Terracotta, Seals, and Pottery of the Indus Valley

While stone and bronze demanded skilled craftsmanship and expensive materials, the most everyday art form of the Indus Valley was something far more humble: baked clay. Terracotta (clay objects hardened by firing in a kiln) gave the Harappan people their toys, their religious icons, and even some of their most fascinating animal figures. Alongside these clay creations, the civilisation produced thousands of tiny seals that served as trade stamps and identity markers, and a surprisingly diverse range of pottery that tells us just as much about their aesthetic sensibility as their finest sculptures.

Figures from the Fire: Terracotta Art of the Indus Valley

The terracotta figures from Indus Valley sites are simpler and rougher than the stone and bronze works, but they open a window into the beliefs and daily life of ordinary people.

The Mother Goddess Figurines

Among the most important terracotta finds are figurines thought to represent a Mother Goddess, a female deity linked to fertility and creation. These figures were discovered at Mohenjo-Daro.

Mother Goddess figurine, Mohenjo-Daro

They are crude standing female forms, not graceful or polished, but clearly charged with religious meaning. Here is what makes them distinctive:

Clothing — Each figure wears a loin cloth and a girdle (a belt or sash around the waist)
Jewellery — Necklaces hang over prominent breasts, suggesting the figure symbolises abundance and nourishment
Head-dress — The most striking feature is a fan-shaped head-dress with a cup-like projection sticking out on each side, giving the head an unusual, wide silhouette
Facial features — The faces are roughly made, with pellet eyes (small, rounded blobs of clay pressed onto the surface), a beaked nose (a sharp, beak-like projection), and a mouth shown simply as a thin slit

The roughness of the craftsmanship is itself interesting. These were probably not luxury items for the wealthy but objects of everyday worship, made quickly and in large numbers for use in homes and small shrines.

Other Terracotta Finds: People, Animals, and Playthings

Beyond the Mother Goddess, excavations have turned up several other categories of terracotta work:

Bearded male figures — A few figurines show men with coiled hair, standing in a stiff, upright pose with their legs slightly apart and arms held straight along the sides of the body
Horned deity mask — A terracotta mask of a horned deity has been found, possibly connected to ritual or ceremonial use
A rich collection of toys and objects — Indus Valley children, it seems, were well supplied with playthings. Archaeologists have recovered toy carts with functioning wheels, whistles, rattles, clay birds and animals, gamesmen (pieces used in board games), and flat discs, all made from terracotta

The variety of these objects paints a picture of a culture that valued recreation and play alongside work and worship. The toy carts, in particular, tell us that wheeled transport was familiar enough in daily life that children played with miniature versions of it.

Stamps of Identity and Trade: The Indus Valley Seals

If any single category of artefact defines the Indus Valley Civilisation in the popular imagination, it is the seals. Thousands of these small, engraved objects have been found, and they remain among the most studied and debated items from the entire civilisation.

Material, Size, and Purpose

Most seals were carved from steatite (soapstone), the same soft stone used for the famous Bearded Man bust. Occasionally, seals were also made from agate, chert, copper, faience (a glazed ceramic material), and terracotta. A handful of rare examples have turned up in gold and ivory.

The standard Harappan seal was a square plaque measuring 2 x 2 square inches. Every seal carries an engraved pictographic script (a writing system that uses picture symbols rather than letters), and despite decades of effort by scholars around the world, this script has still not been deciphered. What these inscriptions actually say remains one of the great unsolved puzzles of the ancient world.

The seals were used primarily for commercial purposes, most likely pressed into soft clay to stamp and authenticate goods during trade. But there is also evidence that people carried seals on their person as amulets (protective charms believed to bring good luck or ward off evil), functioning somewhat like modern-day identity cards.

Animals on the Seals: A Visual Catalogue

The most common images engraved on the seals are animals. The range is impressive:

The bull is the most frequently depicted animal, appearing both with and without a hump
Other animals include the elephant, tiger, goat, rhinoceros, buffalo, bison, and mythical creatures like the unicorn bull (a bull-like animal shown in profile with a single visible horn)
Some seals also show trees or human figures
Seals bearing the Swastika sign have been discovered, making this one of the oldest known occurrences of the symbol in the Indian subcontinent

The Pashupathi Seal: A Window into Early Religious Belief

One seal stands apart from all the others in importance and complexity. Known as the Pashupathi seal (or the Male Deity seal), it was discovered at Mohenjo-Daro and is carved from steatite.

Pashupathi seal, Mohenjo-Daro

The seal shows a human figure seated cross-legged in what appears to be a yogic posture. The figure wears a three-horned headgear that rises above the head. Surrounding this central figure are four wild animals, carefully placed in a symmetrical arrangement:

Right side — An elephant and a tiger
Left side — A rhinoceros and a buffalo
Below the seat — Two antelopes

Many scholars interpret this figure as an early form of Lord Shiva in his role as Pashupathi (Lord of the Animals), because of the yogic posture, the horned headgear, and the gathering of wild creatures around the seated figure. If this interpretation is correct, it would push the roots of Shaivism back by thousands of years, deep into the pre-Vedic period.

Shaping the Earth: Pottery of the Indus Valley

The pottery of the Indus Valley reveals a civilisation that had mastered the art of working with clay at every level, from the functional to the decorative. The vast majority of recovered vessels were made on the potter’s wheel, a technology that allowed for smooth, even shapes and thin walls. Only a very small number of pieces appear to have been shaped by hand.

Plain pottery was far more common than decorated ware. The everyday vessels that people used for cooking, storage, and serving were mostly unadorned. But the painted and specialty wares that survive show a refined sense of design.

Five Pottery Traditions, from Simple to Rare

The Indus Valley produced a surprisingly wide variety of pottery styles. Here are the main types, from the most common to the rarest:

Plain pottery — The workhorse of Harappan kitchens and storerooms. Made from red clay, sometimes given a fine coating called a slip (a thin layer of liquid clay applied to the surface before firing) in either red or grey. No painted decoration
Black painted ware — The most visually striking everyday pottery. A fine red slip was applied to the surface, and then geometric patterns and animal designs were painted over it in glossy black paint. The contrast between the red base and the black designs gave these vessels a bold, eye-catching look
Polychrome pottery — Quite rare and highly prized by archaeologists. These are mainly small vases decorated with geometric patterns painted in red, black, and green, with white and yellow appearing only on occasion. The use of multiple colours shows that Harappan potters could prepare and apply several different pigments
Incised ware — Also rare. The decoration on these pieces was not painted but cut into the clay surface before firing. The incised designs were confined to the inside surfaces of the bases of pans and to the dishes of offering stands, suggesting these were specialist items with a specific ritual or ceremonial role
Perforated pottery — A distinctive functional type. These vessels have a large hole at the bottom and small holes punched all across the walls. They were most likely used as strainers for filtering beverages, allowing liquid to pass through while trapping solid matter

A Masterpiece in Clay: The Painted Earthen Jar from Mohenjo-Daro

One particular painted jar from Mohenjo-Daro gives us a vivid picture of the Harappan potter at work.

The process of creating this jar involved several distinct stages:

The potter shaped the wet clay on the wheel, using the pressure of skilled fingers to draw out the form of the vessel
The shaped piece was then baked in a kiln to harden it
After baking, the surface was painted with black colour, adding decorative patterns
As a finishing touch, the jar received a high polish, giving it a smooth, glossy surface

The decorative motifs (recurring design elements) on this jar are drawn from vegetal (plant-based) and geometric forms, reflecting the same love of natural and abstract patterns that runs through so much of Indus Valley art.