Animals of the Indus Valley Civilization

1.1 What are Indus seals, and why do animals appear on them?

Indus seals are small stamps, often carved in steatite. Steatite is a soft stone, so it is easy to cut.

Many seals carry an animal, and many also carry a line of Indus script. Historians think seals were used for trade and record-keeping.

Think of a seal as a tiny signature stamp. The animal worked like a picture label. Nobody can yet read the script, so the animals are our clearest clue.

1.2 Which animal is the most common on the seals?

A single-horned creature, called the unicorn, is the most common image on Indus stamp seals.

It is not the unicorn of European stories. It is a one-horned animal carved on a small seal.

So when an exam asks for the commonest seal motif, the answer is the unicorn, not the bull or the elephant.

1.3 Was the unicorn a real animal?

Nobody knows for sure. Scholars debate whether it was a real animal or a symbolic creature.

One proposal says it is a two-horned bull drawn from the side, so that one horn hides the other. Others disagree.

They point to small clay unicorns, and to bulls shown with both horns. If the artists could draw two horns, why draw one?

For the exam, treat the profile idea as one proposal and not a settled fact.

1.4 What animals surround the figure on the Pashupati seal?

The Pashupati seal is a steatite seal from Mohenjo-daro. It was found in 1928 or 1929.

A seated, horned figure is in the middle. An elephant and a tiger stand on one side. A water buffalo and a rhinoceros stand on the other.

The seal shows that Indus artists knew wild animals well. It does not show a horse.

2.1 How do we know the Indus people kept cattle?

The people kept sheep, goats, pigs and oxen. The oxen included humped zebu cattle and unhumped cattle.

Cattle on seals are humped, like zebu. So the seal art and the farm animals tell the same story.

A zebu is the humped cattle still common in India today. This was a long local story. Zebu were domesticated at Mehrgarh, long before the cities grew.

2.2 What do the clay toys tell us?

Harappa has small clay figures of zebu oxen, a cart and a chicken. They date to about 2500 BCE.

Most of them were probably toys. A toy shows what children saw around them every day.

So we can say that cattle and carts were part of normal life. Carts pulled by oxen may have looked much like the bullock carts of South Asia today.

2.3 Which other animals appear in clay?

Clay figures include cows, bears, monkeys and dogs. The list shows the range of animals people knew.

Some of these were farm animals. Others lived in the wild. Do not assume that every animal in clay was kept as a pet or a farm animal.

2.4 Where else do carts appear?

Toy carts were found at Kalibangan. They suggest carts were in use there in its early phase.

A toy cart is indirect evidence. It does not prove a real cart. But with the Harappa toys, it makes a strong case.

3.1 Why does the horse matter so much?

The Vedic word for horse is ashva. The Vedas mention it often.

Rigvedic scenes often show horses with chariots. So the horse is a key marker of Vedic life.

If the Indus cities had no horse, the two cultures look different. That is why the horse is argued over so hotly.

3.2 What was found at Surkotada?

Surkotada is a site in Gujarat. Excavators reported bones they thought came from a horse.

Sandor Bokonyi examined the bones in 1997. He judged that at least six probably came from a true horse.

Richard Meadow and Ajita Patel disagree. They say horse bones are hard to tell apart from donkey or onager bones.

Two experts looked at the same evidence and drew different lines. That is how real science works.

3.3 When do horse remains appear?

Horse remains are limited to Late Harappan sites. The Late Harappan phase is about 1900 to 1300 BCE.

The Mature phase of the civilisation ran from about 2600 to 1900 BCE. So the horse is missing from the peak of the cities.

Experts say the horse did not play an essential role in the Harappan world. They also say we cannot conclude that it was used regularly.

3.4 How should you read this evidence?

Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. A missing horse on seals does not prove that no horse existed anywhere.

But a few doubtful bones also do not prove regular horse use. The honest answer is that the evidence is thin and disputed.

Write your exam answer in the same careful voice. Say what is found, what is disputed and what is missing.