Bookless Libraries – Unread Texts – Unspoken Words: The Indus Script: Tracing a Language Trapped in Seals
Imagine a seal. Small, often small enough to fit in the palm of a hand. Bearing the figure of a horned animal, and above it, a few signs lined up in a row. These markings were meticulously engraved by someone thousands of years ago. Perhaps they represented the owner of a commodity, perhaps a merchant, or perhaps another piece of information whose meaning we no longer know today.
Thousands of these seals have been found. The exact same markings have been traced on clay tablets, ceramic fragments, metal objects, and various other archaeological finds. Researchers have classified these signs, compared them with one another, and examined their recurring sequences in an effort to understand how they were used.
Yet, a lingering question remains: What do these signs tell us?
The Indus script is one of the most significant deciphered or rather, undeciphered ancient writing systems known today. It carries the traces of the Harappan civilization, which flourished in South Asia approximately four thousand five hundred years ago. What sets it apart from other ancient writing systems is not only that it remains unread; we do not even know for certain which language it recorded, or whether it is even a linguistic script in the sense we understand.
The emergence of writing in the Indus Valley took place across a vast geography spreading through modern day Pakistan and northwestern India. Alongside major cities like Harappa and Mohenjodaro, settlements such as Dholavira, Lothal, Kalibangan, and others were part of this network.
The civilization's most advanced phase dates roughly between 2600 and 1900 BCE. During this period, cities emerged featuring grid planned streets, sophisticated water and drainage systems, standard weights and measures, specialized craft production, and extensive trade connections.
The people of these cities traded with communities in Mesopotamia and around the Persian Gulf, processed raw materials sourced from diverse regions, and transported their goods over long distances. It is highly probable that such an economic order had a need for record keeping.
The most familiar examples of the Indus script also emerge from this world. Small seals, carved mostly from steatite, constitute one of the most widespread mediums for the script. These seals predominantly feature an animal figure accompanied by short sequences of signs just above it.
Among these animals, a unicorn like bull figure particularly stands out. Commonly referred to as a "unicorn" by researchers, this motif is one of the most frequently encountered representations on Indus seals. Whether it represents a real animal, a symbolic entity, or a specific social identity remains unknown for certain.
One of the most striking features of the Indus script is the diversity of its signs resembling one another yet never quite identical. Classifications used by researchers mention over 400 basic signs. However, this number is far from definitive, as disagreements persist over whether certain signs are genuinely distinct from one another or merely different stylistic variants of the same sign.
Among the signs are fish like shapes, comb or branch like forms, geometric lines, and symbols reminiscent of gates or human figures. At first glance, these pictograph like shapes make it even harder to understand what kind of system they actually represent.
The fact that a sign represents an object does not necessarily mean it expresses the name of that object. The same sign could represent a sound, a syllable, a word, a community, or a specific administrative category.
For instance, we do not know whether a fish shaped sign actually denotes a fish, carries the phonetic value of a word, or was used as a symbol for an entirely different concept.
It is generally thought that the script was written predominantly from right to left. However, examples written in different directions have also been found. In some sequences, researchers have noted that the direction of the lines shifts meaning one line proceeds from right to left, while the next moves from left to right.
Writing, or a system of symbols? At the heart of the debates surrounding Indus signs lies a fundamental question: Are we truly dealing with a writing system?
To understand why this question matters, one must consider the distinction between writing and symbols. A symbol can represent an idea, a person, a community, or an object. Yet not every sequence of symbols records a spoken language.
For instance, a family crest can signify a community's identity. A trade mark can identify a specific maker or workshop. A figure on a seal might point to its owner's identity or group affiliation. These are meaningful signs, but by themselves, they do not prove that they record a spoken language.
Different approaches exist regarding the Indus script as well. The prevailing academic view is that the signs constitute a distinct writing system of their own. Some researchers suggest the system may have a structure combining syllabic and logographic (word) signs. Others argue that the signs are more likely a regulatory system of symbols aimed at identity, trade, or administrative classification.
Even so, the repeating arrangements of the signs, the higher frequency of certain signs in specific positions, and the regularity within sequences continue to capture researchers' attention. Computer-aided studies have also yielded findings indicating that these patterns are far from random.
Yet, discovering a regular system of signs does not mean its language has been deciphered.
Why can't we read it? One of the most vital tools researchers need to decipher an unknown script is a comparative key.
Recall the role the Rosetta Stone played in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs. The fact that the exact same text was written in Greek, Demotic, and hieroglyphs provided researchers with the means to cross reference the signs. As for the Indus script, no such bilingual key has been found to this day.
The commercial relations between the Indus civilization and Mesopotamia are well documented. Mesopotamian sources speak of a land called Meluhha, believed to be linked to the Indus region. However, no bilingual or shared text has ever surfaced that would allow us to read Indus signs by comparing them with Mesopotamian writing.
Another challenge lies in the extreme brevity of the inscriptions. The vast majority of inscribed Indus objects consist of short sequences averaging about five signs found on seals. No lengthy text, narrative, or archive has ever been discovered. Extracting the grammatical structure and rules of a language from such brief material is exceedingly difficult.
To this is added the unknown nature of the language itself. The language spoken by the Indus people remains uncertain; although various proposals have been put forward most notably ties to Dravidian languages none of them has succeeded in unlocking the script as a whole.
The Great Sign of Dholavira: One of the most intriguing finds of the Indus script is the large inscription unearthed in the ancient city of Dholavira. While the signs on seals are engraved on objects just a few centimeters across, each sign in the Dholavira inscription is roughly 37 centimeters high.
Containing a total of nine signs, this arrangement is interpreted as a kind of signboard or public display. This find is significant because it demonstrates that Indus signs were also used in public spaces. However, the larger scale does not explain to us what those nine signs actually say.
Can computers decipher an ancient script? In recent years, computer aided analysis and machine learning methods have seen increasing use in Indus script research. Researchers examine the positions in which signs tend to repeat and which signs are inclined to appear side by side.
These studies offer important clues indicating that the script possesses a rule-bound structure. Yet a computer can reveal mathematical regularities between signs; it cannot autonomously know which language that regularity represents.
The Civilization Left in Silence: All that remains of the Indus civilization are town plans, houses, wells, workshops, ceramics, and seals. By examining these, we can largely understand how people lived, what they produced, and their trade networks. Yet we do not know how they narrated their own histories or what names they gave to their gods.
To us today, five signs on a seal are nothing more than a sequence of shapes. Yet to the person who carved them thousands of years ago, they carried a specific meaning.
The Indus script shows us that the past is never entirely lost. Sometimes we can learn a great deal about the material world of a civilization; but we cannot know the words with which those people described their own world.
Perhaps one day, a new discovery will break this silence. Until then, the Indus seals will continue to carry one of humanity's oldest questions.
Related Reading: The Rock That Unlocked Languages: The Rosetta Stone
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