The Harappan settlement also called the Indus Valley Civilization dates between 2500 and 1900 BC in present day Pakistan and northwestern India. This was one of the first Civilizations situated in one among the earliest urban centres of the world, easily recognizable in the civilization’s remains in places such as Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, highly developed system of sewage and community baths as well as a trade economy. However, perhaps the biggest challenges that the Harappan civilization has left historians and archaeologists are its own writing system. Even after more than a century scholars and linguists have not been able to unravel this script’s mysteries. Below are some of the main factors that have made it hard to decode the script used by the people of Harappa.
A Lack of Inscriptions
The lack of inscriptions is one of the primary issues with the examination of the script. The comparison of the Harappan script with the Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mesopotamian cuneiform has been produced with thousands of examples, but the examples of the Harappan script have been found to be inscribed on only a few thousand artifacts, mostly small and Poor and often consisting of short and repetitive phrases. Most inscriptions are brief, typically containing no more than a handful of characters. This paucity of data severely hampers efforts to recognize patterns and establish a meaningful context for the script.
Lack of bilingual inscription
The Rosetta stone was helpful in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs because the same message was written in three scripts. However, as it turns out, no bilingual or multilingual inscription has been discovered for the Harappan script. Without a reference text in a known language, it becomes exceedingly challenging to decode an unknown script.
Unknown Language and Script
Although it has been long established that the Harappans used a writing system, their language as yet remains unidentified, making the latter aspect of the script’s interpretation even more challenging. Since readers are not familiar with the language of the script, it is virtually impossible to assign phonetic values to some of the symbols. However, there is no consensus in the scholarly community on what exactly the Harappan script is: Alphabet, Syllabify or Logo-syllabify. Each hypothesis results in different approaches to interpretation, and till date none have been deemed concrete.
Symbolic Ambiguity
There is much variation in the glyphs used in the Harappan script and consequently much uncertainty as to their meaning. It is sometimes difficult to determine whether certain signs are phonetic or whether they depict things or animals and abstract shapes of ideas. This symbolic ambiguity complicates efforts to establish a consistent reading of the inscriptions.
Cultural and Contextual Gaps
This is especially true with regards to understanding of a script where it is usually necessitate knowledge in the culture and context in which the particular script was used. Notwithstanding the evident mastery over town-planning and social structure the Harappan civilisation did not produce many material evidences regarding their language and written communication. It imposes a number of problems when trying to contextualize the script within the overall cultural and linguistic context, as there are no literary texts, no administrative records, and few, if any detailed historical accounts are available.
Fragmentary Evidence
The majority of the Harappan texts discovered to date are seals, pot shreds and even amulets. These seal symbols were employed for barter, labelling, or devotional Reason, and the carved symbols covered here might not signify the entire Harappan writing System. Due to such fragmented and sectional characters of these writings, one cannot easily make hypothesis about the format and practicality of this script.
Environmental Degradation
It is also fortunate that many other possible origins of the script used by the people of the Harappan civilization are not available today due to physical denudation by natural processes. Water action, or other factors, such as floods, erosion and people themselves have washed or covered a number of artifacts that could contain longer or more detailed inscriptions. This loss of material evidence also hinders the decipherment process still further.
The Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization which is also referred to as the Harappa Civilization constitutes one of the oldest and most complex cultures in the ancient world. This civilization existed between 2600 and 1500 BC, and they inhabited the area in the Indus River valley and the surrounding regions in modern Pakistan and northwest India. Its tradition of well-planned and aesthetically designed cities, unique architectural designs as well as dynamic commercial and economic connections serves to fascinate historians and archaeologists of the ensuing ages.
Urban Design
This feature is well displayed in the Indus Valley Civilization’s planning of what can be best described as a modern city. Architecturally, the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro among other were well planned; they had straight avenues which interlocked at right angles. Such a level of planning indicates a highly developed, centralised, planned authority which planned and supervised construction and maintenance of cities.
Thus, the architecture of the Indus cities had a great deal both of convenience and of beauty. Roofs of baked bricks, well-developed drainage facilities, and hygienically arranged public bathrooms themselves speak about the necessary cleanliness and sanitation. If we look at one of the early examples it can be seen that the overall structural design of the Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro is pretty impressive. This colossal structure made of bricks and immune to water formed a central place for both, and ritualistic activities is a technologically rich context.
Economy and Trade
It was notable that the Indus Valley Civilization endowed with multiples, diversified, and highly productive economy mainly based on agriculture, craft production, trade, etc. The area around the Indus River was rich of farming grounds for grains like wheat and barley and pulses and such other crops, the hunt and capture of animals also contributed to the sustenance of the population of the region.
Trade was the lifeblood which sustained the Indus cities. Records reveal about the complicated commercial circuits that the Indus Valley enjoyed with other far away areas including Mesopotamian, Middle Asian countries and the Arabian Peninsula. The Mesopotamian section has seals and artefacts with Indus script to prove their trade and even shared culture. They also traded with other communities through established networks with the help of which Harappan civilization was running the trade business effectively aided by the standardized units of weights and measures found at the examining sites.
Art and Craftsmanship
Craftsmanship is well represented among the Harappans by the amount and quality of artifacts that been found in the archaeological digs. Beautiful pottery bowls, well-made beads and well carved seals suggest that the people possessed high technical skill and a lot of artistic merit. Although many of them are seal images of animal, mythological and figure representations, many of them had functional and perhaps ownership values.
Social structure and Governance
The social organization in the Indus Valley Civilization is one of the most debated areas in social archaeology. The lack of varied architecture and materials used in construction depicting the various city districts suggest a form of higher order administrative structure, perhaps a network of city-states or a municipality. However, there are no palaces or temples in any Hand axe use and that is why its ruling elite probably did not actively demonstrate its power and prosperity.
It shows that the Harappan society possessed an organized social structure which included differentiation of duties adopted by each section of the society and hence classified employment or roles assumed indicating social stratification. Physical evidences including ornaments and ceramics in a range of numbers and diverse details across the various sites evidence the existence of social classes.
The Enigmatic Script
The other area of the Uncertainty is what people of the Indus Valley Civilization wrote, as their script more remained a Mystery. Thus, the meaning of the Harappan script still defies scholarly decipherment, even though so much effort has been undertaken by linguists and archaeologists. The script that has been discovered on seals, pottery and other objects of the same period is composed of brief texts containing no more than a reduced number of characters and syllables. Neither a bilingual account like that on the Rosetta stone nor the language on which this script is based is known, which makes the deciphering of such script rather challenging.
Decline and Legacy
As for the Indus Valley Civilization, historical research regarding its final stage did not experience its collapse till 1900 BCE. Climate change and movement of the river course, overuse of resources may possibly have also helped check the civilizations’ decline. However, through its studies, we come to realize that it has left a good impression in the history of civilization through it achievements in urban lifestyle and development, architecture and trade.
Major sites
- Harappa: one of the first sites of the civilization and is in Punjab province of the current day Pakistan. It is characterized by well-planned streets, drainage systems and large granary. The search for Harappa in 1920s signalled the start of the exploration of Indus Valley Sanitation.
- Mohenjo-Daro: Located in Sindh, Pakistan, Mohenjo-Daro is without doubt the best-known site of the Indus valley civilization. Some features include; the Great Bath, one of the largest public bathhouses as well as a well-developed drainage system. The planning and the designing of the city established a fact about the superior engineering skills of the Harappan people.
- Dholavira: Dholavira is an ancient urban site located in the state of Gujarat in India, the most notable feature of the site is a water management system for an area of a large citadel. There is a succession of reservoirs and channels on the site to suggest that water is preserved in the dry area.
- Rakhigarhi: One of the biggest sites of the IVC is Rakhigarhi, which is located in Haryana, India. The recent archaeological surveys have identified large housing complexes, production facilities, and materials that link them with other zones. It contains useful information about the existence of the Harappans and their daily life and economic undertakings.
Recent Discoveries and News
- Tamil Nadu Graffiti Links to Indus Valley: An interesting discovery made by a recent survey conducted by the Tamil Nadu State Archaeology Department is information that may show that Tamil Nadu has links with the Indus valley civilization. Stating a few of its key findings, the study points out that about 88 percent of 148 graffiti impressions observed on several archaeological sites across Tamil Nadu are similar to those at the IVC. This discovery gives rise to theories of cultural interchange between these two old civilizations.
- Keeladi Excavations: Recent archaeological works in Tamil Nadu’s Keeladi site have unearthed artefacts such as terracotta spindle whorls, bangles and shells, carnelian and agate beads. They suggest that there was a highly developed culture in the middle of the second millennium BC. The recent findings at Keeladi have added more solidification to support the theory of the cultural affianced between the Indus Valley and the ancient Tamil Nadu.
- Deciphering the Indus Script: the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin recently said that he would award one million to the person who will be able to decipher the script of the Indus Valley Civilization. This civilizational script, yet to be translated after its discovery in the early 1920s, holds the key to defining the political economy of the Harappan civilisation and its network of social relations. It has seen the light of the day with an intention to make scholars and researchers find out about the aspects of the Harappan script.
- International Conference on Indus Valley Civilization: An International conference for three days in Chennai was organized to mark the 100th anniversary of the discovery of Indus Valley Civilization. The conference was aimed to present the recent research results and discuss new trends in collaboration of archaeologists, historians and scholars from different countries. Speakers of this event pointed out that learning about Indus Valley Civilization was crucial in assessing the historic models of urbanization and trade.