Indus script
Escritura del valle del Indo
- Date
- c. 2600 BCE · confidence high
- Place
- Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan
- Credited to
- Indus Valley Civilisation
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
System of some 400 signs on steatite seals, pottery and tablets, with very short texts (average of 5 signs), still undeciphered. Whether a full script or a proto-writing notation, it marked goods and property in a trade network that reached Mesopotamia (Meluhha).
Farmer, Sproat and Witzel (2004) argue it is not a linguistic script but a symbol system; most Indologists consider it writing, perhaps of a Dravidian language. Very probably an independent invention, with possible Mesopotamian stimulus.
What it led to
- Sealing and labelling of goods for long-distance trade with the Gulf and Mesopotamia
- Administrative identity of merchants and clans in a civilisation with no evident palaces
- Its loss without descendants after 1900 BCE left South Asia without writing until Brahmi (c. 300 BCE)
Built on
- Standardized weights and measuresc. 2600 BCE
- Early Harappan potter's marks (c. 3300 BC)
- Stamped seal
Made possible
- Indus steatite seal
- Indus-Mesopotamia trade (Meluhha)