A SMALL GREY STEATITE ‘UNICORN’ STAMP SEAL, INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION, MATURE HARAPPAN

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A SMALL GREY STEATITE ‘UNICORN’ STAMP SEAL, INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION, MATURE HARAPPAN This lot is from a single owner collection and is therefore offered without reserve Expert’s note: The creature on the present seal belongs to the celebrated ‘unicorn’ type, one of the most distinctive creations of Harappan glyptic art. Its identity is declared by the single horn, which rises from the forehead in a commanding curve and is given unusual prominence within the compact field. This was a deliberate iconographic convention: when Harappan engravers intended to represent a two-horned animal, both horns were generally shown, even in strict profile, like the stone seal of a zebu bull excavated at Harappa and photographed by the archeologist Jonathan Mark Kenoyer. Pakistan, c. 2600-1900 BC. Of square form, the seal face finely carved with a single-horned bovine shown in profile, accompanied by a ritual bowl beneath its head. The inscription above the unicorn includes a ‘bowman’ sign and the terminal ‘arrow’ sign. Important Note: For essential information on the Jorgen Ruben Gallery Ledger and provenance documentation please visit here: www.zacke.at/rubencollection_ledger Dimensions: Length 3.1 cm Square steatite seals like the present lot are among the most characteristic artefacts of the Indus Civilization. The earliest known example of this type was discovered in 1875 at Harappa and is now preserved in the British Museum (registration number 1892,1210.1). The animal depicted on this seal (and the present lot) has long puzzled scholars, as it does not closely correspond to any known species of the Indian subcontinent. It lacks the shoulder hump characteristic of the zebu, its body appears less robust than that of a bull, and its horn configuration does not match the curved horns of the water buffalo. Due to its single horn, the creature represented on this early seal came to be referred to in archaeological literature as the ‘unicorn’. The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age culture in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BC to 1300 BC, and in its mature form from 2600 BC to 1900 BC. Together with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilizations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread. Its sites spanned an area from northeast Afghanistan and much of Pakistan to western and northwestern India. The civilization flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length of Pakistan and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern Pakistan. The cities of the ancient Indus were noted for their urban planning, baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-residential buildings, and techniques of handicraft and metallurgy. Both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa likely grew to a size of 30,000 and 60,000 individuals, and the civilization may have contained between one and five million total population during its florescence. It is also known as the Harappan civilization, after its type site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan. Literature comparison: Compare a closely related Indus Valley steatite stamp seal from Mohjenjo-Daro, dated c. 2500-2000 BC, 3.1 cm wide, in the British Museum, registration number 1947,0416.3. Compare a closely related Indus Valley steatite stamp seal with an ox, dated c. 3000-1500 BC, 2 cm long, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, object number 1984.482.

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