Mahavir Chavan writes:

> Animals in Indus Valley Civilization
>
> On the seals found in Mohan-Jo-Daro and Harappa, there are pictures
> of animals. I am looking for the list of animals and birds in Indus
> Valley Civilization. If anyone knows more about this subject, please
> tell me.
>
> Mahavir Chavan

It is difficult to give an authoritative list of Indus animals on
seals, since so many of the animals and birds found there are
mythological. They include unicorns, tigers and elephants with divine
horns, goats/markhors with plants/signs for tails, and lots of
composite creatures -- e.g., horned animals with trunks and weird (and
maybe human) faces. You see these a lot hanging around sacrificial
scenes, e.g., on the famous seal M-1186. There are also half human and
half tiger creatures.

It is interesting that nearly all animals depicted on seals are males,
with unusually prominent genitalia (for illustrations, see page 19 from
my last Harvard Roundtable slide lecture on the mythological functions
of the seals, given earlier this year; you can download it [item 1.1]
from http://www.safarmer.com/downloads ). On p. 19 in the middle you
can also see one of those odd horned/trunked animals with an apparent
human face. Also on that page: a goat, bison, unicorn, zebu, fairly
realistic in this case. But on previous pages you can see a
mythological markhor (a goat-like animal) carrying an Indus sign for a
tail, and a rhino with what appears to be an Indus sign for a horn!!
(Indus symbols turn up in odd places on seals, including the heads of
priests.)

If Harappan horses are on your mind -- as is well known, there weren't
any. :^)

For a full picture of all these animals, see the 2 vols. of the _Corpus
of Indus Seals and Inscriptions_.

If you want to compare what you find in the pictures with what is known
of Indus animals from the archaeological record, see the essays in the
indispensable _Indus Ethnobiology: New Perspectives from the Field_,
ed. Steven A. Weber and William R. Belcher (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington
Books, 2003). Articles there by Richard Meadow and Ajita Patel on Indus
fauna in general and by William Belcher on Indus fish, along with the
attached bibliographical data, cover the topic well.

Best,
Steve Farmer
http://www.safarmer.com/downloads

On Thursday, September 30, 2004, at 11:23 AM, Mahavir wrote:

>
> Animals in Indus Valley Civilization
>
> On the seals found in Mohan-Jo-Daro and Harappa, there are pictures
> of animals. I am looking for the list of animals and birds in Indus
> Valley Civilization. If anyone knows more about this subject, please
> tell me.
>
> Mahavir Chavan
>
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