Traders of the Plain

From the archives of Saudi Aramco World online, a fine article about the Harappan civilization, the roots of which date back to at least 7000 BCE. At it height, it covered more territory than either the Egyptian or Mesopotamian civilizations, and yet it is not remembered today because of the absence of great preserved ruins and spectacular treasures recovered from burials.

Here is an excerpt regarding the mysterious Harappan script, which has yet to be deciphered:

The Indus Enigma

It's the greatest single mystery of the Indus Valley civilization," says Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, field director of the Harappa Archeological Research Project. He's talking about the Harappans' still-undeciphered script, an example of which may be what's inscribed on two pottery shards found at Kenoyer's dig, at a level that dates to 3200 BC. The three groups of symbols on the shards look like matchsticks and tiny forks attached at the handles.

The marks may simply have indicated ownership, and perhaps had no meaning in themselves, but they bear a close resemblance to, and may be precursors of, elements of the writing system that came into regular use in the Indus Valley around 2700 BC, and disappeared completely, along with the rest of Harappan civilization, between 1900 and 1700 BC.

Depending on whether one interprets similar-looking signs as variants or separate symbols, the Indus Valley script apparently consisted of about 400 characters that depict human and animal figures, and additional geometric shapes and symbols. By analyzing overlapping strokes and observing crowding toward the left ends of lines, archeologists have gathered that the symbols were almost always written from right to left.

More than 4200 objects bearing the script have been found, including seals, bangles, pottery, tools, utensils and small tablets of copper, steatite or clay—but these are only objects that have survived the millennia: The Harappans may have written prolifically on less durable materials like papyrus or cloth that are unlikely to be excavated. About 80 percent of the inscriptions are on seals or seal impressions, suggesting that the symbols may have been used primarily for commercial purposes, such as stamping bales of goods with an identifying mark.

Despite nearly 50 independent attempts to decipher the Harappan script in the past 80 years, including some recent ones using computers, it remains stubbornly enigmatic. It is distinctively different from the scripts of Mesopotamia or Egypt, and it bears no resemblance to writing systems, such as those used in Sanskrit or other Indo-Aryan languages, that later appeared in the region. Some scholars believe that the script's closest link is with writing of the Dravidian languages of southern India, such as Tamil and Malayalam, but there are no traces of other aspects of the Indus Valley civilization in that part of the subcontinent, and it seems unlikely that, if the Harappan script migrated there, no other aspect of the culture should have accompanied it.

Part of the decoding problem is that no bi- or multilingual inscription, like the famous Rosetta Stone, has ever been found. And the Harappan texts are short: None is longer than 26 signs, and the average length is only five, which does not give much opportunity for the development of recurring patterns of signs that might be discerned. Furthermore, the script may have served to express more than one language, as Roman, Arabic and many other forms of writing still do.

The undecoded script continues to lock up most of the secrets of the Indus civilization and of the Harappans' social and religious lives—the second great mystery, says Kenoyer. If the inscriptions could be read, scholars surmise, we'd be much closer to knowing how and what the Harappans worshiped, who their leaders were, what role religion played in their lives, and what the source was of their far-reaching organization and cultural uniformity.

Related post - the Artifacts of Lothal

For more on the Harappan script, check Wikipedia's entry