Seals of Harappan Civilisation: Seals and Sealings
Seal making was an important Harappan craft. Most seals are square or rectangular, though a few cylindrical and round seals have also been found. Most seals are made of steatite, though a few silver, faience, and calcite ones exist as well, and most carry a short inscription. Beyond their craftsmanship, Harappan seals and sealings are an invaluable source for reconstructing both the religious and the socio-economic life of the civilisation — this article examines what they reveal on each front.
Significance for Reconstructing the Religious Life of the Harappan People
- Sealings with narrative scenes may have had a religious or ritualistic function.
- A seal showing a nude woman, head downwards, with her legs apart and a plant issuing from her vagina, is often interpreted as a prototype of Shakambari, the Earth Mother.
- The Harappans also worshipped a male god, represented on a steatite seal discovered at Mohenjodaro, usually referred to as the Pashupati seal.
- A male figure, wearing a buffalo-horn headdress, is seated on a dais, with his legs bent double under him, heels together, and toes pointed down.
- He is flanked by four animals — an elephant, rhinoceros, water buffalo, and tiger. Beneath the dais are two antelopes or ibexes.
- There exists a striking resemblance between this deity and Shiva of later Hindu mythology.
- The Harappan seals and sealings depict a number of trees, plants, and animals, some of which may have had cultic significance.
- The Pipal tree appears often, and may have been venerated.
- Some of the animals depicted on seals and sealings — the humped and humpless bull, snake, elephant, rhinoceros, antelope, gharial, and tiger — may have had cultic significance.
- The composite animals (tiger-human, bull-elephant, ram-bull-elephant, etc.) and the “unicorn” depicted on seals and sealings may also have had some sort of religious or mythological significance.
Significance for Reconstructing the Socio-Economic Life of the Harappan People
- A Kalibangan cylinder seal shows a woman flanked by two men, who hold her with one hand and raise swords over her head with the other — this may represent the prevalence of human sacrifice.
- Most of the writing on Harappan sites appears on seals and sealings. The writing on the seals was probably in the language of the ruling elite, and most inscriptions are very short, with an average of five signs.
- Seals provide information about the dress, ornaments, and hairstyles of the Harappan people.
- Seals also exhibit the considerable skill of the artists and sculptors who made them.
- Both river boats and seafaring boats are depicted on the seals — these may have been used for both internal and external trade.
- A number of Harappan seals have been found in Central Asia, the Persian Gulf, and Mesopotamian sites, which help in reconstructing the external trade networks of the Harappans:
- A silver seal — a rectangular Harappan seal bearing the Harappan script — was found in south Turkmenistan.
- Sites in Iran have also yielded seals.
- A round seal with a short-horned bull motif and Harappan writing, and a flat, round seal with the Harappan script, were both found in the Persian Gulf.
- Seals with Harappan motifs and writing have been found on the island of Bahrain.
- Harappan, or Harappan-related, seals have also been found at Mesopotamian sites.
- Certain motifs, such as the bull, found on Mesopotamian seals, have been cited as reflecting Harappan influence. Cylinder seals with Harappan motifs suggest interaction between merchants of these two regions.
- Some writing was impressed onto small, moist clay tablets known as sealings, probably by merchants, to authenticate their bales of merchandise.
- The evidence of textile impressions on some sealings supports this interpretation.
- Some seals may have been used as tokens in the buying and selling of goods.
- They may also have been worn as amulets, or used as identification markers, by well-to-do people such as landowners, merchants, priests, artisans, and rulers.
- Some seals may bear the names, titles, and symbols of the ruling elites, and could throw important light on the Harappan rulers, if only the writing could be read.
- Kenoyer suggests that the animals on the square stamp seals represent totemic symbols, standing for a specific clan, perhaps along with some additional information.
- At least 10 clans or communities are represented by these animals — the unicorn, humped bull, elephant, water buffalo, rhinoceros, humped bull with short horns, goat, antelope, crocodile, and hare.
- According to Ratnagar, the large number of unicorn seals at major cities suggests that the unicorn was the symbol of the Harappan ruling elite.
- Kenoyer, on the other hand, argues that the “unicorn clan” probably represented the aristocracy or merchants, who had an important executive role in government.
- In his view, it is, in fact, the less frequent motifs — such as the bull, elephant, rhinoceros, and tiger — that may have been the symbols of the most powerful rulers, at the very apex of the Harappan power structure.
- The seals and sealings can thus be extremely significant in the reconstruction of the socio-economic and religious life of the Harappan people — provided they are used alongside other literary and archaeological evidence.
Conclusion
Far more than mere tools of commerce, Harappan seals and sealings function as a genuine window into the civilisation’s inner life — their religious motifs hinting at fertility cults, proto-Shiva worship, and the veneration of trees and composite creatures, while their circulation, wear patterns, and find-spots across Central Asia, Iran, the Persian Gulf, and Mesopotamia reveal a sophisticated economy of trade, craft, and social status. Yet, as the ongoing debate between scholars like Ratnagar and Kenoyer over the meaning of the unicorn motif shows, seals rarely yield unambiguous answers on their own — their true value lies in being read together with the wider archaeological and literary record, as one thread in the larger, still-incomplete picture of Harappan society.
