The westward transmission of Indus Valley sealing technology: origin and development of the ‘Gulf Type’ seal and other administrative technologies in Early Dilmun, c.2100–2000 BC

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive examination of the seals of the so‐called ‘Gulf Type’, which date to the end of the third millennium BC. It is argued that the Gulf Type seals are of key importance to our understanding of the origin of sealing and other administrative technologies within an emerging Early Dilmun ‘state’. Based on principal component analysis it is demonstrated that the shape of Gulf Type seals with inscriptions in Indus characters is distinct from seals without inscriptions. It is further argued that Gulf Type seals found in the Indus Valley, Iran, Mesopotamia/Bahrain and Bahrain can be connected with relatively discrete morphological groups apparently corresponding to different areas of production. The Indus inscriptions on the seals are investigated with particular emphasis on the abnormal occurrence of prefixed ‘twins’ signs in the western inscriptions. The hypothesis that a language different from that of the Harappans was used on these seals is reconfirmed on the basis of a newly found seal with a particular instructive pseudo‐inscription. The paper concludes that breakaway Harappans operating in the western orbit invented the Gulf Type seals but that the type from around 2050 BC became practically synonymous with the merchant communities in Dilmun.

Binary fractions and a whole unit 'measure of value' in the seal-texts of the Indus civilization

“…Such adaptations may also have potentially extended to West asian sites that were in contact with the Indus Civilization, but perhaps unconstrained by Indus cultural practices and conventions. Notably, the 'Gulf-type' West asian seals (49) do not carry Indus geld wertform texts. A few einfache wertform expressions may be isolated from some of the 'Indus-style' Gulf texts, and at least one side of those wertform expressions include recognizable Indus commodity expressions, such as in (50).…”

Greed Is Bad, Neutral, and Good: A Historical Perspective on Excessive Accumulation and Consumption

“…The earliest references to the generation of wealth in forms other than conquest are to the activities of merchants, traders, and other entrepreneurs in Assyrian epigraphic texts of the third millennium bce (Dercksen, 1999). Trade within and between the Mesopotamian polities and the Meluhhans (Indus polities in South Asia) via the ports of Magan and Dilmun (Oman) clearly took place with a significant amount of commercial investment (Laursen, 2009(Laursen, , 2010Yoffee, 2004). The growth of commercial and mercantile middlemen in Mesopotamia, Anatolia, the Iranian Plateau, and Indus (South Asia) paralleled the growth of states and was apparently utilized by many of these states for their benefit (Stein, 1999).…”

Symbols of Dilmun's royal house – a primitive system of communication adopted from the late Indus world?

“…This adaptation is evidenced by contemporary Babylonian mercantile tablets which speak of ‘weights on the Dilmun standard’ (Bibby ; Roaf ) and by the discovery of Indus cubical stone weights in Bahrain (Højlund ). Concurrently, Dilmun also adopted a stamp seal and sealing technology from the administrative toolkit of the Indus urban bureaucracy (Laursen , forthcoming). Even if shrouded in a mystery of its own the still undeciphered Indus script may also have found some use in Dilmun at this time, if one is to judge from its presence on some of the very earliest seals of the Gulf type.…”

“…Even if shrouded in a mystery of its own the still undeciphered Indus script may also have found some use in Dilmun at this time, if one is to judge from its presence on some of the very earliest seals of the Gulf type. The abnormally high frequency of a ‘twins sign’ in sequences found on the seals in Bahrain and the Gulf suggests that the messages conveyed were composed on the basis of a local concept or language (Parpola ; Laursen ). The Indus script proper apparently never gained a significant—if any—foothold in Dilmun and was probably entirely forgotten by the time the active use of the script ended in the Indus world.…”

“…The Indus script proper apparently never gained a significant—if any—foothold in Dilmun and was probably entirely forgotten by the time the active use of the script ended in the Indus world. The Harappan seal and sealing tradition, however, continued in Dilmun long after it had vanished from the Indian subcontinent and lived a vibrant life of its own (Laursen , forthcoming). Seal‐impressed clay tokens produced in Dilmun (Crawford ; Kjærum ) have close parallels in the Indus world and suggest that the Dilmunites also found direct inspiration for this enigmatic practice here (Laursen, forthcoming).…”