Swathe a mummy – ritual

Abstract

There is an odd symbol, which rarely appears in Indus seal inscriptions. A similar symbol appears in Egyptian Hieroglyphics dictionary, with a meaning ‘swathe a mummy’. There is a possibility Indus valley people also could have practised mummification like Egyptian people.

The above-given seal inscription shows ‘ Swathe a mummy’ symbol, which could be indicating the wrapping of mummy ritual. The red arrow mark shows the characters, which appears in the Egyptian hieroglyphic dictionary.

The above-given picture is the snap-shot taken out of the book of Wallis Budge – Egyptian Hieroglyph dictionary. (1) Reference: Page no:cxlii, chapter.no.xxi, under the heading ‘woven work, plaited, articles’. Serial no.45. This hieroglyphic stands for the meaning ‘Swathe a mummy (or) Embalm a body with unguents, spices, etc. The other meanings are the ‘dead, to count up and reckon’. Out of these three other meanings, the word ‘dead’ also could be applied to Indus seal inscriptions, because the majority of the seal inscriptions revolve around dead people and rituals for them.

This hieroglyphic symbol and the Indus seal symbol are looking more or less the same. Hence, there is a possibility that the seal inscription could be indicating the incidence of mummy wrapping with bandage clothes.

There is one more odd symbol appearing in this seal inscription. Details are as following:

The Tawaret symbol (demon goddess)is followed by SA-protection symbol. The Tawaret symbol is not clear in this inscription, but we have to make an assumption, to complete the reading of the inscription. Tawaret symbol is preceded by Sastha symbol (symbol of god) and followed by SA-protection symbol, which is the specific symbol of this demon goddess. Based on these symbols combination, it can be construed that these three logos together indicates the demon goddess -Tawaret.

The above-given logos are taken from the book of Asko Parpola, which looks similar to ‘Tawaret symbol’. Tawaret was a Hippopotamus god with four legs. However, those four legs are missing in the Indus seal inscription.

Acknowledgements:

1. Indus seal picture is taken from the book of sue Sullivan (2)

2. Logos are taken from the research papers of Iravatham Mahadevan (3) and book Asko Parpola.

Bibliography

1. Budge, Wallis. Egyptian Hieroglyphic Dictionary. London: John Murray, 1920.

2. Sullivan, Sue, Indus script dictionary. 2011.

3. Mahadevan.I. The Indus script -Text, Concordance and Tables. http://www.rmrl.in. [Online] http://www.rmrl.in/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/papers/5a.pdf.