AN EXTREMELY RARE ANCIENT MOHENJO DARO COPPER PLATE, nine copper plates are unusual amongst comparable copper tablets as both image and text occur on the one side of the plate. It has been argued that some copper tablets may have served as special amulets, and were car- ried, perhaps wrapped in cloth, on the person. However, the function of the plates here is clearly to impart an image as indicated by the reversed asymmetric Indus script characters. The same occurs with steatite seals, but here the engraving is deep and robust such the seal is capable of leaving a strong relief impression in a pliable medium such as moist clay. Trials with plasticine showed that the copper plates left at best a weak impression (Figure 12). The images imparted were generally indis- tinct, and relief lines in terracotta would have been quite fragile due to their fineness. The resultant sealing would have been far larger than anything known, and inherently prone to ...... copper plates superficially resemble large Indus Valley seals, as seven of the plates bear an image of an ani- mal or person, plus reversed text. Two of the copper plates bear only mirrored Indus characters boldly engraved in two rows. The plates are illustrated in Figure 2 and basic attributes are given in Table ...

Extremely Fine.