Articles on inscriptions, the script or sign system, iconography and writing in the Indus Valley Civilization from the earliest appearances of potters marks on. Includes articles by leading scholars of the Indus script, including Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan.
The Convocation Address of February 26, 2015 at the Dravidian University in Kuppam reflects on similarities between the Indus script and later Dravidian culture. With a number of illustrations and discussions of recent finds in south India. >
Early writing or sign systems were fragile. They could disappear leaving seemingly little trace in the systems that followed. This is true of the ancient Indus sign system. It is also true of the proto-Elamite one. >
"My conclusion," writes the Indus script scholar Asko Parpola, "is that the Indian Rsyasrnga legend goes back to the Harappan religion, where the unicorn bull depicted on thousands of seals has a real local animal, the nilgai antelope, called rsya in Sanskrit. His single horn, the length of which is exaggerated, has a phallic connotation and emphasizes the importance of this animal as a symbol of fertility." >
"Debt lurks in the shadow of reciprocity," is the wonderful starting sentence of this paper. Highly theoretical, it opens up important questions about seals in the ancient Indus and Mesopotamian civilizations and their role in the system of administrative control which helped integrate society at the dawn of urban civilization. >
