Iberian Peninsula to the indus

partmented seals, seated on Bactrian dragons, with caprids or wings emerging from 
the shoulders, their interpretation remains a mystery. Shared imagery, particularly 
the association of divinities with specific animals and natural elements, may betray 
2
Stamp seal in Indus style 
Eastern Iran or Oxus
Late III millennium BC
Steatite with modern impression:
a bull, and proto-elamite script
Ligabue Collection, Venice, 
inv. CL 1720 TENIAMO???
a transfer of religious beliefs and mythologies as scholars attempt to decipher the 
rich visual language on the seals of Eastern Iran and the Oxus region.
One motif that demonstrates a similarity of expression over a wider range, from 
the Mediterranean to the Indus, is the symmetrical scene of a “Master of Animals” 
with a central figure controlling dangerous beasts – one notable depiction with 
snakes held by a central figure, while another controls streams of water above two 
Indus-looking zebu, on an “intercultural style” vessel imported to Mesopotamia. Ti-
gers are controlled by a nude hero on Harappan seals, replacing the lions one would 
expect in Mesopotamia. Composite creatures combining elements of potent animals 
with each other and with humans – either as a means of visualizing the unseen world 
or heightening the magical powers of the living – also occur across the ancient world. 
Oxus divinities in human form are often winged and associated with snakes further 
west, and rarely have horned headgear. 
Harappan seals emphasize natural animals, occasionally with bovine horns add-
ed to the tiger and the elephant, but basic elements that farther west define the 
otherworldly – such as wings – are lacking in the Indus Valley depictions. The most 
recognizable composite Harappan image melds a human head (and hair) topped by 
bull horns and ears, a male or female torso, human arms with animal extremities, 
and bovine hindquarters and tail. Another, depicted both on stamp seals and one 
cylinder seal, consists of a human figure attached to the belly and hind legs of a tiger 
with horns resembling those of East Iranian divinities.
Images of bull capture and acrobatics – familiar from Syria, Anatolia, the Aegean 
and Egypt in the second millennium BC – occur in a Harappan context on seals from 
Mohenjodaro. Here the beast is a water buffalo, but on a cylinder seal from Ur with 
Indus-related imagery, a zebu is depicted. Another extraordinary stamp seal from 
Gonur, in the form of a Bactrian camel biting its hind legs, also shows a zebu in a 
Near Eastern version of the “flying gallop”.
There can be no doubt that the peoples of the developing cities and towns in the 
varied landscapes of the ancient world, speaking a vast array of languages, were 
greatly enriched by the economics of exchange that provided the path for the transfer 
of materials, imagery, technologies and ideas over such a vast geographic area. Yet, 
despite the cultural connections that emerged, civilizations from the Mediterranean 
to the Indus retained a richness of visual expressions that came to define their own 
unique identities.
J.A.
Bibliography
: Francfort 1982, pp. 179–208; Stein-
keller 1982, pp. 237–265; Sarianidi 1994, pp
. 
27–36; 
Harper, Klengel-Brandt, Aruz, Benzel 1995; Collon 
1996, pp. 209–226; Possehl 1996, pp. 133–208; Sar-
ianidi 1998; Aruz 1999, pp. 12–30; Aruz Wallenfels 
2003; Aruz, Graff, Rakic 2005; Madjidzadeh 2008, pp. 
69–103; Salvatori 2008, pp. 111–118; Vermaak 2008, 
pp. 454–471; Kaniuth 2010, pp. 3–22; Laursen 2010, 
pp. 96–134; Benoit 2011; Pittman 2012, pp. 79–94; 
Steinkeller 2012; Pittman 2013, pp. 63–89; Pittman 
2014, pp. 625–636; Winkelmann 2014, pp. 199–229; 
Vidale, Frenez 2015, pp. 144–154.

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53
52
SOUNDS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD: 
HARPS ACROSS TIME AND SPACE
T
he harp player from the Cyclades (
cat. n°21
) stands in this exhibition as the 
symbol of the place taken by ancient music, a vanished world. It is the rep-
resentative of the gentle art of sounds, which we see, darkly, through the few 
remains of musical instruments that survived across time, together with a larger 
number of figurative images.
By the forth millennium a range of instruments had spread across parts of the 
ancient world, including elam, mesopotamia, egypt, the indus Valley and the oxus 
(or Bactria-margiana Archaeological Complex). it includes strings, winds and per-
cussion instruments. of strings, harps arose first, followed by lyres and lutes. such 
instruments had complex structures: sets of strings, tuning devices and bridges which 
allowed the string to vibrate and be tuned. their bodies were shaped to amplify the 
sound. such details make them easy to recognize on images and identify in archae-
ological digs. most were made of wood, a perishable material, but some survived 
because they were clad in metal foil.
there were two kinds of ancient harps, the early arched harps (ca. 3300–2000 
BC) and the later, angular harp (ca. 2000 BC–300 Ad).
1
the earliest harps had an arched shape and may, in fact, have been inspired by 
the hunter’s bow. the musical connection is revealed already in the odyssey (eighth 
century BC) when the hero returns to his wife, Penelope, on ithaca. He finds his 
familiar bow, used twenty years earlier, before his departure,