This is a pictograph of the awns of a barley plant. Hence, it is the noun barley.
Illustrative Text Reference:
Lothal: Seal: L-45 a: Jagat Pati Joshi and Asko Parpola, 1987: Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions: Volume 1: Page 248: Collections in India: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.
Comments:
Note the similarity, in Middle Egyptian, to Gardiner's sign M 34, which he translates as 'an ear of emmer'¹. Both emmer and barley can be used to brew beer. It would be impossible to distinguish between a pictograph of an ear of emmer and a pictograph of an ear of barley.
Indeed this difficulty is supported by reference to Champollion. Champollion states that his sign number 247 is a pictograph of an ear of wheat, but then expands the definition by listing barley, wheat and cereal².
It is therefore possible that this Indus symbol did not distinguish between barley and emmer.
Image Credit:
Barley: Lynn Fawcett, 2017.
Notes:
1. A. H. Gardiner, 1957: Egyptian grammar: being an introduction to the study of hieroglyphs. 3rd Edition: Oxford: Griffith Institute, Ashmolean Museum: The 1071 hieroglyphs from Unicode 5.2, Appearance and sources: https://mjn.host.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/egyptian/unicode/tablemain.html#Gardiner1957: Accessed: 1 July 2017.
2. Jean-François Champollion le Jeune, 1841: Dictionnaire égyptien en écriture hiéroglyphique: Chapter 4: Manuscript Page 228: Firmin Didot, Paris.