72 | The Indus Script is a currently undeciphered script, that is mainly 73 | found in archaeological sites located in modern-day India and Pakistan, 74 | dating from 3500BCE to 1900BCE. It is also found in faraway places like 75 | modern-day Iraq, Israel and Bahrain. 76 |
77 |78 | The following factors are usually regarded as the biggest obstacles to 79 | successful decipherment: 80 |
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84 | Inscriptions are very short. The average length of the inscriptions 85 | is around five signs, and the longest only 34 characters long, found 86 | on a copper plate belonging to the mature Harappan period. 87 | Inscriptions vary between just one and seven lines, with single 88 | lines being most common. 89 |
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93 | There are doubts whether the Indus script records a written language 94 | or is instead a system of non-linguistic signs or proto-writing 95 | similar to merchant's marks and house marks, and to the contemporary 96 | accounting tokens and numerical clay tablets of Mesopotamia. Due to 97 | the brevity of inscriptions, some researchers have questioned 98 | whether Indus symbols are even capable of expressing a spoken 99 | language. 100 |
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104 | The spoken Harappan language has not been identified, so, assuming 105 | it is a written language, the language the script is most likely to 106 | express is unknown. Some theorise that the language is Sanskrit, as 107 | it is the only well-attested language in northern India, however, 108 | this is a controversial view. 109 |
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113 | However, a recent potential decipherment by the Yajnadevam (a 114 | pseudonym), using Sanskrit. In this website, we contain some of his 115 | decipherments, along with the associated inscription. 116 |
117 |118 | This website serves to catalog all currently available Indus 119 | inscriptions. It provides a convenient means of analysing of all 120 | characters and glyphs, in one location, that is available to all. 121 |
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