Deciphering the Indus Script

Deciphering the Indus Script PDF Author: Asko Parpola
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521795661
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Of the writing systems of the ancient world which still await deciphering, the Indus script is the most important. It developed in the Indus or Harappan Civilization, which flourished c. 2500-1900 BC in and around modern Pakistan, collapsing before the earliest historical records of South Asia were composed. Nearly 4,000 samples of the writing survive, mainly on stamp seals and amulets, but no translations. Professor Parpola is the chief editor of the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. His ideas about the script, the linguistic affinity of the Harappan language, and the nature of the Indus religion are informed by a remarkable command of Aryan, Dravidian, and Mesopotamian sources, archaeological materials, and linguistic methodology. His fascinating study confirms that the Indus script was logo-syllabic, and that the Indus language belonged to the Dravidian family.

Deciphering the Indus Script

Deciphering the Indus Script PDF Author: Asko Parpola
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521795661
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
Of the writing systems of the ancient world which still await deciphering, the Indus script is the most important. It developed in the Indus or Harappan Civilization, which flourished c. 2500-1900 BC in and around modern Pakistan, collapsing before the earliest historical records of South Asia were composed. Nearly 4,000 samples of the writing survive, mainly on stamp seals and amulets, but no translations. Professor Parpola is the chief editor of the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. His ideas about the script, the linguistic affinity of the Harappan language, and the nature of the Indus religion are informed by a remarkable command of Aryan, Dravidian, and Mesopotamian sources, archaeological materials, and linguistic methodology. His fascinating study confirms that the Indus script was logo-syllabic, and that the Indus language belonged to the Dravidian family.

The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Indus Writing

The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Indus Writing PDF Author: Bryan K. Wells
Publisher: Archaeopress Archaeology
ISBN: 9781784910464
Category : Indus script
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A detailed examination of the Indus script. It presents new analysis based on an expansive text corpus using revolutionary analytical techniques developed specifically for the purpose of deciphering the Indus script.

The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Indus Writing

The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Indus Writing PDF Author: Bryan K. Wells
Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd
ISBN: 1784910473
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153

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Book Description
A detailed examination of the Indus script. It presents new analysis based on an expansive text corpus using revolutionary analytical techniques developed specifically for the purpose of deciphering the Indus script.

The Indus Script: A Positional-Statistical Approach

The Indus Script: A Positional-Statistical Approach PDF Author: Michael Korvink
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0615182399
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 95

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Book Description
Since the discovery of the Indus Civilization, the meaning of the enigmatic Indus script remains hidden in its four hundred characters. While many would-be-decipherers have attempted to unravel its meaning with the aid of a presumed underlying language, none of these attempts has proven successful. In response, the approach taken in this work does not preclude an underlying language, but offers an alternate approach where the positional patterns of the Indus signs are investigated in an attempt to segment the character strings. Michael Korvink is a former instructor of International Studies at The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and now works in the private sector.

Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World

Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World PDF Author: Marta Ameri
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108173519
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 524

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Book Description
Studies of seals and sealing practices have traditionally investigated aspects of social, political, economic, and ideological systems in ancient societies throughout the Old World. Previously, scholarship has focused on description and documentation, chronology and dynastic histories, administrative function, iconography, and style. More recent studies have emphasized context, production and use, and increasingly, identity, gender, and the social lives of seals, their users, and the artisans who produced them. Using several methodological and theoretical perspectives, this volume presents up-to-date research on seals that is comparative in scope and focus. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach advances our understanding of the significance of an important class of material culture of the ancient world. The volume will serve as an essential resource for scholars, students, and others interested in glyptic studies, seal production and use, and sealing practices in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient South Asia and the Aegean during the 4th-2nd Millennia BCE.

The Roots of Hinduism

The Roots of Hinduism PDF Author: Asko Parpola
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190226935
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.

DECIPHERMENT OF INDUS SCRIPT FROM ROSETTAS AND CHIMERAS, Part 1

DECIPHERMENT OF INDUS SCRIPT FROM ROSETTAS AND CHIMERAS, Part 1 PDF Author: Senthil Kumar AS
Publisher: senthil kumar a s
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 46

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Book Description
Why and how is Indus script in Tamil? Starting from the author's ground breaking work "Read Indussian"(2012), more undeniable evidences have come up in support of the Tamil scripts of Indus valley civilization. Rosetta like seals which are the ultimate mode of proving an ancient language have been elucidated in this book with gratitude to I.Mahadevan and A.Parpola for the picture references from their Concordances, Texts and Tabulations of Indus scripts.

The World's Writing Systems

The World's Writing Systems PDF Author: Peter T. Daniels
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195079930
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 970

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Book Description
Ranging from cuneiform to shorthand, from archaic Greek to modern Chinese, from Old Persian to modern Cherokee, this is the only available work in English to cover all of the world's writing systems from ancient times to the present. Describing scores of scripts in use now or in the past around the world, this unusually comprehensive reference offers a detailed exploration of the history and typology of writing systems. More than eighty articles by scholars from over a dozen countries explain and document how a vast array of writing systems work--how alphabets, ideograms, pictographs, and hieroglyphics convey meaning in graphic form. The work is organized in thirteen parts, each dealing with a particular group of writing systems defined historically, geographically, or conceptually. Arranged according to the chronological development of writing systems and their historical relationships within geographical areas, the scripts are divided into the following sections: the ancient Near East, East Asia, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Additional parts address the ongoing process of decipherment of ancient writing systems; the adaptation of traditional scripts to new languages; new scripts invented in modern times; and graphic symbols for numerical, music, and movement notation. Each part begins with an introductory article providing the social and cultural context in which the group of writing systems was developed. Articles on individual scripts detail the historical origin of the writing system, its structure (with tables showing the forms of the written symbols), and its relationship to the phonology of the corresponding spoken language. Each writing system is illustrated by a passage of text, and accompanied by a romanized version, a phonetic transcription, and a modern English translation. A bibliography suggesting further reading concludes each entry. Matched by no other work in English, The World's Writing Systems is the only comprehensive resource covering every major writing system. Unparalleled in its scope and unique in its coverage of the way scripts relate to the languages they represent, this is a resource that anyone with an interest in language will want to own, and one that should be a part of every library's reference collection.

Walking with the Unicorn

Walking with the Unicorn PDF Author: Dennys Frenez
Publisher: Archaeopress Access Archaeology
ISBN: 9781784919177
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 640

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Book Description
This volume, a compilation of original papers written to celebrate the outstanding contributions of Jonathan Mark Kenoyer to the archaeology of South Asia over the past 40 years, highlights recent developments in the archaeological research of ancient South Asia, with specific reference to the Indus Civilisation.

Reading the Indus- Sarasvati Script

Reading the Indus- Sarasvati Script PDF Author: Rajat K Pal
Publisher: Chirayata
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 279

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Book Description
In this book writer used a different technique to decipher Indus script via phonetic values of basic Indus signs, vowel diacritics ,letters used to mention quantity (number, volume and weight) etc. He has gone through the pottery inscriptions first and tablets thereafter and then discussed about the names and other words found in Indus seals and inscribed on other items. Out of 4000 inscriptions found so far , of which 2000 are still readable, Rajat was able to read 1,296 Sarasvati Scripts, it took 15 years. Now all his methods and the journey to decipher the Script has been put into this book.