The horned figure on the Indus seal

In the winter of 1928–29 the excavator Ernest Mackay lifted a small steatite seal from the ruins of Mohenjo-daro. On it sits a figure with horns, apparently cross-legged, with animals on either side. Two years later John Marshall announced that this was Shiva before Shiva: three faces, bull horns, a yogi's seat, the beasts of a lord of animals. For a generation the reading was accepted. Then the objections came. Sullivan saw a female figure; Doris Srinivasan saw a buffalo-man with cow-like ears; Hiltebeitel took the horns for a buffalo's and proposed a forerunner of the buffalo demon; Parpola and Krishna Rao offered other gods. Gavin Flood pointed out that the three faces and the yoga seat are far from clear on the tiny object, and Possehl said proto-Shiva went too far. Doniger's verdict is that we cannot know. The site records the seal as a question that Indology has not closed.