Q&A

Why has nobody can read the Indus Valley script?

Why has nobody can read the Indus Valley script?

The reason for failure is due to presence of too many complex signs (more than 400 numbers) in the Indus Script. Another reason is, so far, there is no bilingual text consists of Indus Script found. For example, for deciphering Egyptian, people had a bilingual “Rosetta stone”.

Is the script of Indus Valley civilization deciphered?

In spite of many attempts, the ‘script’ has not yet been deciphered, but efforts are ongoing. There is no known bilingual inscription to help decipher the script, and the script shows no significant changes over time.

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Why there is so little information about the Indus Valley civilization?

Since then, researchers have identified more than 1,000 settlements, which from the surface appear to belong to the culture. But less than 10 percent have been systematically excavated, due in part to unrest along the India-Pakistan border. Another reason the Indus is elusive: that undeciphered script.

Why can’t we translate the Indus Valley writings?

So far, the Indus writing system could not be translated because the texts are too short, we have no bilingual inscription and we do not which language or languages were transcribed. Moreover, it is possible that it worked differently from any other writing system of the same general period.

What are the problems faced by the epigraphy?

i) The letters on the inscriptions were faintly engraved thus reconstruction of the words became unsure. ii) Some of the inscriptions were not in proper condition thus few words and pieces were missing thus leaving them uncertain about the meaning of the words used in the inscription and understand its timeframe.

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Why do historians know very little about the Indus River civilization?

Q. What are two reasons we know very little about the Indus Valley Civilization? We cannot decipher their script or written language. Much of their civilization is buried under a water table.

Why don’t we know details about the Harappan civilization?

A: We don’t know much about Harappan civilization because historians cannot read their language.

Is the Indus Valley Script deciphered?

Yes it is true the Indus Valley script has been deciphered. Even though my decipherment allows researchers to read the Indus Valley seals (IVS), due to Eurocentrism and the Hindutva my research has been ignored by the Academe for almost 40 years. In this way, why would Indus script not be deciphered yet?

Is there a bitext for the Indus script?

No bitext for the Indus script has yet been found. A bitext is no guarantee that decipherment will be easy. Take the case of Etruscan writing, found in Italy. At a superficial level the script is easily deciphered, since the letters are close in form to archaic Greek and Latin alphabets.

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How many inscriptions have been found in the Indus Valley Civilization?

Since then, over 4,000 inscribed objects have been discovered, some as far afield as Mesopotamia, as a consequence of ancient Indus–Mesopotamia relations. In the early 1970s, Iravatham Mahadevan published a corpus and concordance of Indus inscriptions listing 3,700 seals and 417 distinct signs in specific patterns.

Is the Indus Valley script similar to Linear Elamite?

Scholars have also compared the Indus valley script with the Linear Elamite writing system used in Elam, an ancient Pre-Iranian civilization that was contemporaneous with the Indus Valley civilization. The two languages were contemporary to each other.