Home›Open Questions›Whom does the horned seated figure on the Indus Valley seals represent?Open QuestionsWhom does the horned seated figure on the Indus Valley seals represent?Citation FormatsGeneral ReferenceGeneral Reference Citation TextDivinity Atlas. "Whom does the horned seated figure on the Indus Valley seals represent?." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/whom-does-the-horned-seated-figure-on-the-indus-valley-seals-represent.Copy General ReferenceAPA StyleAPA Style Citation TextDivinity Atlas. (n.d.). Whom does the horned seated figure on the Indus Valley seals represent?. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/whom-does-the-horned-seated-figure-on-the-indus-valley-seals-representCopy APA StyleBibTeXBibTeX Citation Text@misc{divinityatlas-whom-does-the-horned-seated-figure-on-th, author = {Divinity Atlas}, title = {Whom does the horned seated figure on the Indus Valley seals represent?}, year = {2026}, url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/whom-does-the-horned-seated-figure-on-the-indus-valley-seals-represent}, note = {Accessed August 30, 2026} }Copy BibTeXOpen QuestionCross-Tradition ConnectionsSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)Open QuestionThe Indus script that labels these seals has never been deciphered, so the horned seated figure on seal M-304 and its kin cannot be read against a text that would say who or what it depicts. The proto-Shiva reading popularized in early twentieth century scholarship rests on visual resemblance to later Hindu iconography (the seated posture, the horns, the surrounding animals), not on any legible caption, and Srinivasan's own iconological re-assessment finds the identification unsupported by the seal's own details.What would resolve this A decipherment of the Indus script that survives scholarly scrutiny, or an independently datable bilingual inscription pairing Indus signs with a known language, would let the seals be read on their own terms rather than through later Vedic or Hindu iconography projected backward onto them.OpenIndus Valley archaeology, epigraphy and comparative iconographyDoris Meth Srinivasan, The So-Called Proto-Siva Seal from Mohenjo-Daro: An Iconological AssessmentCross-Tradition ConnectionsQuestion OnIndus Valley, Regions Well-attested ConnectedThe unresolved reading of Harappan iconography that the principal-traditions fact records as unknown.Shiva, Deities Well-attested ConnectedThe same undeciphered-script problem that leaves the Indus Valley's own principal-traditions fact unknown applies directly to reading the seal as Shiva: the identification and the underlying tradition are two sides of one unanswered question.Source Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus CivilizationJohn Marshalltier 2SourcesThe So-Called Proto-Siva Seal from Mohenjo-Daro: An Iconological Assessmenttier 1Doris Meth Srinivasan, Archives of Asian Art (Asia Society)Divinity Atlas Open Questions Register, First Editiontier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.View At A Past YearThe atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.Show This Year