ENGRAVED WITH A PICTOGRAPHIC SCRIPT UNLIKE ANY PREVIOUSLY KNOWN INDIAN ALPHABET, BUT SOMEWHAT RESEMBLING MYCENAEAN PICTOGRAPHS: PRE-HISTORIC SEALS FROM MOHENJO-DARO AND HARAPPA
[From Sir John Marshall's story in the issue describing the finds and photographs.]
"Of unique and fascinating interest is the discovery of an unknown form of prehistoric Indian picture-writing, which, like the Minoan script found at Knossos in Crete, still awaits interpretation. The new Indian pictographs occur on seals found at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro in the Indus Valley “ The figures engraved on them and the style of the engraving,” writes Sir John Marshall (in his article on page 528), “are different from anything of the kind hitherto met with in Indian art. Some of them are of steatite, others of ivory and others of stone and paste. In shape most are square and provided at the back with a boss pierced with a small hole for suspension The animals engraved on them are in some instances bulls, in others unicorns, but neither the Indian humped bull nor the water-buffalo occurs among them. As to the strange pictographs which do duty for letters . . . they bear no resemblance whatever to any ancient Indian alphabet known to us, but, on the other hand, they do bear a certain general affinity to pictographs of the Mycenaen age in the Mediterranean area. At Sir John Marshall's suggestion, we give all the photographs of seals, so that there may be a greater chance of any of our expert readers helping to elucidate the script."