areas also yielded relatively few inscribed objects, but in DK-G and DK-I the number of inscribed objects was high. From the middle to late levels of Mohenjo-daro there appears to be a trend for fewer seals to have been found in the excavations; but there is a corresponding increase in the occurrence of copper tablets (figure 7.4).
Figure 7.2 Inscribed miniatures from Harappa (after Meadow 1991)
Franke-Vogt also deals briefly with the emerging thought that there are provincial carving styles. The seals from Mohenjo-daro, Chanhu-daro, Harappa, and the other sites in the Sindhi, Harappa, and Cholistan Domains have a consistency in their carving style that can be identified. In her opinion, for example, 40 percent of the seals from Lothal are of a “lower quality” than those from the cities. At Banawali the unicorn is less frequent (20 percent) than the goat and antelope (53.3 percent), reinforcing Rissman’s basic conclusion that there were regional workshops for seal production.11
Table 7.2 Frequency of animal devices on Indus seals
Unicorn with standard 1,159
Short-horned bull 95
Elephant 55
Zebu (humped bull) 54
Rhinoceros 39
Goat-antelope 36
Bull-antelope 26
Tiger 16
Buffalo 14
Hare facing a bush 10
Bull-like unicorn but with two horns 5
Horned tiger 5
Hare 5
Two short-horned bulls, face to face 2
Horned elephant 1
Two rhinoceroses 1
Two goats flanking a tree 1
Note: From Mahadevan (1977: 793).
Figure 7.3 Seal with signs cramped at the end of the inscription (after Marshall 1931i)
Were They Really Stamp Seals at All?
The Indus seals may not have been made as a part of seal-based administration known from Mesopotamia. This important aspect of the Indus Civilization is just emerging from a renewed interest in the writing system and the corpus of glyptic materials. It is a topic that deserves a separate in-depth study, but an outline can be made here. The first, and perhaps the most important, observation is that the number of seal impressions is very small. There are only four seal impressions from Mohenjo-daro, four from Harappa, and another from Banawali. Kalibangan has five impressions, and Lothal the largest number, thirty-seven, most from the warehouse there. Three other examples come from Bagasra in northern Saurashtra. These are all impressions of stamp seals on lumps of clay that preserve the imprint of a package, jar, or other material indicating that the intent was to seal something. They do not include the hundreds of sealings, made mostly from molds that served as amulets or identification of some kind. Nor are the seal impressions made directly into the fabric of pots included here.
Mackay has noted that in the excavations of Mohenjo-daro through 1926—1927 no seal impressions were found at all. In speaking of the corpus of impressed glyptic material from the site, he says:
It is not quite certain whether these objects should rightly be classed as seals only or as amulets, for the reason that up to the present there has not been found at Mohenjo-daro a single true sealing; that is, an impression on a piece of clay or other substance that had been attached to a jar or other article of merchandise, of the kind so well known at other ancient sites, where they were fast
ened to the object to be sealed by means of a cord, or else they bear traces on their backs of some fabric to which they were once attached.12
The Indus Civilization Page 23