Interview [with Iravatham Mahadevan,] the Madras Indus scholar

Himal ^ | April 2007 | interviewed by Sundar Ganesan

[SunkenCiv]

[Q:] There are periodic reports of Indus script being deciphered. Are there standard methods to test the validity of claimed decipherments?

[A:] The best summary and evaluation of the work done so far is Gregory Possehl’s book, The Indus Age: Its writing. I myself have reviewed five claims to decipherment – two based on Sanskrit, two on Tamil and one claiming that the script is merely a collection of numbers. My conclusion is negative – that none of the decipherments has been successful... There is very little interest in the Indus script in the West – there are very few people working on the Indus script around the world. The one exception is India, but research in India has gotten inextricably mixed up with politics: the Hindu nationalistic scholars claim the language is Sanskrit, while the Tamil nationalistic scholars claim it to be a form of Dravidian. Both claims have become suspect because of their political background. Any claim from an Indian scholar becomes suspect because one immediately asks what is the mother tongue or political affiliation of the scholar. A scholar from another country is happily free of this problem. I envy that freedom, but I too have an advantage: I am a son of the soil. The traditions of India, its mythology, its religions, its culture, its art, are in my blood, and therefore I may have insights which people who are not the inheritors of this culture may not have. This is a subjective reaction, but such resources as we have must be put to best use.

[colorado tanker]

Busy guys.

[blam]

[blam]

I'd say there was a bridge there.

[SunkenCiv]

Folkloric memory of lower sealevel?

[blam]

"Folkloric memory of lower sealevel?"

Maybe. That would be about 7,000 years ago. I don't think the YD had a significant effect.(?)

[SunkenCiv]

NASA digital images discover ancient “Ramayana” bridge between India, Lanka
PTI | Washington, October 09 2002 | Editorial Staff
Posted on 10/09/2002 11:35:38 AM EDT by vannrox
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/765870/posts

Ram Sethu: Scientific Evidence Of Ancient Human Activity (Ramas Bridge)
Organizer | 4-29-2007 | S. Kalyanaraman
Posted on 04/23/2007 6:35:24 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1822290/posts

History stands still in seabed off Sri Lanka
Asian Tribune | Sunday, July 8, 2007 | Janaka Perera
Posted on 07/09/2007 2:01:39 AM EDT by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/1862859/posts

[SunkenCiv]

· join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic ·
	Gods Graves Glyphs	Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are Blam, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
· Google · Archaeologica · ArchaeoBlog · Archaeology magazine · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Mirabilis · Texas AM Anthropology News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · · History or Science & Nature Podcasts · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·