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The '''Indus script''' (also known as the '''Harappan script''') is a corpus of symbols produced by the [[Indus Valley Civilization]] during the [[Kot Diji]] and [[Mature Harappan]] periods between 3500 and 1900 BCE. Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it extremely difficult to judge whether or not these symbols constitute a [[Writing system|script]] used to record a language, or even symbolise a [[writing system]]. In spite of many attempts,<ref>(Possehl, 1996)</ref> 'the script' remains undecipherable. There is no known [[bilingual inscription]] to help decipher the script, nor does the script show any significant changes over time. |
The '''Indus script''' (also known as the '''Harappan script''') is a corpus of symbols produced by the [[Indus Valley Civilization]] during the [[Kot Diji]] and [[Mature Harappan]] periods between 3500 and 1900 BCE. Most inscriptions containing these symbols are extremely short, making it extremely difficult to judge whether or not these symbols constitute a [[Writing system|script]] used to record a language, or even symbolise a [[writing system]]. In spite of many attempts,<ref>(Possehl, 1996)</ref> 'the script' remains undecipherable. There is no known [[bilingual inscription]] to help decipher the script, nor does the script show any significant changes over time. |
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The first publication of a seal with Harappan symbols dates to 1875, in a drawing by [[Alexander Cunningham]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Cunningham|first1=Alexander|title=Harappa|journal=Archaeological Survey of India: Report for the Years 1872-3|date=1875|volume=5|pages=105–108}}</ref> Since then, over 4,000 inscribed objects have been discovered, some as far afield as [[Mesopotamia]]. In the early 1970s, [[Iravatham Mahadevan]] published a [[text corpus|corpus]] and [[concordance (publishing)|concordance]] of Indus inscriptions listing 3,700 seals and 417 distinct signs in specific patterns. |
The first publication of a seal with Harappan symbols dates to 1875, in a drawing by [[Alexander Cunningham]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Cunningham|first1=Alexander|title=Harappa|journal=Archaeological Survey of India: Report for the Years 1872-3|date=1875|volume=5|pages=105–108}}</ref> Since then, over 4,000 inscribed objects have been discovered, some as far afield as [[Mesopotamia]]. In the early 1970s, [[Iravatham Mahadevan]] published a [[text corpus|corpus]] and [[concordance (publishing)|concordance]] of Indus inscriptions listing 3,700 seals and 417 distinct signs in specific patterns. He also found that the average inscription contained five symbols, and the longest inscription contained only 14 symbols in a single line<ref>[http://www.nature.com/news/ancient-civilization-cracking-the-indus-script-1.18587 Ancient civilization_ Cracking the Indus script _ Nature News & Comment]</ref>. He also established the direction of writing as right to left.<ref name="natureindia2009">{{cite web|url=http://www.nature.com/nindia/2009/090531/full/nindia.2009.147.html|title=Write signs for Indus script?|date=2009-05-31|publisher=Nature India|accessdate=2009-06-01}}</ref> |
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Some scholars, such as G.R. Hunter,<ref name="Hunter 1934">{{citation| title=The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its Connection with Other Scripts|last=Hunter|first=G.R.|year=1934|publisher=London:K. Paul, Trench, Trubner|series=Studies in the history of culture|url=http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00013642/}}</ref> [[S. R. Rao]], John Newberry,<ref>"Indus script monographs - Volumes 1-7", p.10-20, 1980, John Newberry</ref> [[Krishna Rao (archeologist)|Krishna Rao]],<ref>"An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology", Amalananda Ghosh, p.362, 1990</ref> [[Subhash Kak]]<ref>Patel, P.G., Pandey, P., Rajgor, D. (2007) The Indic Scripts: Palaeographic and Linguistic Perspectives. D.K. Printworld.</ref> have argued that the [[Brāhmī script]] has some |
Some scholars, such as G.R. Hunter,<ref name="Hunter 1934">{{citation| title=The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its Connection with Other Scripts|last=Hunter|first=G.R.|year=1934|publisher=London:K. Paul, Trench, Trubner|series=Studies in the history of culture|url=http://ufdc.ufl.edu/AA00013642/}}</ref> [[S. R. Rao]], John Newberry,<ref>"Indus script monographs - Volumes 1-7", p.10-20, 1980, John Newberry</ref> [[Krishna Rao (archeologist)|Krishna Rao]],<ref>"An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology", Amalananda Ghosh, p.362, 1990</ref> and [[Subhash Kak]]<ref>Patel, P.G., Pandey, P., Rajgor, D. (2007) The Indic Scripts: Palaeographic and Linguistic Perspectives. D.K. Printworld.</ref> have argued that the [[Brāhmī script]] has some connection with the Indus system, while others such as [[Iravatham Mahadevan]], [[Kamil Zvelebil]] and [[Asko Parpola]] have argued a relation to the [[Dravidian language]].<ref>{{cite web | last = Rahman | first = Tariq | title = Peoples and languages in pre-islamic Indus valley | url=http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html| |
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quote=most scholars have taken the 'Dravidian hypothesis' seriously | accessdate = 2008-11-20 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509053921/http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html |archivedate=2008-05-09}}</ref><ref>[https://www.harappa.com/script/maha0.html The Indus Script]</ref> [[F. Raymond Allchin]] have somewhat cautiously supported the possibility,<ref>{{Citation | last=Goody|first=Jack|title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1987|pages=301–302 (note 4)}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last=Allchin | first=F.Raymond |last2=Erdosy|first2=George | title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States | publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995|page=336}}</ref> |
quote=most scholars have taken the 'Dravidian hypothesis' seriously | accessdate = 2008-11-20 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509053921/http://asnic.utexas.edu/asnic/subject/peoplesandlanguages.html |archivedate=2008-05-09}}</ref><ref>[https://www.harappa.com/script/maha0.html The Indus Script]</ref> [[F. Raymond Allchin]] have somewhat cautiously supported the possibility,<ref>{{Citation | last=Goody|first=Jack|title=The Interface Between the Written and the Oral|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=1987|pages=301–302 (note 4)}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | last=Allchin | first=F.Raymond |last2=Erdosy|first2=George | title=The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States | publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1995|page=336}}</ref> that even many supporters of the theory that Brāhmī probably derives from [[Aramaic alphabet|Aramaic]] influence consider: that the Brahmi language can have some Indus script influence.<ref name="Salomon 1995">{{Citation | last=Salomon | first=Richard | title=On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article. ''Journal of the American Oriental Society'' 115.2 (1995), 271–279|url=http://indology.info/papers/salomon/}}</ref> |
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Another possibility for continuity of the Indus tradition is in the [[Megalithic Graffiti Symbols|megalithic culture graffiti symbols]] of southern and central India (and Sri Lanka), which probably do not constitute a linguistic script but may have some overlap with the Indus symbol inventory.<ref>{{Citation | last1=Mahadevan | first1=Iravatham|title=Megalithic pottery inscription and a Harappa tablet:A case of extraordinary resemblance |publisher=Harappa.com|url=http://www.harappa.com/arrow/sulur-megalithic.pdf|year=2004|isbn=}}</ref><ref>{{citation|title=Between the Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE|chapter=Inscribed pots, emerging identities|first=Himanshu Prabha| last=Ray|pages=121–122|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2006|editor=[[Patrick Olivelle]]}}</ref> |
Another possibility for continuity of the Indus tradition is in the [[Megalithic Graffiti Symbols|megalithic culture graffiti symbols]] of southern and central India (and Sri Lanka), which probably do not constitute a linguistic script but may have some overlap with the Indus symbol inventory.<ref>{{Citation | last1=Mahadevan | first1=Iravatham|title=Megalithic pottery inscription and a Harappa tablet:A case of extraordinary resemblance |publisher=Harappa.com|url=http://www.harappa.com/arrow/sulur-megalithic.pdf|year=2004|isbn=}}</ref><ref>{{citation|title=Between the Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE|chapter=Inscribed pots, emerging identities|first=Himanshu Prabha| last=Ray|pages=121–122|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2006|editor=[[Patrick Olivelle]]}}</ref> |
Revision as of 20:43, 5 December 2016
Indus script | |
---|---|
Script type | Undeciphered
Bronze Age writing |
Time period | 3500–1900 BC[1][2][3] |
Direction | Right-to-left script, boustrophedon |
Languages | Unknown (see Harappan language) |
ISO 15924 | |
ISO 15924 | Inds (610), Indus (Harappan) |
The Indus script (also known as the Harappan script) is a corpus of symbols produced by the
The first publication of a seal with Harappan symbols dates to 1875, in a drawing by Alexander Cunningham.[5] Since then, over 4,000 inscribed objects have been discovered, some as far afield as Mesopotamia. In the early 1970s, Iravatham Mahadevan published a corpus and concordance of Indus inscriptions listing 3,700 seals and 417 distinct signs in specific patterns. He also found that the average inscription contained five symbols, and the longest inscription contained only 14 symbols in a single line[6]. He also established the direction of writing as right to left.[7]
Some scholars, such as G.R. Hunter,
Another possibility for continuity of the Indus tradition is in the
Corpus
Early examples of the symbol system are found in an
Late Harappan
After 1900 BC, the systematic use of the symbols ended, after the final stage of the Mature Harappan civilization. A few Harappan signs have been claimed to appear until as late as around 1100 BC (the beginning of the
Characteristics
The characters are largely pictorial but include many abstract signs. The inscriptions are thought to have been mostly written from right to left (because there are several instances of the symbols being compressed on the left side, as if the writer is running out of space at the row end there), but sometimes follow a
Decipherability question
An opposing hypothesis that has been offered by
Asko Parpola, reviewing the Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel thesis in 2005, states that their arguments "can be easily controverted".[25] He cites the presence of a large number of rare signs in Chinese, and emphasizes that there is "little reason for sign repetition in short seal texts written in an early logo-syllabic script". Revisiting the question in a 2007 lecture,[26] Parpola takes on each of the 10 main arguments of Farmer et al., presenting counterarguments for each. He states that "even short noun phrases and incomplete sentences qualify as full writing if the script uses the rebus principle to phonetize some of its signs".
A 2009 paper
Attempts at decipherment
Over the years, numerous decipherments have been proposed, but there is no established scholarly consensus.[33] The following factors are usually regarded as the biggest obstacles for a successful decipherment:
- The underlying language has not been identified though some 300 loanwords in the Rigveda are a good starting point for comparison.[34][35]
- The average length of the inscriptions is less than five signs, the longest being only 17 signs (and a sealing of combined inscriptions of just 27 signs).[36]
- No bilingual texts (like a Rosetta Stone) have been found.
The topic is popular among amateur researchers, and there have been various (mutually exclusive) decipherment claims.[37]
Miscellaneous hypotheses
There have been several hypotheses regarding the language pertaining to the Indus Script. One of the most common ones has been that the script belongs to the Aryan language. However, there are many problems with this hypothesis. A major one includes: Since the people belonging to the Indo-European cultures were always on the move, horses played a very important role in their lives or as Parpola put it, "There is no escape from the fact that the horse played a central role in the Vedic and Iranian cultures..." (Parpola, 1986). However, no depiction of horses on seals nor any remains of horses have been found in the subcontinent before 2000 BCE. Thus, it is very likely there were no Aryan speakers present before 2000 BCE in the Indus Valley.
A second, though not as popular hypothesis is that the Indus script belongs to the Munda family of languages. The Munda family of languages is spoken largely in Eastern India, and is related to some Southeast Asian languages. However, much like the Aryan language, the reconstructed vocabulary of early Munda does not reflect the Harappan culture. Therefore, its candidacy for being the language of the Indus Civilization is dim. [38]
Scholars also compare the Indus valley script with a writing system from ancient Persia, known as Linear Elamite. The two languages were contemporary to each other and resembled one another strongly. Scholars gained knowledge of the Elamite language from a bilingual monument called the Table of the Lion in the Louvre museum. The monument contained the same text in Akkadian, a known writing system, and in Linear Elamite. On comparing this ancient language to the Indus script, a lot of common symbols have been found.[39]
Other languages connected to the script include Austroasiatic and Sino-Tibetan.
Dravidian hypothesis
The Russian scholar
The Finnish scholar Asko Parpola writes that the Indus script and Harappan language "most likely to have belonged to the Dravidian family".[42] Parpola led a Finnish team in the 1960s-80s that vied with Knorozov's Soviet team in investigating the inscriptions using computer analysis. Based on a proto-Dravidian assumption, they proposed readings of many signs, some agreeing with the suggested readings of Heras and Knorozov (such as equating the "fish" sign with the Dravidian word for fish "min") but disagreeing on several other readings. A comprehensive description of Parpola's work until 1994 is given in his book Deciphering the Indus Script.[43] According to Mahadevan, a stone celt discovered in Mayiladuthurai (Tamil Nadu) is marked with Indus signs; it dates to the late Neolithic period (early 2nd millennium BC, i.e. post-dating Harappan decline). Mahadevan considers this as evidence of same language being used by the neolithic people of south India and the late Harappans.[44][45]
Iravatham Mahadevan, who supports the Dravidian hypothesis, says, "we may hopefully find that the proto-Dravidian roots of the Harappan language and South Indian Dravidian languages are similar. This is a hypothesis [...] But I have no illusions that I will decipher the Indus script, nor do I have any regret".[46]
In May 2007, the
"Sanskritic" hypothesis
John E. Mitchiner, has dismissed some of these attempts at decipherment. Mitchiner mentions that "a more soundly-based but still greatly subjective and unconvincing attempt to discern an
Support for a continuity between Indus and Brahmi has been sought in graphic similarities between Brahmi and the late
Encoding
The Indus symbols have been assigned the
See also
- Early Indian epigraphy
- Undeciphered scripts
- Bronze Age writing
- Proto-writing
Notes
- ^ "'Earliest writing' found". Retrieved 2 September 2014.
- ^ "Evidence for Indus script dated to ca. 3500 BCE". Retrieved 2 September 2014.
- ^ Edwin Bryant. The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford University. p. 178.
- ^ (Possehl, 1996)
- ^ Cunningham, Alexander (1875). "Harappa". Archaeological Survey of India: Report for the Years 1872-3. 5: 105–108.
- ^ Ancient civilization_ Cracking the Indus script _ Nature News & Comment
- ^ "Write signs for Indus script?". Nature India. 2009-05-31. Retrieved 2009-06-01.
- ^ Hunter, G.R. (1934), The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and Its Connection with Other Scripts, Studies in the history of culture, London:K. Paul, Trench, Trubner
- ^ "Indus script monographs - Volumes 1-7", p.10-20, 1980, John Newberry
- ^ "An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology", Amalananda Ghosh, p.362, 1990
- ^ Patel, P.G., Pandey, P., Rajgor, D. (2007) The Indic Scripts: Palaeographic and Linguistic Perspectives. D.K. Printworld.
- ^ Rahman, Tariq. "Peoples and languages in pre-islamic Indus valley". Archived from the original on 2008-05-09. Retrieved 2008-11-20.
most scholars have taken the 'Dravidian hypothesis' seriously
- ^ The Indus Script
- ^ Goody, Jack (1987), The Interface Between the Written and the Oral, Cambridge University Press, pp. 301–302 (note 4)
- ^ Allchin, F.Raymond; Erdosy, George (1995), The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States, Cambridge University Press, p. 336
- ^ Salomon, Richard, On The Origin Of The Early Indian Scripts: A Review Article. Journal of the American Oriental Society 115.2 (1995), 271–279
- ^ Mahadevan, Iravatham (2004), Megalithic pottery inscription and a Harappa tablet:A case of extraordinary resemblance (PDF), Harappa.com
- ^ Ray, Himanshu Prabha (2006), "Inscribed pots, emerging identities", in Patrick Olivelle (ed.), Between the Empires : Society in India 300 BCE to 400 CE, Oxford University Press, pp. 121–122
- ISBN 978-2-8653830-1-6. Retrieved 2013-05-27.)
{{cite encyclopedia}}
: Unknown parameter|conference=
ignored (help - ^ Whitehouse, David (1999-05-04). "'Earliest writing' found". BBC News Online. BBC. Archived from the original on 2014-08-21. Retrieved 2014-08-21.
{{cite news}}
: Unknown parameter|deadurl=
ignored (|url-status=
suggested) (help) - ^ Kenoyer, J. Mark; Meadow, Richard H. (2010). "Inscribed Objects from Harappa Excavations 1986-2007" (PDF). In Parpola, Asko; Pande, B.M.; Koskikallio, Petteri (eds.). Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. Vol. Volume 3: New material, untraced objects, and collections outside India and Pakistan - Part 1: Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia. p. xlviii.
{{cite encyclopedia}}
:|volume=
has extra text (help) - ^ Sullivan, S. M. (2011) Indus Script Dictionary, page viii
- ^ Farmer et al. (2004)
- .
- ^ (Parpola, 2005, p. 37)
- ^ (Parpola, 2008).
- PMID 19389998.
- .
- ^ Computational Linguistics, Volume 36, Issue 4, December 2010.
- ^ R. Sproat, 2014, "A Statistical Comparison of Written Language and Nonlinguistic Symbol Systems". Language, Volume 90, Issue 2, June 2014.
- ^ R. P. N. Rao, R. Lee, N. Yadav, M. Vahia, P. Jonathan, P. Ziman, 2015, "On statistical measures and ancient writing systems". Language, Volume 91, Number 4, December 2015.
- ^ R. Sproat, 2015, "On misunderstandings and misrepresentations: A reply to Rao et al". Language, Volume 91, Number 4, December 2015.
- ^ Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. Rowman Altamira. p. 136.
- ^ FBJ Kuiper, Aryans in the Rigveda, Amsterdam/Atlanta 1991
- ^ M. Witzel underlines the prefixing nature of these words and calls them Para-Munda,a language related to but not belonging to Proto-Munda; see: Witzel, M. Substrate Languages in Old Indo-Aryan (Ṛgvedic, Middle and Late Vedic), EJVS Vol. 5,1, 1999, 1-67
- ^ Longest Indus inscription
- Egbert Richter and N. S. Rajaramfor examples.
- ^ "Indus Script". ancientscripts.com.
- ^ Redalia, Suzanne. "Cracking the Indus Script: A Potential Breakthrough". swarajyamag.com.
- ^ (Knorozov 1965)
- ^ (Heras, 1953)
- ISBN 9780195169478.
- ^ (Parpola, 1994)
- ^ (Subramanium 2006; see also A Note on the Muruku Sign of the Indus Script in light of the Mayiladuthurai Stone Axe Discovery by I. Mahadevan (2006)
- ^ "Significance of Mayiladuthurai find - The Hindu". May 1, 2006.
- ^ Interview at Harrappa.com
- ^ Subramaniam, T. S. (May 1, 2006). "From Indus Valley to coastal Tamil Nadu". The Hindu. Chennai, India. Retrieved 2008-05-23.
- ^ Sreedharan (2007). A Manual of Historical Research Methodology. South Indian Studies. p. 268.
- ^ Robinson, Andrew. Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts. 2002
- ^ J.E. Mitchiner: Studies in the Indus Valley Inscriptions, p.5, with reference to S.R. Rao: Lothal and the Indus Civilisation (ch.10), Bombay 1978.
- ^ Kak, S. (1988). A frequency analysis of the Indus script. Cryptologia 12: 129-143. http://www.ece.lsu.edu/kak/IndusFreqAnalysis.pdf
- ^ Kak, S. (1990). Indus and Brahmi - further connections, Cryptologia 14: 169-183.
- ^ Kak, Subhash (1994), "The evolution of early writing in India" (PDF), Indian Journal of History of Science, 28: 375–388
- ^ Das, S., Ahuja, A., Natarajan, B., Panigrahi, B.K. (2009) Multi-objective optimization of Kullback-Leibler divergence between Indus and Brahmi writing. World Congress on Nature & Biologically Inspired Computing, 2009. NaBIC 2009. 1282 - 1286. ISBN 978-1-4244-5053-4
- ^ Everson 1999 and [1]
References
- Bryant, Edwin (2000), The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate Oxford University Press.
- ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2. Retrieved 2010-08-31.)
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help); Invalid|ref=harv
(help - Farmer, Steve et al. (2004) The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization, Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS), vol. 11 (2004), issue 2 (Dec) [2] (PDF).
- Knorozov, Yuri V.(ed.) (1965) Predvaritel’noe soobshchenie ob issledovanii protoindiyskikh textov. Moscow.
- Mahadevan, Iravatham, Murukan In the Indus Script (1999)
- Mahadevan, Iravatham, Aryan or Dravidian or Neither? A Study of Recent Attempts to Decipher the Indus Script (1995–2000) EJVS (ISSN 1084-7561) vol. 8 (2002) issue 1 (March 8).[3]
- Heras, Henry. Studies in Proto-Indo-Mediterranean Culture, Bombay: Indian Historical Research Institute, 1953.
- Parpola, Asko et al. (1987-2010). Corpus of Indus seals and inscriptions, Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia (Academia scientiarum Fennica), 1987-2010.
- Parpola, Asko (1994), Deciphering the Indus script Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
- Parpola, Asko (2005) Study of the Indus Script. 50th ICES Tokyo Session.
- Parpola, Asko (2008) Is the Indus script indeed not a writing system?. Published in Airāvati, Felicitation volume in honour of Iravatham Mahadevan, Chennai.
- ISBN 0-8122-3345-X..
- Walter Ashlin Fairservis (1992). The Harappan Civilization and Its Writing: A Model for the Decipherment of the Indus Script. BRILL.
- Rao, R.P.N. et al. (2009). "Entropic Evidence for Linguistic Structure in the Indus Script". Science, 29 May 2009.
- Rao, R.P.N. (2010). "Probabilistic Analysis of an Ancient Undeciphered Script". IEEE Computer, vol. 43(4), 76-80, April 2010.
- Sproat, R. (2014). "A Statistical Comparison of Written Language and Nonlinguistic Symbol Systems". "Language", vol. 90(2), 457-481, June 2014.
- Subramanian, T. S. (2006) "Significance of Mayiladuthurai find" in The Hindu, May 1, 2006.
- Wells, B. "An Introduction to Indus Writing" Independence, MO: Early Sites Research Society 1999.
- Keim, Brandon (2009) "Artificial Intelligence Cracks 4,000 Year Old Mystery" in WIRED
- Vidale, Massimo (2007). "The collapse melts down: a reply to Farmer, Sproat and Witzel". Philosophy East and West. 57 (1–4): 333–366.
External links
This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. (January 2016) |
- Indus Script (ancientscripts.com)
- Indus Script (http://www.shangrilagifts.org/hp/indus.html - Comparison of Indus Valley Harappan 哈拉帕 and Ancient Chinese Jia-Gu-wen 甲骨文 "Bone Script")
- "Discovery of a century" in Tamil Nadu ("Discovery of a century" in Tamil Nadu )
- The Indus Script (From harappa.com)
- BBC - 'Earliest writing' found
- How come we can't decipher the Indus script? (from The Straight Dope)
- Iravatham Mahadevan, Towards a scientific study of the Indus Script
- "Studies in Indus Scripts - I" by S. Srikanta Sastri, published in Quarterly Journal of Mythic Society, Vol XXIV, No. 3
- "Studies in Indus Scripts - II" by S. Srikanta Sastri, published in Quarterly Journal of Mythic Society, Vol XXIV, No 4
- Script Image;Article
- Collection of essays about the Indus script (Steve Farmer)
- WIRED.com (WIRED.com)
- "Computers Unlock More Secrets Of The Mysterious Indus Valley Script". Science Daily. August 4, 2009..
- Rao, Rajesh (2011) "A Rosetta Stone for a Lost Language" TED Talks