Symbols akin to Indus valley culture found

Manorama Online ^ | Tuesday, September 29, 2009 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

Of the identified 429 signs, "a man with jar cup", a symbol unique to the Indus civilisation and other compound letters testified to remnants of the Harappan culture, spanning from 2300 BC to 1700 BC, in South India, Varier, who led the excavation at the caves said. The "man-with-the-jar" symbol, an integral remnant commonly traced in parts where the Indus Valley civilisation existed, has even more similarities than those traced in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, he said. The 'man-with-the-jar' has been a distinct motif of the Indus valley symbols. The Edakkal engraving has retained its unique style as the engraver tried to attain a two-dimensional human figure, Varier said. This could be attributed to the transformation from the distinct symbols of the Indus Valley civilisation that could have taken place in due course of time, he said. The 'jar' is more or less same as those in Indus ligature. But the human figure is a little different. "These symbols form part of compound letters similar to scripts and no concerted efforts appear to have been made in the past to decipher them, with a lone exception by Iravatha Mahadevan (a scholar on the Indus valley civilisation), who could gather valuable ideas from such letters," he said. "The discovery of the symbols are akin to that of the Harappan civilisation having predominantly Dravidian culture and testimony to the fact that cultural diffusion could take place. It is wrong to presume that the Indus culture disappeared into thin air," Varier said.

[LiteKeeper]

INTREP

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

from the following title:

Parpula's two volumes of photographs covering the collections of India and Pakistan, which appeared in 1987 and 1991... and his 1994 sign list, containing 386 signs (as against Mahadevan's 419 signs), are generally recognized as fine achievements, not least by Mahadevan... This is a significant figure. It is too high for a syllabary like Linear B... and too low for a highly logographic script like Chinese. the nearest comparison... are probably the Hittite hieroglyphs with about 500 signs and Sumerian cuneiform with perhaps 600+ signs... Most scholars therefore agree that the Indus script is likely to be a logosyllabic script like its west Asian contemporaries. [pp 281-284]

These Dravidian speakers are presumably remnants of a once-widespread Dravidian culture submerged by encroaching Indo-Aryans in the 2nd millennium BC... The Indo-Aryan hymns, the Vedas... recount tales of conquest of the forts of the dark-skinned Dasa or Dasyu... the Vedas repeatedly mention the horse in their descriptions of warfare and sacrifice, and this animal was clearly a vital part of Indo-Aryan society... But there is not horse imagery at all in the Indus Valley civilization and virtually no horse remains have been found by archaeologists. Hence the Indus civilizations is unlikely to have been Indo-Aryan. [pp 290-291]

Robinson mentions "a substantial inscription found at Dholavira near the coast of Kutch in 1990, which appears to have been a kind of sign board for the city." [p 295]

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Lost Languages: The Enigma Of The World's Undeciphered Scripts by Andrew Robinson

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Incidentally, Sumerian was an isolate, and agglutinative (like the Indus script appears to be, though it can't be read), and the Sumerians recorded that they had come from elsewhere by sea...

[indcons]

FRiend Sunken Civ, the Aryan Invasion theory has now been discredited as it sems to have little basis in history and antiquity.

The hypothesis that the Sarasvati (Indus) Valley civilization is a Dravidian one is also suspect and is put forth by charlatans like Iravatham Mahadevan (who i also mentioned in your excerpt).

How are you?

[JoeProBono]

[rdl6989]

Adding to my reading “to do” list.

[blam]

"Incidentally, Sumerian was an isolate, and agglutinative (like the Indus script appears to be, though it can't be read), and the Sumerians recorded that they had come from elsewhere by sea..."

They came from Sundalandwhen it went underwater.

[null and void]

agglutinative?

Those are the natives that can’t tolerate wheat?

[SunkenCiv]

Hay, quit going against the grain.

[SunkenCiv]

Oh yeah? then why aren’t they called the Sunderians? Huh? Huh? ;’)

The Sumerians referred to themselves as “the black headed people”, which may just refer to problems with the pores in their epidermis...

[null and void]

Not bad! Not bad at all!

[SunkenCiv]

The Aryan invasion is factual, and has been rejected for nationalists. The Aryans came out of Central Asia, more than once, and not just into India.

[SunkenCiv]

And oh yeah, BTW, where have *you* been? I hear from you maybe every two months around here.

[SunkenCiv]

Not sure this is all the related topics, should be more I believe, but anyway, four or five keywords, dups out, chrono sort:

• 'Lost River' Could Rewrite History Books
• Aryans In India: Old Debate Triggers New Debate
• Excavations Reveal 7,000 Year-Old Harappan Sites
• A Civilisation Parallel To Harappa? Experts Wonder
• Ruins of Harrappan city found in Haryana
• 9,000-Year-Old Dental Drill Is Found
• Harappan Period Cemetery Unearthed In Uttar Pradesh
• German Indologist claims to have decoded Indus scripts
• 'Indus Valley Civilization Was More Varied And Wider'
• Can the monkey god save Rama's underwater bridge?
• Interview [with Iravatham Mahadevan,] the Madras Indus scholar
• Tales Cities Tell (Indus Valley)
• Dancing Girl From Mohenjo-Daro
• Ghost Cities Of 2100
• Chandigarh was part of Harappan civilisation 5,000 years ago
• Archaeologists made new discoveries at Moenjodaro
• Indus Script Encodes Language, Reveals New Study Of Ancient Symbols
• Decoding antiquity: Eight scripts that still can't be read
• Indus Valley's secrets to remain buried: Insecurity forces archaeologists to abandon excavations
• Computers unlock more secrets of the mysterious Indus Valley script

[SunkenCiv]

I’m not gonna ask about that jarring image. ;’)

[SunkenCiv]

I highly recommend it. Somehow it remains interesting throughout.

[SunkenCiv]

Oat, tell me more.

[null and void]

Your post is badly spelt...

[indcons]

LOL - back for a slightly longer duration this time around, I think ;)