Download or read book Deciphering the Indus Script written by Asko Parpola and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2009-10-01 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Deciphering the Indus Script written by Asko Parpola and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1994-09-08 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Indus Script and the g Veda written by Egbert Richter-Ushanas and published by Motilal Banarsidass Publ.. This book was released on 1997 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The deciphering of the Indus script has met with suspicion and is exposed to ridicule even. Many people are nowadays of the opinion that the Indus script is altogether indecipherable, if not a bilingual of considerable size turns up. The approach to a decipherment presented in this volume makes avail of a bilingual, too, but its masterkey is the discovering of the symbolic connection of the Indus signs with the metaphoric language of the Rg-Veda. Nearly 200 inscriptions, among them the longest and those with the most interesting motifs, have been decoded here by setting them syllable for syllable in relation to Rg-Vedic verses. The results that were gained by this method for the pictographic values of the Indus signs are surprising and far beyond the possibilities of the most daring phantasy. At the same time many problems of the Rg-Veda could be solved or new insights be won.
Download or read book The Deciphered Indus Script written by N. Jha and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present volume is devoted to the study of the Indus script and its decipherment. It offers a methodology for reading the Indus script by combining paleography with ancient literary accounts and Vedic grammar.These illustrate the methodology and also help shed new light on the Harappans and their connections with the Vedic Civilization.The language of the seals is Vedic Sanskrit,with a significant number of them containing words and phrases traceable to the ancient Vedic glossary Nigha, compiled from still earlier sources by Yaska.
Download or read book Indus Script Cipher written by Srinivasan Kalyanaraman and published by Srinivasan Kalyanaraman. This book was released on 2010 with total page 468 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a path-breaking work as significant as the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs by Champollion. For nearly130 years, the Indus script has remained a challenging enigma to scholars of languages, writing systems and civilization studies. The script was invented and used over an extensive area of what is called the Indus or Sindhu-Sarasvati civilization. Over 2000 or 80% of archaeological sites are found on the Sarasvati River basin, a river adored in a very old human document called the Rigveda and which dried up due to tectonic and resulting river migration causes. In 1822, history was made when Egyptian hieroglyphs were deciphered by Jean-Francois Champollion from parts of the Rosetta Stone. Champollion showed that the Egyptian writing system, c.3000 BCE was a combination of phonetic and ideographic glyphs. The Rosetta Stone is dated196 BCE and had a decree in three versions: one in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, one in the Egyptian demotic script, and one in ancient Greek. Since alphabets of ancient Greek were known, Champollion used the trilingual inscription to validate his historic decipherment. Indus Script Cipher makes history recording hundreds of hieroglyphs of India. Absence of a Rosetta Stone which has been the principal impediment in validating any decryption of Indus script cipher is thus overcome. Further validation comes from evidences of the historical periods in India from c. 600 BCE showing continued use of Indus script hieroglyphs which evolved from c. 3300 BCE. This book details a decipherment.of the Indus script using the same rebus method used by Champollion to read ancient phonetic hieroglyphs of Indiat. By demonstrating an Indian linguistic area of cultural and language contacts and history of language changes, this is a landmark contribution to civilization studies of the world and will promote efforts to rewrite the ancient socio-cultural and economic history of a billion people in India and neighboring regions.
Download or read book Indus Script Dictionary written by S. M. Sullivan and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Indus written by Andrew Robinson and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2021-03-08 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Indus civilization flourished for half a millennium from about 2600 to 1900 BCE, when it mysteriously declined and vanished from view. It remained invisible for almost four thousand years, until its ruins were discovered in the 1920s by British and Indian archaeologists. Today, after almost a century of excavation, it is regarded as the beginning of Indian civilization and possibly the origin of Hinduism. The Indus: Lost Civilizations is an accessible introduction to every significant aspect of an extraordinary and tantalizing “lost” civilization, which combined artistic excellence, technological sophistication, and economic vigor with social egalitarianism, political freedom, and religious moderation. The book also discusses the vital legacy of the Indus civilization in India and Pakistan today.
Download or read book Indus Valley Civilization Script Decoded written by Prabhunath Hembrom and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2020-03-28 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scientists discover Y-DNA haplogroups O2a and mt-DNA haplogroup M4a in the Rakhigarhi ancient DNA. These haplogroups are associated with the speakers of Austro-Asiatic languages such as Mundari, Santali and Khasi. These haplogroups and related languages are also present in Southeast Asia. In India, speakers of these languages are currently found mostly in Central and East India. Even though a prominent philologist of Harvard University, Mr. Michael Witzel, has argued the case for a language close to Munda (which he calls para-Mundari) being one of the languages of the erstwhile Indus Valley, a finding of this nature will come as a surprise to most others. So if the genetics do find haplogroups O and M4a in Rakhigarhi, some of our current understanding of Indian history may have to be revised. Tony Joseph in The Hindu, December 23, 2017
Download or read book The Decipherment of the Indus Script written by Shikaripur Ranganatha Rao and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Indus Seals 2600 1900 Bce Beyond Geometry written by Parveen Talpur and published by Bookbaby. This book was released on 2017-01-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Indus Seals (2600-1900 BCE) Beyond Geometry: A New Approach to Break an Old Code" is a pioneering work which draws attention to the languages and culture of the Indus region for a better understanding of its ancient Indus seals. The signs and symbols inscribed on the seals are considered to be an ancient script which is yet to be deciphered.However, the seals are also imbued with images of animals, humans, deities, trees and unidentifiable objects. Hence, apart from depicting the script they also symbolize an assortment of social, cultural and ideological content which requires a holistic approach for its interpretation. This book looks for clues in three latent sources to establish the socio-cultural context of the seal images: it seeks ancient words retained in the Sindhi language and relates them to the seal images; it highlights the symbols of Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism on the seals and traces the roots of the philosophy of nonviolence in ancient Indus cities; and it examines the geometric principles and patterns of seals to study the significance of geometry in the Indus Civilization. The book, through a few examples, demonstrates that these seemingly diverse means can eventually converge to present a clearer picture of a small fraction of the seal iconography. Hence, the book also emphasizes to explore more sources to understand the multiple facets of the seals."Indus Seals (2600-1900 BCE) Beyond Geometry: A New Approach to Break an Old Code" is Talpur's third book on the Indus Civilization. It is a companion to her last book "Moen jo Daro: Metropolis of the Indus Civilization (2600-1900 BCE)" and it is an update to her previous research covered in "Evidence of Geometry in Indus Valley Civilization," her first book on this subject.
Download or read book Seals and Sealing in the Ancient World written by Marta Ameri and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2018-05-03 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Roots of Hinduism written by Asko Parpola and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book The Decipherment of Linear B written by John Chadwick and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1990-09-13 with total page 182 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The languages of the ancient world and the mysterious scripts, long undeciphered, in which they were encoded have represented one of the most intriguing problems of classical archaeology in modern times. This celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris was written by his close collaborator in the momentous discovery. In revealing the secrets of Linear B it offers a valuable survey of late Minoan and Myceanean archaeology, uncovering fascinating details of the religion and economic history of an ancient civilisation.
Download or read book Indus Age written by Gregory L. Possehl and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 1244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Part Four is a culture history of the peoples of the Indus Age from the beginnings of food production and domestication of plants and animals to the threshold of civilization in the region."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Indus Writing in Ancient Near East written by S. Kalyanaraman and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 574 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on corpora of Indus writing and a dictionary, the book validates Aristotle's insight on writing systems. Indus writing is composed using symbols of spoken words. The symbols are hieroglyphs of meluhha (mleccha) words spoken by artisans recording the repertoire of stone, mineral and metal workers. The writing results in a set of catalogs of metalworking of bronze age. Evidence of this competence in metallurgy which evolved from 4th millennium BCE of bronze age, is provided in corpora of metalware catalogs and a dictionary of melluhha (mleccha). Indus writing was a principal tool of economic administration for account-keeping by artisan and trader guilds and did not record literature or, history. Some sacred ideas and historical links across interaction areas between India and ancient Near East, may be inferred from the writing.
Download or read book Indian Hieroglyphs written by Srinivasan Kalyanaraman and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book links the invention of writing to the inventions of bronze-age technologies. Indus script is claimed to be one of the earliest writing systems of the world dated to c. 3500 BCE. The book claims that Indian language union (sprachbund or Indian linguistic area) dates back to the period when Indus script was used. About 1000 lexemes of Meluhha (mleccha) have been identified and explained in the context of ciphertext of Indian hieroglyphs. These substratum glosses are the foundation for further studies in the evolution of languages and linguistic features absorbed from one another, in Indian language union (sprachbund). Using evidence from almost all hieroglyphs in the 6000 + inscriptions, this book makes a contribution to an understanding of the middle phase in evolution of writing systems, a phase which bridged pictographic writing with syllabic writing to represent sounds of a language called meluhha (mleccha) in Indian language union - lingua franca of Harosheth hagoyim, smithy of nations. The continuum of hieroglyph tradition in Indian linguistic area is evaluated in the context of continued use of Indian hieroglyphs on thousands of punch-marked coins together with syllabic scripts of kharosti and brahmi . The book establishes that ancient India was a language union with speakers of Munda, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages learning technical words related to bronze-age metallurgy from one another. They used these words in the writing system. The book draws heavily from a multi-lingual dictionary of over 25 ancient languages called Indian Lexicon for unraveling the cipher of the Indus script, as an exercise in solving a cryptography problem. The writing system was called mlecchita vikalpa (Cryptography of Meluhhas/Mlecchas) and is mentioned in an 8th century BCE work by Vatsyayana. The Indian hieroglyphs find their echoes in the goat-fish hieroglyphs on a ritual basin of Uruk (Sumer) and the Egyptian hieroglyph for Bat showing a mudhif reed symbol which also occurs on Uruk basin. The 'reed' read rebus denotes Glyph: eruva 'reed'. Rebus: eruva 'copper'. Also discussed are some Egyptian hieroglyph parallels from the statue of Hathor-Menkaure-Bat triad of the fourth dynasty and the continued tradition of building reed huts by Todas comparable to the mudhifs of ancient Sumer. This book is a sequel to the author's Indus Script Cipher (2010). http: //tinyurl.com/7dflhyq
Download or read book The Riddle of the Labyrinth written by Margalit Fox and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Simon Winchester and Dava Sobel, The Riddle of the Labyrinth: The Quest to Crack an Ancient Code tells one of the most intriguing stories in the history of language, masterfully blending history, linguistics, and cryptology with an elegantly wrought narrative. When famed archaeologist Arthur Evans unearthed the ruins of a sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that flowered on Crete 1,000 years before Greece’s Classical Age, he discovered a cache of ancient tablets, Europe’s earliest written records. For half a century, the meaning of the inscriptions, and even the language in which they were written, would remain a mystery. Award-winning New York Times journalist Margalit Fox's riveting real-life intellectual detective story travels from the Bronze Age Aegean—the era of Odysseus, Agamemnon, and Helen—to the turn of the 20th century and the work of charismatic English archeologist Arthur Evans, to the colorful personal stories of the decipherers. These include Michael Ventris, the brilliant amateur who deciphered the script but met with a sudden, mysterious death that may have been a direct consequence of the deipherment; and Alice Kober, the unsung heroine of the story whose painstaking work allowed Ventris to crack the code.
