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Discovered from nearly 4,000 ancient inscribed objects, including seals, tablets, ivory rods, pottery shards, etc., the Indus inscriptions are one of the most enigmatic legacies of the Indus Valley civilization which have not been deciphered due to the absence of bilingual texts, extreme brevity of the inscriptions.
So far, the Indus writing system could not be translated because the texts are too short, we have no bilingual inscription and we do not which language or languages were transcribed. Moreover, it is possible that it worked differently from any other writing system of the same general period.
Asko Parpola
Generally recognized as the world’s expert on the Indus script, Asko Parpola has been studying this undeciphered writing for over 40 years at the University of Helsinki in Finland.
From this culture, archaeologists have recovered several thousand short inscriptions, most with just 4 or 5 signs. There is no consensus on how to read them, although dozens of speculative decipherments have been proposed over the past century.
James Prinsep FRS
James Prinsep FRS (20 August 1799 – 22 April 1840) was an English scholar, orientalist and antiquary. He was the founding editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and is best remembered for deciphering the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts of ancient India.
Since then, over 4,000 inscribed objects have been discovered, some as far afield as Mesopotamia, as a consequence of ancient Indus–Mesopotamia relations….
Indus script | |
---|---|
Script type | Undeciphered possible Bronze Age writing |
Time period | 3500–1900 BCE |
Direction | Right to left |
Languages | Unknown (see Harappan language) |
Prinsep
Brahmi, the main script used in ancient India mainly from 3rd century BC to 6th century AD, is considered as the core script for genesis of other modern Indian scripts according to experts. The script was deciphered by Prinsep, the founding editor of Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, in 1837.
It’s instructive to look at some deciphered scripts to see what makes the enigmatic writing of the Indus valley different. 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.
The Indus script (also known as the Harappan script) is a corpus of symbols produced by the Indus Valley Civilisation during the Kot Diji and Mature Harappan periods between 3500 and 1900 BCE.
Knorozov’s suggestion was preceded by the work of Henry Heras, who also suggested several readings of signs based on a proto-Dravidian assumption. The Finnish scholar Asko Parpola wrote that the Indus script and Harappan language “most likely belonged to the Dravidian family”.