About this object

The Indus Valley (or Harappan) Civilization was a vast, complex, Bronze Age civilization along the alluvial plains of the Indus River and (now dry) Ghaggar Hakra River in present-day northwest India and eastern Pakistan. It lasted from late 4th millennium to late 2d millennium BCE, with the height of its urban culture (often known as Mature Harappan) from approximately 2600 to 1900 BCE. Although there is still much to be learned of the societies that inhabited the more than 1500 settlements that have thus been discovered, we do know that Indus Valley communities developed a distinctive (and still undeciphered) form of writing and that artisans used specialized techniques in stonework, metallurgy, and pottery production. This painted bowl depicts two striped bull-like animals, which may be zebus (a humped cattle native to the region), or perhaps a fantastical hybrid creature.