Seal with Two-Horned Bull and Inscription (c. 2000 BCE): Art, History and Details

Seal with Two-Horned Bull and Inscription (c. 2000 BCE) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Small stone seals, probably used to identify merchandise or property, are among the most numerous objects discovered from the mysterious proto-historic sites along the banks of the Indus River system. Like these, most have sensitively rendered animal imagery along with an inscription written in a script that has not yet been deciphered.

Object facts

• Title: Seal with Two-Horned Bull and Inscription
• Date: c. 2000 BCE
• Culture: Pakistan, Indus Valley civilization
• Type: Seals
• Technique: steatite
• Dimensions: Overall: 3.2 x 3.2 cm (1 1/4 x 1 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Indian Art - Indus Valley
• Department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Accession number: 1973.160

A detail from the museum

A perforated boss at the back allowed the seal to be suspended and easily pressed.

Collection credit

Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• "The Year in Review for 1973." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 61, no. 2 (1974): 31-78.
• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978.
• Kathman, Barbara A. A Cleveland Bestiary. Cleveland, OH; Cleveland Museum of Art, 1981.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.