arveen Talpur, a writer, historian and archaeologist specialising in the button seals of Mohenjo Daro, hails from Tharparkar, Sindh. She has taught at some esteemed universities, including Cornell, Elmira College, Binghamton University (New York), and Sindh University, Jamshoro. Talpur has authored four books on the archaeology and history of Sindh, including Evidence of Geometry in Indus Valley Civilization, 2500-1500 BC: Principles of Seal Designs and Signs (1995), Mohenjo Daro: Metropolis of the Indus Civilization: 2600-1900 BCE (2014), Indus Seals (2600-1900 BCE) Beyond Geometry: A New Approach to Break an Old Code (2017), and Talpur Rule in Sindh (2002). Additionally, she has authored a poetry book, Footnotes (2006), and the long stories trilogy Obscure Women Obscure Stories: A Pakistani Trilogy (2019). Talpur’s repertoire includes short stories, poems, essays and feature articles in Pakistani and American newspapers and magazines. As a blogger, her posts cover history, archaeology and literature. The News on Sunday interviewed Talpur during a recent visit. Excerpts:

The News on Sunday (TNS): Did your village and its surroundings condition you to become an archaeologist?

Parveen Talpur (PT): Antiquity had always fascinated me and was abundant around my village in the old Tharparkar. Behind it was the long abandoned riverbed of Puran with its old bridge and a few ancient ruins on its banks. It was said that Alexander the Great had sailed through it. At a little distance was the shrine of Chand Moryo, and about ten more miles away in the suburbs of Mirpur Khas was the massive stupa of Kahu jo Daro, sculpted with some reliefs representing Buddha. It was a unique spot for us, children, to enjoy our afternoon picnics.

Amid such landmarks were storytellers who still lived to tell the stories of a magical past. I wanted to know more about the past and its secrets. At that young age, I had no idea of archaeology, but I think I would not have become an archaeologist without the exposure. The credit for my getting to see the world outside my village house goes mainly to my father, who did not impose the traditional purdah on his daughters.

TNS: Do you remember visiting Mohen jo Daro during college days in the mid-sixties?

PT: At the school, St Michael’s Convent, Mirpur Khas, when I learned that only an archaeologist could know the secrets of the past, I decided to be one. At that time, I had only known about the pyramids through pictures and associated archaeology with Egypt, which seemed so far away. It was only at the college level that I came to know about Mohen jo Daro. So, visiting the site was like finding something I had been looking for. The site itself was overwhelming; it was much larger than I had imagined, some of its street walls almost as high as the outer walls of the Hyderabad Fort.

Our group of students reached the site around sunset. From the stupa wall, which is the highest point at the site, we had the chance to have a cycloramic view of the ruins. It was something the like of which I had never seen before. At sunrise, it was a different scene. I will never forget the haunting view when the glow of the rising sun gave a reddish hue to the bricks, giving the ruins a Martian look.

TNS: How did you react when you found out that there was no archaeology department at Karachi University?

PT: I did not lose hope. I approached the vice-chancellor, Dr Ehsan Rashid and explained my dilemma to him. He told me that the General History Department offered courses in ancient history. I told him that I was keen to learn pre-history. He saw my enthusiasm and assigned one of the staff members to help me. Next, I had to show that there were students interested in archaeology, so I convinced five of them to sign up for archaeology. Still, it was not possible to open a department overnight, so I suggested hiring an archaeologist from the Department of Archeology and Museums to teach archaeology at the University. The proposal was approved by the vice-chancellor.

TNS: How did you persuade Ishtiaq Khan, the then-director general of the Department of Archaeology and Museums, to allow one of his officers to teach at the university?

PT: It didn’t take much to convince him. He was already aware of my interest in archaeology. When he heard that the university was willing to hire an archaeologist from his department, he chose Dr Syed Mohammad Ashfaque. Dr Ashfaque was one of the most qualified archaeologists. He had earned his PhD from one of the universities in Greece. He was the head of the Epigraphy section.

TNS: Can we say that a student’s determination led the authorities to establish a new department? Is that rare?

PT: My experience has been that if you approach authorities with a reasonable demand, they will respond in a positive way. Sometimes they may not be aware of a need, so one has to draw their attention to it. I explained to them that the Department of Archeology and Museums is meant for administrative functions and that there is no teaching facility there. [I told them that] since the largest archaeological site is located in Sindh, it is important to have the department at the largest university in Sindh. These may not have bene my exact words, but this was the reason I gave, and it was taken seriously. If I look at it objectively, it could not have happened without the help and belief others had in this idea. So the credit has to be shared with many people.

TNS: How did the Bible aid in identifying ancient Mesopotamian and Egyptian cities?

PT: Let’s take the example of Babel and its tower. Genesis tells us that after the Deluge, people settled in the land of Shinar and decided to build a tower and a city around it; the first step was locating the land. The early archaeologists identified Shinar with Sumer, which is south of Mesopotamia. Next, they looked for the remains of the massive tower built of kiln-baked bricks glued together by bitumen, this description fitted the ziggurats, and there are remains of many ziggurats in Sumer. Most archaeologists agree that the tower of Babel must have existed in Babylon (in modern Iraq), which might be a new name for Babel. However, the issue of location is not settled and the search continues.

TNS: How do you look at the excavations of Mohen jo Daro vis-à-vis the discovery of Ur of the Chaldees, one of the largest cities of the Mesopotamian civilisation?

PT: The excavations of Mohen jo Daro and the Ur of the Chaldees in the early 1920s were almost simultaneous. Ur revealed spectacular structures that Mohen jo Daro lacked. Ur was known to be the birthplace of Abraham, and through Biblical references, its location was traced. Mohen jo Daro, on the other hand, had gone unrecorded and was discovered accidentally under the foundations of a long-abandoned Buddhist stupa. Although Mohen jo Daro represented the fourth ancient river civilisation in the world and the remains were the largest among the four, in the early years it was considered a satellite and was referred to as Indo-Sumerian Civilisation. We must bear in mind that Sumerian and Egyptian archaeology was popular not only because of Biblical discoveries but also because of the long history associated with big names such as Arthur Evans, Howard Carter, Leonard Woolley, TE Lawrence and Max Mallowan, who married Agatha Christie. Christie, inspired by Ur, even wrote a novel. I think its title was Murder in Mesopotamia. That said, I must add that the standards have changed and Mohen jo Daro is now judged on its own merits.

TNS: Mohen jo Daro artefacts offered a vast range to pick from and work. Why did you choose button seals?

PT: I found seals the most fascinating artefacts of the Indus civilisation. These could tell us more than any other artefact. My chance to study the seals officially came in the spring of 1991 when Cornell University accepted me as a visiting scholar. I had only three books on my list when I first visited Cornell’s well-stocked Olin library. Authored by Sir John Marshall, Ernest Mackay and Madhu Sarap Vats, these were the earliest records that published the first images of the seals discovered from Mohen jo Daro and Harappa. In that large corpus of seals, I spotted images of a small group labelled as the button seals. I must emphasise that I am used to viewing things from unconventional and unexpected angles. This helps me in spotting and highlighting what has been marginalised or ignored and attracts me.

TNS: What was your inspiration?

PT: Honestly, I cannot recall precisely what motivated me then. But I was sure that button seals were never incorporated into mainstream research because the geometric patterns engraved on them were considered votive symbols and irrelevant to the research, mostly focused on the signs and symbols. Therefore, my research on button seals was a pioneering work as it was for the first time that this group (of seals) was chosen for serious research. It was a unique experience of working in isolation without any reference; if there was a reference, it came from rural Sindh and my own village, where I had seen those designs on mud walls much before I saw them on the seals. But there, too, the Hindu folks who painted them had no idea what they symbolised; their explanations were immersed in superstition, mythology and magic. So what was my inspiration? I think it was the thought of treading a path that no one had taken before and the hope to discover something that no one had known before.

Because of the abundance of mother goddess figurines found in its ruins, the Indus Valley civilisation, in general, is considered a matriarchal society.

TNS: How would you comment on the geometrical sense of the Indus people?

PT: Indus people of those times were known for their sense of symmetry and calculation which is evident in the grid plan of their cities, the streets crisscrossing at right angles, the drains running parallel to the walls and even in the standardised size of their bricks as they maintained a consistent ratio of 4:2:1. On a micro level this geometric sense is reflected in the designs of the button seals.

TNS: Were there some standards to make these seals?

PT: Yes, there are some protocols. These designs were not random. I observed that the designs were well-calculated and each comprised 24 segments of a line. There was some unexplainable commonness in the designs, which gave me the idea that perhaps they were made from a common template. After testing a few templates, I figured out the one composed of 24 segments and different designs were constructed by arranging and rearranging those segments. Hence 24 is also the numerical value of the designs. My paper in the Wisconsin Archaeological Reports (1994) demonstrates, step by step, how a design could be extracted from the template. Many years after my research, a similar project was launched at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, India.

TNS: How is the evolution of design of seals linked to the advancement of civilisation?

PT: The story of the seals is interwoven with the larger story of the civilisation. One can see their evolution as the civilisation evolved. The button seals are the oldest, made before the cities. The earliest seals were made of terracotta and were discovered in pre-urban sites of Balochistan dating back to 3300 BCE. They are simple tablets without a boss on the reverse. They are engraved with geometric designs and the most common motifs found on these seals are swastikas, gammadions, stepped cross motifs, squares and squares within squares.

Button seals continued to be made in Mohen jo Daro and Harappa, but intaglios are the hallmark of the urban era and were manufactured in larger numbers. They appear in various shapes, such as squares, rectangles, rounded and cylindrical, whereas the button seals are mostly square-shaped tablets.

The most evolved iconography is found on the narrative seals. These were made in the later period of the urban phase. These seals show strange scenes: a man figure standing between two tigers; seven women figures standing in a row; a deity figure standing in a tree; another deity surrounded by animals; unicorns facing unidentifiable objects; birds perched on a boat. We still do not know whether these scenes tell us a story or are simply records of an important event or a ritual.

Ironically, button seals, the oldest, have lasted for the longest period of time. They continued to appear even after the collapse of the Indus civilisation’s urban phase. Some of their designs and versions can still be seen in Sindhi quilts, embroidery and ajrak. Most of the designs are composed of basic geometric shapes. Nowadays, of course, the shapes are stylised.

TNS: Do the seals tell us something beyond the calligraphic, geometric and linguistic facts?

PT: The seals are not only engraved with rows of signs; they are also imbued with images of animals, humans, deities, trees and unidentifiable objects. Hence, beyond the calligraphic, geometrical and linguistic facts, they also depict an assortment of social, cultural and ideological content which requires a holistic approach for its interpretation.

TNS: You mentioned seven women as a narrative seal; what does it say?

PT: The seal depicting seven women in a row is one of the most mysterious narrative seals. Archaeologists have labelled them with several identities-mothers of the war-God Rudra, wives of seven sages, seven sisters of Greek mythology who turned into stars and formed the well-known constellation Pleiades. Apart from the seven women, it also shows a few Indus signs and multiple figures-a deity within a tree, a worshiper, and an animal. That makes it complicated because we can’t look at the seven women in isolation.

TNS: The story of seven women is also found in Sindhi folklore; what are clues ofcontinuity?

PT: I have always advocated that the clues to decipher the seals could be found in the languages, traditions and folk literature of the region where the civilisation was born and evolved. In my most recent article, I have related a folk story of Sindh with the seal depicting seven women. That shows the continuity of a cultural aspect-storytelling – which may have prevailed in Mohen jo Daro and which, until recent times, has continued to be one of the most popular evening entertainment at all social levels in rural Sindh.

TNS: How does the seal of seven women depict the status of women in those times?

PT: Because of the abundance of mother goddess figurines found in its ruins, Indus civilisation, in general, is considered a matriarchal society. This idea is supported by the seal as it shows a detached woman figure who stands exalted in a tree. In the matching folk story, she appears as an eighth queen who is special. Whether goddesses or queens, women enjoyed a higher status in the ancient past.

TNS: Do seals say something about the fashion of those times, particularly the hairstyles of women?

PT: Images of women on the seals are limited, and it is, therefore, hard to judge the fashion. The largest number appears on the seven women’s seals mentioned earlier, in which they appear uniformly dressed in knee-length shirts. With their hair tied in long braided ponytails, they also wear a headdress with something like an ornament protruding from it. It can be simply a feather. Interestingly, the length of their shirts matches what women still wear in Pakistan. Detached from these women is the female figure standing in a peepal tree. Her arms are covered with bangles, she is wearing a horned headdress and she is already labelled a deity. This female deity is also depicted on a moulded tablet. For the fashion of those days, we have to study the bejewelled mother goddess figurines with their fancy hairdos.

TNS: What was the purpose of these seals?

PT: The exact purpose of the seals is not known. There is a possibility that button seals were votive symbols, as some of these continue to be sacred symbols of Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism. Intaglio seals are difficult to judge; perhaps they served multiple purposes because of the variety of content they portray. The line of signs and symbols on their top part could be a form of script, or it could be a code used in mercantile transactions. Most difficult to establish is the purpose of the images of animals - bulls and unicorns - facing an object.

TNS: What is the status of your research, which proposes that the clues to decipher the seals may be found in the indigenous language and culture of the land?

PT: I am not a linguist, but Sindhi, my mother tongue, gives me the privilege of understanding its nuances better than a non-Sindhi scholar. I have, therefore, taken the advantage of relating a few images of the Indus seals to the Sindhi words, idioms, legends and traditions. These were first published in the Second International Seminar Sindh Proceedings: Through the Centuries-2 (2014). More updated and detailed information on this subject is available in my book Indus Seals beyond Geometry: A New Approach to Break An Old Code (2017).

TNS: So may we say that the ancient words preserved in the present-day Sindhi language could be helpful to decipher the Mohen jo Daro’s signs/ seals?

PT: Why not? If words of distant languages can be claimed to be the remnants of the ancient Indus language, there is a better chance of the survival of ancient words in the present-day languages spoken within the region where the civilisation emerged. This does not mean we reject the ancient Indus words in other regions.

TNS: You have learned from various teachers, but you have always had high regard for Dr NA Baloch. How did he support your academic pursuits?

PT: Dr Baloch played a vital role in my academic pursuits. He came to know me from the day that I published my first article in Dawn. Dr Baloch not only read the article he also encouraged me to continue my research on the great Jain migration in Sindh, which may have been led by Chandragupta Maurya. He always advocated that the search for ancient sites should be done on the banks of the old beds of the Indus and its tributaries. Incidentally, Chand Moryo is on the bank of river Puran.

Dr Baloch had informed me about RD Banerji’s lost report on Mohen jo Daro. Years later, when I found and read about his visit to the shrine of Satiyan jo Astaan, I was motivated to look for the story of the seven women on the seal in Sindhi legends and folktales.

In December 2022, on the occasion of the centenary of the discovery of Mohen jo Daro, I wanted to contribute an article on the seal of the seven women. I was desperately looking for the story that I had heard in my childhood. I was informed by Dr Umar Chand that Dr Baloch had published a collection of folktales with the Sindhi Adabi Board, and that is how I found the folktale which authenticates my hypothesis. There are many other reasons to respect Dr Baloch, but I am most thankful to him for convincing me to write books.

TNS: Could you tell us about your book on Mohen jo Daro?

PT: In 2007, when I was in Pakistan as a visiting professor, Dr Baloch gave me the idea to write a book on Mohen jo Daro for general readers. I wanted to make it visually attractive, and Amean J did spectacular photography of the site and its artefacts. Next, I added artist Laila Shahzada’s series she did on Mohen jo Daro. The book has two forewords – by Dr NA Baloch and Dr Vasant Shinde, archeologist and vice-chancellor of the Deccan College. The fact that one is a scholar from Pakistan and the other an archaeologist from India means a lot to me. The book tells the story of Mohen jo Daro in nine chapters, from its discovery to its sudden end.

TNS: What books or authors do you recommend for young people who intend to become archaeologists?

PT: Books by first-generation Indus archaeologists John Marshall, Ernest Mackay, Madhu Sarup Vatts; books by second-generation archaeologists Gregory Poessel, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Brigitt and Raymond Allchins; and relevant books by Sindhi scholars Dr Ghulam Ali Allana, Dr NA Baloch and Siraj-ul Haq Memon. Apart from this list, they should look for books by contemporary archaeologists working on the Indus civilisation.

The interviewer has a PhD in history from the University of Malaya, Malaysia. His areas of interest are peasant history, colonial history, heritage and history of archaeology. He may be reached at junejozi@gmail.com