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Topic: Indus script

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	Decoding the Indus Script
		The script was an absolutely unknown one, it was not found anywhere in conjunction with another known script and the inscrip- tions on the seals were nowhere of any great length than a few letters each...
		Then, he decided to examine, without prejudice, those scripts and alphabates of the world which were closest, in time, to the Indus script, to see whether those scripts or alphabates could give any clue as to the sound-value which could be assigned to these basic letters.
		While the direct connection between the late Indus script (1600 BC) and the Brahmi script could not be definitely established earlier, more and more inscriptions have been found all over the country in the last few years, dating 1000 BC, 700 BC, and so on, which have bridged the gap between the two.
	www.hindunet.org /hindu_history/ancient/indus/indus_script.html (1250 words)

	Indus script - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		The term Indus script (Harappan script) refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Harappan civilization (Indus Valley Civilization—most of the Indus sites are distributed in present day Pakistan and North West India) used between 2600–1900 BC.
		Cunningham's ideas were supported by G.R. Hunter, and a minority of scholars continue to argue for the Indus script as the predecessor of the Brahmic family.
		Indus Script Deciphered by Natwar Jha and N. Rajaram
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Indus_script (1021 words)

	[No title] (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		The Indus civilisation is equated with the late Vedic period of the sutra literature.
		While Gurumuthy's attempt to decipher the Indus script from the pottery graffiti is not successful for the reasons I have summarised above, his study raises important questions on the nature of the pottery graffiti and their possible links with the Indus script.
		Indus Script found in a Santhal village in Bihar 4.11 Mathivanan has also read the symbols painted on the walls in a Santhal village in Bihar as written in the Tamil language in the Indus script.
	users.primushost.com /~india/ejvs/ejvs0801/ejvs0801.txt (8733 words)

	Straight Dope Staff Report: How come we can't decipher Indus script?
		The Indus script, which was written in and around Pakistan over a period of several centuries centered around 2500 B.C., is the most famous undeciphered script, but there are many others.
		Script decipherment is not as easy as it's made out to be in science fiction--and sometimes not as easy as it's made out to be in history books.
		When the first inscriptions were discovered in the 1870s in and around the Indus valley of Pakistan, and when the early cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were excavated in the 1920s, archaeologists assumed that civilization and writing always went together--a complex urban culture couldn't possibly develop without writing.
	www.straightdope.com /mailbag/mindusscript.html (3221 words)

	Shangri-La Indus Harappan Script and Ancient Chinese Jia-Gu-wen 甲骨文 Comparison by Sheldon Lee ...
		The script primarily is found on carved seals, dating to a civilization that flourished from ca 2500 BCE to 1500 BCE, just 23 years before the beginning of the Chinese Shang Dynasty, and contemporary with the earliest phases of writing in China.
		The context of the Indus Valley script in its earliest phase is on clay sealing fragments and incised pottery fragments.
		The Indus phrase that we are considering clearly reads, in modern Chinese pin-yin, ï¿½xīn chŏu bŭï¿½ and means ï¿½8th sequence of the year of the ox celebrationï¿½ in the context of a traditional Chinese calender cycle of 60 year repetitions.
	shangri-la.0catch.com /hp/indus.html (4277 words)

	Peoples and languages (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		There are, however, nearly 4,000 specimens of a script from the Indus Valley Civilization carved on stone, fragments of pottery and other objects.
		The script, or at least the pictographs, appear to have been uniform but that is not proof that the language too was one.
		In fact the script of the famous edicts of Ashoka at Shahbazgarhi and Mansehra (Pakistan) is Kharoshthi whereas the edicts in the rest of India are in Brahmi.
	asnic.utexas.edu /asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html (6627 words)

	Dr.Gift Siromoney's Home Page
		Indus Valley Civilization was one of the largest in the ancient world.
		One of the basic problems in the study of the Indus script is the determination of the grammatical class that each sign belongs to.
		Furthermore, there is a need to study each Indus sign with reference to its archaeological contexts of occurrence such as the site at which it is found [7], the object on which it is inscribed [8] and the field symbol it is associated with [9].
	www.cmi.ac.in /gift/IndusScript.htm (999 words)

	Dr.Gift Siromoney's Home Page
		The Indus Valley Civilization flourished over a vast region extending from West Punjab in Pakistan to East Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat for about a thousand years from 2500 B.C. to 1500 B.C. We do not know what kind of language it used, but it is certain that they knew the art of writing.
		One of us proposed in 1977 that Brahmi script was invented at one stroke just prior to the period of Asoka and that many of the signs can be derived from certain compound symbols such as a cross superimposed on a square -- a symbol found in the Tamil cavern inscriptions of the pre-Christ era.
		He is of the view that the Indus signs stand for syllables, vowels and consonants and that the language is not Dravidian but Indo-European or a form of Sanskrit.
	www.cmi.ac.in /gift/IndusScript/indu_computerapproach.htm (1950 words)

	Gopichand Katragadda's Blog : Romancing the Gods - Tales from the Indus Seals, Gopichand Katragadda blogs on sulekha, ...
		The difficulty in deciphering the Indus script is three-fold.
		The Indus script as a writing system disappeared when the Indus urbanization broke down about 1900 BC (even at that time there was no alphabetic script anywhere in the world), although isolated script symbols seem to have survived in some places (notably in Maharashtra) some centuries longer.
		The Indus script was created when the Harappan culture became urbanized, and it disappeared when the urbanization broke down, except that some reminiscences lingered a couple of centuries in some pockets.
	www.sulekha.com /blogs/blogdisplay.aspx?cid=3681 (3989 words)

	Indus Script - Crystalinks
		The main corpus of writing dated from the Indus Civilization is in the form of some two thousand inscribed seals in good, legible conditions.
		It appears that the maximum number of Indus script symbols is 400, although there are 200 basic signs (ie signs that are not combined from others).
		This means that the Indus script is probably logophonetic, in that it has both signs used for their meanings, and signs used for their phonetic values.
	www.crystalinks.com /indus.html (1505 words)

	A Possible Indus Script Dictionary (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Indus tablets with '4 + fig' have a solitary fig leaf on the reverse.
		The most frequent and almost always terminal sign of the Indus script is read as a jar and connected to the legend of 'jar-born' sages and the symbolism of the jar connected to priestly ritual in Indian tradition.
		Iravatham Mahadevan, Terminal Ideograms in the Indus Script, in Gergeory L. Possehl, Harappan Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective, Oxford and IBH Publishing Co., 1982, p.
	www.harappa.com /script/diction.html (534 words)

	The Hindu : Front Page : Significance of Mayiladuthurai find
		The celt with the script measures 6.5 cm by 2.5 cm by 3.6 cm by 4 cm.
		The first Indus sign on the celt showed a skeletal body with ribs, seated on his haunches, body bent, lower limbs folded and knees drawn up.
		But this was the first time that a complete, classical Indus script had been found on a polished Neolithic stone celt, Mr.
	www.hindu.com /2006/05/01/stories/2006050101992000.htm (559 words)

	Amazon.co.uk: Deciphering the Indus Script: Books: Asko Parpola (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		His ideas about the script, the linguistic affinity of the Harappan language, and the nature of the Indus religion are informed by a remarkable command of Aryan, Dravidian, and Mesopotamian sources, archaeological materials, and linguistic methodology.
		He outlines what is known about the Harappan culture and its script, presents a decipherment of a small number of interlocking Indus signs, and proposes a method which will permit further progress in decipherment.
		His fascinating study confirms that the Indus script was logo-syllabic, and that the Indus language belonged to the Dravidian family.
	www.amazon.co.uk /Deciphering-Indus-Script-Asko-Parpola/dp/0521430798 (311 words)

	Indus Script and Telugu
		It is more or less certain that the Indus seals (hieroglyphic or not) found in the remains of Mohenjodaro and Harappa represent the proto-dravidian language.
		The essence of these theories is that, barring their connection with the Indus culture, existing Indian languages did not have any formal script before the fourth century BCE.
		That is the reason for the combined Telugu-Kannada script to have been called as the "old Kannada." This in turn does not mean that Telugu people were non-literate during the periods when Kannada and Tamil people were producing works of literature.
	www.engr.mun.ca /~adluri/telugu/language/script/script1a.html (1704 words)

	Murukan in the Indus Script
		(b) The basic Indus ideogram for ‘deity’ occurs often, presumably as a religious symbol, in the pottery graffiti from the Megalithic burials at Sanur in Tamilnadu (Fig.6).
		The survival of the basic Indus ideogram as a religious symbol in later times suggests that the cult of the Harappan deity spread to Eastern and Southern India along with the migration of the descendants of the Harappans to these regions after the demise of the mature Indus Civilization.
		The arguments in favour of the Dravidian character of the Indus Valley Civilization are presented in Parpola 1994, pp.
	murugan.org /research/mahadevan.htm (4418 words)

	Michel Danino - The Deciphered Indus Script - Methodology, Readings, Interpretations (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Most of those other ancient scripts, also the Maya, the Linear B of ancient Crete, have been unravelled by decades of scholarly labour, debate, even controversy, often also by strokes of genius.
		Yet the Indus script has proved a hard nut to crack and has resisted generations of savants of all kinds since it came to light in the 1920s.
		First, the lack of agreement on the type of language underlying the script, as the cultural background of the Harappan civilization remains itself a matter of debate.
	micheldanino.voiceofdharma.com /jha_rajaram.html (1346 words)

	IndiaStar book-review: "The Deciphered Indus Script" by Natwar Jha and N. S. Rajaram, reviewed by C. J. S. ...
		This claim arises from the deciphering of the ancient Indus script recently accomplished by Natwar Jha.
		Where couplet 73 is clearly related with the Indus seals and couplet 92 records Aryan trend of considering Lord Vishnu in the form of unicorn (bull with one horn), called the Eksringah Nandivardhnhah in our epic and 'bull-bos indicus' called the Vrisha, Vrishakapi, Sipivisht, and Trk-kut.
		He has deciphered more than half of the known seals and established the script as old Brahmi, a thousand years older than the Phoenician script, which was the supposed origin of all alphabetic writing.
	www.indiastar.com /wallia27.htm (1117 words)

	Indus Valley Script
		This is very doubtful, because the Indo-European Brahmi script used by Aryans, was generated about a thousand years after Indus was forgotten.
		It appears that the maximum number of Indus script symbols is 400, although there are 200 basic signs (i.e.
		This means that the Indus script is probably logosyllabic, in that it has both signs used for their meanings, and signs used for their phonetic values.
	indoeuro.bizland.com /project/script/indus.html (563 words)

	Welcome to INDUS SCRIPT
		It is the Indus language at the isolating stage,represented by the extant Indus inscriptions.
		The original settlers remained entrenched on the banks of the river Sarasvati from where they had dispersed,spreading upto Sindhu in the west and Ganges in the east.Later,when the Aryans of the land of the Soma plants joined them,there was the beginning of the pastoral vedic culture.
		Briefly,The Indus Valley is the original home of the Aryans or Indoeuropeans.The racial distribution as Aryan,Dravidian and Austric,etc. is ill conceived.
	www.indusscript.com (318 words)

	Deciphering the Indus Script (book review)
		Parpola's approach to the interpretation of the Indus script combines several approaches, which, as usual, are all masterfully, if somewhat speculatively, applied.
		Among the techniques employed are the analysis of positional and segmentation patterns within the inscriptions, the detection of interpretive clues from the objects themselves, the invocation of comparative data from archaeological and ethnographic sources, and the visual analysis of the signs of the script themselves.
		This approach is justified by the detailed discussion in chapters 8 and 9 of the linguistic context of the Indus culture and its writing, in which Parpola presents strong arguments for the position that the Dravidian language family is the one most likely represented by the Indus script.
	murugan.org /research/salomon.htm (1846 words)

	Neolithic axe found with Indus script (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Sources in the Archaeology Department said the four symbols found on the celt, which is actually a hand-held stone axe, was in the classical Indus script, which proved that the script, which was commonly found in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, had reached Tamil Nadu also.
		Iravatham Mahadevan, considered to be one of the best experts on the Indus script, said the first sign on the celt depicted a skeletal body with ribs, seated on its haunch.
		Mahadevan inferred that this discovery was a pointer that the Indus Valley people and the Neolithic of Tamil Nadu shared a common language, which could be Dravidian and not Aryan.
	www.chennaionline.com /columns/variety/2006/05neolithic.asp (233 words)

	The Indus Script and the Rg-Veda (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Since the publication of the concordances of the inscriptions of the Indus seals many people have been working on the solution of the riddle presented by the 5000 years old script of the Indus valley.
		On this account, the pretension that the Indus script is deciphered meets with increasing suspicion and is exposed to ridicule even.
		Many scholars working in the field are nowadays of the opinion that the Indus script is altogether indecipherable, if not a bilingual of considerable size turns up.
	www.indiaclub.com /html/6740.htm (408 words)

	Decoding Indus Valley script- The Times of India (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-13)
		Agarwal affirmed that these ruins were full-fledged architecture of ziggurat, a rectangular stepped-up platform built up by bricks having blocks and graven iconic Indus script-based lexigrams of mother goddess Tirka or Durga, used as temple complex for worshipping by Indus people.
		This iconic culture of Tirka or Durga worship was the original religion of Indus and India.
		Agarwal also revealed that this deciphering of Indus script, the linkage and location of Indus like religion and civilisation had been unfolded to encompass almost all countries of the world.
	timesofindia.indiatimes.com /articleshow.asp?art_id=13404142 (279 words)

	The Indus Script: Was it really a script? - Sepia Mutiny
		This is not impossible in a true script, but it begs the question of how one could expect the reader to know what the new symbols meant, given that apparently (unlike Chinese) the new symbols were not in general complex compounds of a "semantic" and "phonetic" component.
		Meanwhile, the Indus Valley/Sarasvati civilization had extremely efficient urban planning (featuring "Euclidean" orientations and proportions, WAY before Euclid), advanced sanitation practices, highly specialized societal roles and functions, advanced recreation (as evidenced by the 6 face dice and Chess pieces) and religion (relics that were precursors to Shiva)...in short, all the hallmarks of an advanced civilization.
		The Indus valley seals were probably worn by the Harappans given the presence of a hole on the back of the seals where a string could be placed to tie the seal around an ankle or neck.
	www.sepiamutiny.com /sepia/archives/000834.html (13203 words)

	Early Indus Script
		Workers at the Indus Valley site of Harappa in northern Pakistan were plied with sweets and entertained by local drummers this past spring following the discovery of inscribed sherds dating to ca.
		A main objective of this year's excavations, conducted in collaboration with Pakistan's Department of Archaeology and Museums, was to find evidence for the origins and development of the enigmatic and as yet undeciphered Indus script.
		This year's discovery of inscribed sherds comes in the wake of even earlier examples of script discovered in March 1998 from occupation levels dating to between 3500 and 3300 B.C., possibly the earliest known writing in the Indus Valley.
	cat.he.net /~archaeol/9909/newsbriefs/indus.html (510 words)

	The Indus Script and Horse Sense
		By publishing Rajaram's letter and interviewing him, the ground was prepared to confound him further on minor issues, particularly the ‘horse’ that was but a footnote to the larger question of the Indus script.
		This transitional script was mainly pictographic, then slowly transformed to syllabic, leading on to the Brahmi script.
		The two scripts have 11 letters in common and many similarities whose importance is not yet appreciated by historians.
	www.hvk.org /articles/1200/123.html (1162 words)

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