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THE INDUS VALLEY SCRIPT: A NEW INTERPRETATION (A Semiologic Approach Showing Distributional Evidence and Markedness

as Tools for Interpreting Patterned Texts in the Harrapan Corpus.)

by

Steven Bonta Penn State University – Altoona College (2010)

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Foreword The work of decipherment requires not only the collection and comparative analysis of a large corpus of inscriptional data, but also a combination of deductive reasoning and educated guesswork using all available evidence. Unlike the code-cracking carried out by cryptographers, decipherment of an unknown script encoding an unknown language cannot be accomplished by the use of computers and numbers-crunching alone. This is in no small measure because the would-be decipherer must enter and attempt to make sense of a completely alien world of discourse, remote in time and cultural assumptions. Although epigraphers have devised a taxonomy of writing systems, no two writing systems work in precisely the same way; this is especially the case for writing systems, like the Indus, that stand at the starting-point of civilizational literacy, where broadly divergent approaches for recording human language were tried, from China to Mesopotamia to Egypt to Mesoamerica. The interpreter of an undeciphered writing system is justified in seeking comparisons and parallels with other writing systems, but must also be alert to the uniqueness of his own field of enquiry and open to novel possibilities. The task of decipherment involves two crucial steps, the narrowing down of possibilities by reducing the randomness of the material under consideration, and the formulating of a series of hypotheses based on both internal and external evidence. I became interested in the Indus Valley script shortly after my graduation from Penn State University more than twenty years ago, and labored for several years on evenings and weekends, copying inscriptions by hand, memorizing patterns, and framing and rejecting hypotheses. As a Master’s candidate at Brigham Young University in linguistics in the mid-90s, I wrote a lengthy term paper on what I then understood the script to represent, including an analysis of the fish signs that I reproduce, in greater detail and with the benefit of an additional decade and a half of maturation, in these pages. My professor and thesis advisor, John Robertson, liked the paper and encouraged me to turn it into a Master’s Thesis. In writing the latter, I enjoyed the invaluable guidance of one of the most competent living epigraphers and decipherers of Mayan, Stephen Houston, who encouraged me to develop my project further in my PhD work. However, I was unable to do my PhD work at Cornell on the Indus script, and instead did fieldwork in Sri Lanka on a peculiar dialect of Tamil. Nevertheless, while at Cornell I studied as many South Asian languages as I could, with a view to magnifying my perspective both on Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages to better understand the possibilities embodied in the script. While in Sri Lanka, I continued to “putter around” with the script; it was in my Colombo

apartment that I hit upon a possible meaning for the “jar sign” that figures prominently in this book. With my PhD completed, I despaired of ever having the time or resources to publish any of my ideas on the script. That changed in summer of 2009, when I received an unexpected invitation from a friend and colleague, Bryan Wells – with whom I had collaborated informally for a number of years – to come to India for a few weeks to

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deliver lectures on the script. The lectures were well-received, even by some (like Iravatham Mahadevan) who disagreed with some of the results. I decided that my years of research were at least worth publishing, and this book is the result. Though I have tried to be cautious, methodical, and, above all, unbiased, a work such as this can at best aspire to be a first iteration in a long, collaborative, and corrective process. This book is not a decipherment; it proposes values for a number of important, frequently-occurring signs and frames a hypothesis about the content of a large body of what Wells (2011) calls “patterned inscriptions” (and I shall call “patterned inscriptions” or “patterned texts”) and on the overall nature of the script, but it does not pretend to make other than a very modest, preliminary contribution to what must be – barring some monumental new discovery in the sands of Ganweriwalla or elsewhere – a long, piecemeal, and ultimately incomplete task.

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Introduction

Since the mid-1920s, evidence of a previously unknown civilization, which had occupied areas of Pakistan and northern India in the second and third millennia BCE, came to light. The excavations of Vats at Harappa and of Marshall and Mackay at Mohenjo-Daro revealed the existence of a fully-urbanized civilization of considerable extent. Subsequent researchers have found that the area covered by the so-called “Harappan” or “Indus Valley” civilization was truly immense; Harappan sites have been found from central India near Delhi to as far east as Afghanistan, and as far north as Shortugai on the Amu River in Central Asia (Parpola 1994: 4-7). With the recent commencement of excavations at the Pakistani site of Ganweriwala, all five of the largest Harappan sites (the other four being Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in Pakistan and Dholavira and Rakhigarhi in India) have been explored at least partially. In addition to its great territorial extent, the Indus Valley civilization was remarkable for its uniformity; the cities and towns were laid out on essentially the same plan from one end of the region to the other. The bricks used for construction were of identical dimensions throughout. The unique system of weights was extremely accurate and regular (Mainkar 1984: 141), while the elaborate systems of sewerage and drains attested to great engineering ability (Allchin and Allchin 1982: 178). The Harappan sites are also remarkable for their mundanity, at least in comparison with the Egyptian pyramids and many Middle Eastern ruins. Very few statues or other artwork (with the exception of the seals, to be discussed below) have been unearthed; the elaborate stelae, bas-reliefs, pillars, scrollwork, and statuaries found in many other ancient urban cultures, from the Yucatan to Mesopotamia, are absent. Nor have any religious structures, such as temples, or government buildings, such as palaces, been identified with any certainty. A few buildings of importance, such as the so-called “Great Bath” at Mohenjo-Daro, have been found, but their use has yet to be fully understood (although many investigators believe that the Great Bath served a religious function; see Parpola 1994: 6). Warehouses, such as the one at the seaport of Lothal, have been unearthed, attesting to the complexity and importance of Harappan commerce and trade. Additionally, certain Harappan artifacts have been found at Middle Eastern sites, such as Dilmun (modern-day Bahrain; see Bibby 1969) and in Mesopotamia (Mitchener 1978: 16-17), giving evidence of trade between the Indus Valley and these cultures. The Indus Valley civilization appears to have flourished during the approximate period from 2600 to 1300 BCE. The Harappans were rough contemporaries of the Sumerians and early Babylonians in Mesopotamia, and the Minoan civilization in the Mediterranean. Not surprisingly for such a highly-developed culture, the Harappans also had a writing system which, despite the efforts of dozens of scholars spanning more than eight decades, continues to resist decipherment. The first major study of the Harappan inscriptions was done by G. R. Hunter (1933). He used the list of inscriptions furnished by Sir John Marshall in the latter’s three-volume excavation report. Hunter’s analysis of the 800-odd

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inscriptions then available remains one of the soundest and most systematic attempts to analyze the script, although some of his conclusions can now be shown to be erroneous in light of new data available. A few years later, Henry Heras suggested that the Harappans might have spoken a proto-Dravidian language, and published a series of attempts to read the inscriptions based on posited Dravidian syllabic values. His method was to identify the signs based on their graphology (as a crab or a bird, for example), and then substitute reconstructed syllabic values based primarily on the Old Tamil language. Heras was the first major researcher to propose that the Harappans spoke Dravidian, which has remained the preferred hypothesis, at least in the West, up to the present day. In the late fifties and early sixties, a number of Finnish and Russian scholars began a renewed attack on the script. Yuri Knorozov, justly famous for his role in the decipherment of the Mayan glyphs, wrote a number of papers on the Indus Valley script, while Asko Parpola has published voluminously on the subject over several decades; his 1994 book in particular contains a lot of valuable material and careful comparative evidence. Parpola favors the Dravidian hypothesis, and devotes a considerable amount of space in his 1994 book to setting forth evidence for Dravidian readings of the Harappan writings. The late Walter Fairservis of the United States was also a prominent scholar of the script; his 1992 book on the subject also attempted to discern Dravidian readings for the various Harappan signs. In the meantime, several fine concordances of the inscriptions have been produced. Iravatham Mahadevan’s (1977) concordance, although now somewhat dated, is preferred by this author because of its mode of arrangement and many helpful tables. The Finnish group has produced a similar work, and Parpola et al (1987, 2010) have also published a three-volume photographic corpus of the Harappan inscriptions. Most recently, Bryan Wells has created an interactive database of the inscriptions. There have also been those who have disagreed with the Dravidian hypothesis. S. R. Rao (1982) attempted a decipherment based on an assumption of proto-Indo-Aryan affiliation for the Indus language. He tried to discern in the script evidence for a writing system similar to the later Brāhmi script of India. He equated Indus signs with Brāhmi symbols, and gave similar signs identical phonetic values. Mitchener (1978) produced an interesting little book, notable for its attempts to evaluate certain elements of the script in terms of internal distributional evidence, especially sign pairings. He claimed to find evidence of Indo-Aryan case structure. While many of his claims were premature, his work stands out for its modesty; unlike many would-be decipherers, Mitchener lays no claims to full decipherment, but instead focuses on a few areas of the script.

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Finally, Kinnier-Wilson’s (1974) modest book is worth mentioning. Like Mitchener, Kinnier-Wilson makes no elaborate claims of decipherment, but instead points out several features held in common between the Indus Valley script and early Sumerian. Although Kinnier-Wilson actually claimed (prematurely, we believe) that the Harappan language was Sumerian, many of his points are interesting, especially concerning Harappan numerals. It is beyond the scope of this work to present a fuller listing of all attempts to decipher the Indus script; there have been numerous others; for a more exhaustive review of decipherment attempts, see Possehl 1996. Since it is the chief aim of this work to shed some light on the puzzle of Harappan writing, it seems worthwhile to examine in some detail the reasons for our apparent inability to break the code of the Indus Valley script. First and foremost, we must consider the evidence itself. All known samples of Harappan writing come from several kinds of comparatively limited sources. Best known are the seals, small carved square stones (usually steatite) normally exhibiting an animal motif with a single line of writing above it. These artifacts typically have a boss with a hole on the reverse, presumably for threading them with a cord for carrying. The most common animal depicted on the seals is the so-called “unicorn bull,” apparently a bull shown in profile so as to superimpose one horn on the other (but not, interestingly, the animal’s legs; the ears, however, are superimposed). Other seals show tigers, gharials, zebus, buffalo, elephants, rhinoceroses, hares, and various many-headed and hybrid mythical beasts. These animals are typically shown standing before an unknown object (sometimes identified as a feeding trough) resembling either an ornate bowl on a tall stem or a shallow basin. A few seals depict religious scenes; particularly noteworthy is the famous “Lord of the Beasts” seal exhibiting a horned deity with three faces seated in the lotus position, surrounded by various animals. This design has also been referred to as the “proto-Shiva” figure, inasmuch as the Hindu deity Shiva was sometimes styled “Paśupati,” meaning “Lord of the Beasts.” In contrast to most of the other examples of Harappan artwork that have been uncovered (and they are sparse), many of the seal carvings attest to a considerable degree of artistic skill. The animals depicted are often lifelike and anatomically accurate (excepting perhaps the “unicorn” perspective for the bull motif, a perspective not used with other horned animals [such as buffalo and zebu] depicted), with the musculature shown in painstaking detail. Other samples of Harappan writing have been found on tablets, tokens and seals with no iconography, and (at Mohenjo-Daro) on copper tablets with iconography similar to that of the steatite seals. A few inscriptions on bone, metal implements, and faience have also been found. A unique signboard-like object was uncovered at Dholavira (Parpola 1994: 106-113). A large number of “potter’s marks” on potsherds, consisting of only one to three characters, add to the corpus of inscriptions. Finally, a number of sealings, or seal

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imprints, have turned up, particularly at the warehouse site in Lothal; these were stamped on clay tags which were then attached to commercial products, and the Lothal cache survived because the clay tags were fired when the warehouse burned (Parpola 1986: 401-402). Many other seal impressions were made in prefired pottery. This evidence suggests that at least one of the functions of the seals was related to trade. Possible inscriptional material might then include names of places and owners, names of commodities traded, and indications of pot carrying capacity. In all, around 5000 inscriptions have been found, constituting a considerable corpus of data. However, the types of sources involved have also posed a severe problem for would-be decipherers. First of all, the inscriptions are all short, the longest so far discovered being a mere 26 characters in length. Secondly and perhaps more importantly, many of the inscriptions themselves are highly regularized, repetitive, and formulaic, as attested by certain distributional features of the signs to be discussed further on. For this reason, they are not likely to represent, in the main, samples of ordinary prose writing in the Harappan language. Thus the dilemma posed by the Indus Valley script is not unlike that faced by a hypothetical future decipherer of American English whose only corpus of evidence consisted of 20th century coins and paper money; he would have to deduce the nature of the language by applying his deciphering skills to oft-repeated phrases like “In God We Trust,” “E Pluribus Unum,” “United States of America,” and “This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private.” Clearly such a decipherment would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. With the Indus script, the body of evidence is considerably more varied than in this hypothetical example, but is in no way comparable in scope to the lengthy, detailed inscriptions, papyri, stelae, tablets, etc., available for the likes of Egyptian, Mayan, or Sumerian, or even to the relatively mundane (but withal lengthy) warehouse record-tablets of Linear B. A second major problem impeding decipherment is the complete lack of bilingual sources, such as the Rosetta Stone or the Canopus Decree that proved pivotal in cracking the Egyptian hieroglyphs, or the Behistun inscription that gave Rawlinson the key to Babylonian cuneiform. Perhaps one day such a vital clue will be found, given the evidence for trade between the Harappans and the Middle East and the presumed need for translators and interpretive tools. For now, however, we must proceed without such a tool, a circumstance which complicates the task immeasurably. The third great problem blocking interpretation of the Indus Valley script is that nothing is known of the language underlying the script itself. In the first place, we have no place-names1 such as those that proved pivotal to Ventris’ work on Linear B. Moreover, no king names are known, such as those (like Darius) which enabled Grotefend to penetrate Persian cuneiform. Finally, while many competing hypotheses have been offered, there is no conclusive evidence as to the affinity of the Harappan language itself. Since this is a most crucial issue, let us briefly review some of the evidence and arguments in favor of various Harappan linguistic affinities. In the first place, there exists the very real possibility that the Harappan language (or languages – it is entirely possible that the script encodes more than one, as was the case

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with cuneiform) is related to no other known language, on analogy with Sumerian, Elamite and Etruscan. In that case, the task before us is truly hopeless, as far as actual decipherment (as opposed to interpretation) is concerned, until or unless a bilingual can be found. Under the assumption that this will prove not to be the case, there are a number of possible candidates for possible linguistic affinity. The possibility of a relationship with Sumerian has been considered by some scholars, most recently Kinnier-Wilson (1974). His brief discussion of certain Sumerian-like constructions in the Harappan inscriptions is interesting, but far from conclusive. Affinities with proto-Elamite have also been suggested, based in part on alleged similarities between the as-yet-undeciphered proto-Elamite writing system. Occasional attempts have surfaced to link Harappan with more geographically distant cultures; particularly noteworthy in this vein was Hrozny’s imaginative but perhaps understandable attempt to discern the Hittite language in the Indus Valley inscriptions . For the most part, scholars of the Indus Valley now assume the Harappan language to be related to one of the two great language families found in the South Asian region, the Indo-Aryan or the Dravidian. Generally, scholarship in the United States and Europe (mainly Russia and Finland) has favored the Dravidian hypothesis, with the exception of Mitchener, while scholars in India and Pakistan are divided on the issue. Rao, for example, favors proto-Sanskrit as the Harappan language, while Mahadevan, author of the concordance of the inscriptions which has been one of my most important sources, prefers a Dravidian solution. The school of thought favoring the Dravidian hypothesis (and by implication opposing any Indo-Aryan or other Indo-European solution) buttresses its belief with the following arguments:

1) Modern-day Dravidian languages are spoken almost exclusively in southern India, beyond the limits of the Indus Valley civilization (although an axe head recently discovered in Tamilnadu has been claimed to have Harappan signs on it); however, there is evidence that the domain of Dravidian speakers was once considerably more extensive. There exist a few northern Dravidian isolates, such as Kurukh and Malto in India, and especially Brahui in Pakistan, which may be remnants of a more widespread Dravidian culture driven south by encroaching Indo-Aryan invaders (Parpola 1994: 160-166).

2) The Vedic Hymns themselves, the earliest artifacts of Indo-Aryan culture and language, appear to post-date the Indus Valley civilization, and also recount tales of conquest of an indigenous culture by the Aryan invaders. This indigenous culture may well have been the non Indo-Aryan Harappans (ibid., p. 142-155).

3) The horse was an integral element in all early Indo-European societies, as attested by the Indo-European root-word for “horse” (Skt. aśva-, Lat. equus, Gk hippos, etc.). Moreover, the horse is mentioned repeatedly in the Vedic hymns, and so was clearly a feature of Indo-Aryan society. However, no horse remains have been found at Harappan sites, so the culture seems unlikely to be Indo-European, much less Indo-Aryan (ibid., p. 155-159).

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4) Some work on the script, particularly Russian computer-assisted efforts, has suggested that the underlying language is likely of the agglutinating type, which fits the Dravidian languages but not Indo-Aryan (or Indo-European generally), which are inflecting languages (Zide and Zvelebil, 1976).

While the Dravidian hypothesis has much to recommend it, it is nevertheless somewhat conjectural. In the first place, many of the elements of this hypothesis actually amount to reasons that the Harappan culture supposedly could not have been Indo-Aryan, the most likely alternative. The evidence is, in other words, mostly negative; there are, in this author’s opinion, no positive pieces of evidence suggesting that the Harappans spoke Dravidian. Horse remains, for example, have been found at some Harappan sites, though not in great numbers (Rao 1982: 308). The Vedic hymns themselves mention the horse far less frequently than the bull (ibid.; see also translations of the hymns, such as MacDonell 1917), suggesting that the Indo-Aryan culture, regardless of its Indo-European origins, may have been less equestrian than has been imagined. As an aside, it is perhaps significant to note that historical Indo-Aryan culture in India has made comparatively little use of the horse. The dominant beasts of burden, down to modern times, have been the zebu, the buffalo, the ox, and the elephant – essentially the same as those depicted on the Harappan seals. The Indo-Aryan invasion hypothesis has been found to be on very shaky ground. Kenoyer (1991: 371), for example, claims that “…continuities in technology, subsistence practices, settlement organization, and some regional symbols show that the indigenous population was not displaced by hordes of Indo-Aryan-speaking people…. Current evidence does not support a pre- or protohistoric Indo-Aryan invasion of southern Asia.” Kenneth Kennedy (1984), meanwhile, has long maintained that there is no evidence of any discontinuity of body type between Harappan and post-Harappan human remains. Concerning the Vedic hymns themselves, the exact interpretation of many portions is much disputed. However, the hymns are clearly not primarily epopees or chronicles of warfare and conquest; they are, instead, hymns praising a variety of deities. While warfare and combat are mentioned, as well as conflict with dark-skinned indigenes (the “daśyus” and “daśasa”) (Parpola 1994: 149-151), there is no reason to suppose that the “aryas” themselves were not resident in the region of the “Seven Rivers,” which appears to be the land of the Vedic culture. Warfare, after all, does not necessarily presuppose wholesale invasion and displacement. The cause of the collapse of the Harappan civilization is uncertain. It has been suggested that the certain human remains in Mohenjo-Daro that were left unburied may be evidence of sudden demise, possibly at the hands of invaders. However, there is little evidence, such as axe or sword marks, to support this belief; the city and its inhabitants could as easily have perished in a flood, plague, or other natural disaster (Dales 1979). Finally, the isolated populations of Dravidian speakers in northern India and Pakistan could have arrived there by immigration from the south, via dispersals similar to those that pushed groups of Indo-Aryan speakers like the Romani and the Dom out of the

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Subcontinent in historic times. This would seem to be supported by the growing recognition (see, e.g., Elfenbein 1987 and Witzel 1998) that speakers of Brahui appear to have arrived in what is now Baluchistan only about 1000 years ago, as evidenced by the fact that there are few if any Middle Iranian loan words in the language, which certainly would not be the case had Brahui speakers been in the area for several millennia. None of these criticisms, of course, constitutes positive evidence that the language of the Indus Valley was in fact Indo-Aryan or Indo-European, nor is it a denial of the very realistic possibility that the Harappan language was Dravidian. The Russian claims for an agglutinating structure based on computer analysis are hardest to refute. However, it is difficult to imagine how any computer could be programmed to determine the structure of an unknown language underlying an unknown non-alphabetic script, without reflecting the aprioristic biases of the programmer. That is, inasmuch as the exact functions of most of the signs in the Indus script are much disputed (there is little agreement as to which signs are syllabic, which logograms, which determinatives, case endings, etc.), a computer programmer would have to assume which signs map which functions, and only then instruct the computer to seek statistical evidence for word order, inflecting forms, and the like. Moreover, even supposing that there is solid evidence for agglutination does not constitute very firm grounds for making the leap to Dravidian; the Altaic language family and several other groups represented in southern and central Asia are also agglutinative. Some scholars have argued for evidence of an unknown (i.e., from a non-Dravidian or other attested language family) “Language X” preceding and underlying the Indo-Aryan languages of the northern Subcontinent (e.g., C. P. Masica 1979). Witzel (1998), meanwhile, has laid out a case for the Harappan language as Proto-Munda (“Para-Munda,” referring to the Munda languages, of the predominantly Southeast Asian Austroasiatic family, which are spoken by a few million people in northeastern and central India), based on the evidence for Munda-like prefixing in words of non-Indo-Aryan origin in Vedic Sanskrit. Not only is the language of the seals unknown, but also the graphology of the writing system. This is not to say that the script necessarily represents something radically new and different. Instead, while most investigators of the script agree that the script is probably mixed or logosyllabic and that most of the inscriptions are written from right to left, few investigators (prior to Wells 2011) have tried to sort through the signs in the script to determine which are likely to be syllables, which logographs, which compounds and/or ligatures, which determinatives, etc., based on internal distributional evidence. At this point, it is important to draw a distinction between interpretation and decipherment, which Mahadevan (2009:12) has taken pains to point out. A true decipherment would require actual “readings” of the inscriptions in the full linguistic sense of the word. However, interpretation, whereby the meanings of signs and inscriptions can be ascertained but not their linguistic values, is a lesser but still desirable possibility. Certain of the Indus signs can already be interpreted with a high probability

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of accuracy – in particular, the various “stroke” numerals are transparently numbers in many (though not necessarily all) contexts, but whether they are to be read as Dravidian, Indo-Aryan, or something else, has yet to be ascertained. All successful decipherments have depended upon the careful use of both external and internal evidence. With the Indus Valley script, as already mentioned, we so far have very little external evidence; therefore, reason would suggest that the only possible road to a successful decipherment, if one is to be found, is via the internal evidence afforded by the patterns of distribution of the signs themselves. It is therefore baffling that so few investigators have embarked on a systematic study of the signs as they relate to one another. The purpose of this monograph is to attempt a systematic study of several important Indus signs as they relate to one another, to see what if anything can be inferred from patterns of distribution, and to propose directions for further research that may lead, if not to outright decipherment anytime soon, at least to a considerable narrowing of possibilities. Even a casual examination of the evidence will show that the signs in the Indus script are quite heterogeneous; that is, they clearly belong to various different functional classes. There are likely to be signs denoting cases and other suffixes, word-dividers, numerical and measuring signs, possible determinatives, compounds or ligatures, logographs, and syllables. An indispensable first step towards decipherment, therefore, is to bring some order to this chaotic picture. None of the above is intended to signify that such external evidence as is available should be ignored; quite the contrary. As mentioned earlier, we have a general idea as to what the nature of the inscriptional material is likely to be. We would expect to find king names and possibly other family names or names of sodalities or other social units. There may be names of cities of origin and destination, commodities traded, measurements and weights, and other economic information. In particular the finds at Lothal suggest that the some of the seals may have had an accounting function of some kind. That some of the seals and tablets may have even served as money seems not implausible, since high civilization is difficult to imagine without a system of indirect exchange. Bovine animals, after all, figure most prominently in the seal iconography, and cattle were used as money in much of the ancient world (even the word “pecuniary” comes from Latin pecu, ‘cattle’). The stamping of seals could have been used as a signature or even as a claim against an account, along the lines of modern-day checks, drafts, and bills of exchange. Finally, we may expect to find votive formulas and the like encoded in some inscriptions. The material in this study is organized cumulatively, with the goal of helping the reader understand the significant distributional patterns exhibited by the signs to be considered. I shall propose a methodology for extracting the most information possible from the signs, based on distributional and graphological considerations. I shall also propose, with what I hope will be received as appropriate caution, tentative interpretations for some of the signs and inscriptional material.

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It is also important to clarify that the task of interpretation and decipherment is perforce one of assessing probabilities rather than making grand pronouncements under the guise of wishful guesswork. The patterns and functional relationships set forth in this study are probably significant, and the author is cautiously confident that they will be turn out to be legitimate. But ultimately, our conclusions must be regarded as probabilistic until a preponderance of evidence, perhaps, confirms or invalidates them. In sum, I hope that this study will encourage some expectation that the script may one day be at least partially deciphered. Some have rejected the possibility that the script will ever be deciphered, barring the discovery of some new vital piece of evidence (Coe 1992: 44), while a more recent contribution (Farmer et al 2004) to the field has claimed that the Indus Script does not represent a bona fide writing system at all. While I disagree with this latter viewpoint, I have some sympathy for the concerns that motivated it, especially the claim that the sign distributions are not random enough to embody a genuine script. My responses to the problems raised by Farmer et al will be implicit in what follows. However, the question of what exactly constitutes writing, particularly in its early phases, is a vexed one depending greatly on how one chooses to define the term. What is beyond reasonable dispute is that the Harappan signary is a sophisticated system of signs that represent, possibly quite elliptically, the language or languages employed by the Harappans. As for those who doubt the possibility of decipherment, I would suggest that their belief in the impossibility of solving such a difficult puzzle is grounded in the inescapable fact that a full decipherment under such conditions has not been done before. Without question, if progress is to be made on the Indus Valley script, new methodologies will have to be developed. It is my modest hope that this study may prove useful in suggesting some.

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CHAPTER 1: The Methodology of Interpretation and Decipherment: Some

Preliminary Theory 1.1 Sign Classification Because external evidence of the sort that successful decipherments in the past have exploited (knowledge of the language or languages underlying the script, toponyms, king names, and bilinguals) is lacking, interpretation and decipherment of the Harappan writing system -- to the extent that it is possible at all with the body of data now available -- will have to proceed primarily on the basis of internal evidence, that is, on the distributional behavior of the signs relative to one another, as well as, where warranted, on the internal graphology of signs that can be shown, beyond any reasonable doubt, to be composite. We assume for the purposes of this study that patterns of distribution in any sign system (their syntax, sensu lato) is at least as significant as the internal structure of individual signs (in this context, their graphology), and in many cases more so. Patterns of sign distribution are in fact more important than graphology for the would-be interpretation of the Harappan inscriptions, because they are self-evident. Attempts to interpret the signs using assumptions about graphology as a starting point (i.e., assigning to signs word or sound values that coincide with what the signs supposedly look like, and then trying to force them into intelligible readings, before examining patterns of distribution) are enlightened guesses at best, and cannot be regarded as falsifiable evidence per se. Authorities on the script have tended to disagree on what many of the signs are intended to depict; in this study, we use descriptives like “jar,” “tongs” and “fish” signs, not to imply that the signs in question actually denote such items, but as terms of convenience suggested by their shapes. Certainly the appearance of the signs may provide important corroborating (or invalidating) evidence a posteriori, as also the material context in which the signs and texts are found; but their patterns of distribution must be, in most cases, the investigative point of departure. The methodology that we have developed, which we believe to be suited to the evidence available, is grounded in certain assumptions of semiology/semiotics. I have chosen the former term, to distinguish the more formal approach to linguistic signs favored by the likes of Saussure, Peirce, and Jakobson from the broader discipline of semiotics as the comprehensive study – not necessarily systematic – of anything and everything that can be regarded as a sign. Particularly critical to our method is the semiologic and linguistic notion of markedness (explained further on in some detail) pioneered by linguists of the Prague School, because it affords us a powerful tool for comparative analysis of the Harappan signs. Overall, our approach is based on the self-evident assumption that the entries in the Harappan signary are signs that signify something, and that – like any other signifiers – will display features, whether consciously contrived or unconsciously assigned, indicative of their meanings with respect to each other. An important challenge, given the sheer randomness of the task of decipherment for a writing system that clearly contains several hundred different signs, must be to sort the

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signs into functional classes. We must assume that the signs in any signary – be it an alphabet, syllabary, logosyllabary, or some other writing system – will not be perfectly heterogeneous but will admit of classification. The basis for classification may be phonological (vowels versus consonants in an alphabet, e.g.), grammatical (inflectional morphemes like case affixes versus root morphemes, e.g.), or semantic (classifiers versus word roots, e.g.), or any combination of these criteria. Since the rough number of signs in the Harappan signary suggests a logosyllabic system of some kind, we may assume that the signs will admit of various classificatory schemes, all of which should reduce the randomness of decipherment. By “classify,” we mean “establish sign classes that are functionally homologous,” be that homology phonological, grammatical, or semantic; “functional homology” means having comparable but differing functions, as with, e.g., a set of signs found to represent to different case endings, or a set of signs each designating a different predicate, or signs having some shared classificatory role. There are three types of evidence which will potentially identify functionally homologous signs. They are: 1) similar appearance/graphology, 2) adjacency, and 3) contrastive distribution. 1.1.1 Shared Graphology In the Harappan signary, large numbers of signs have similar graphology in that they appear to share dominant graphemes, including the oval and diamond

circumgraphs, a fish , and an anthropomorph . While it is tempting to assume that all

signs sharing, e.g., the fish grapheme , must be homologous in some way, relying solely on graphology as a basis for sign classification is a risky approach; signs may have similar graphology for purely incidental reasons, because of the limited number of basic shapes available for sign creation. However, signs with similar graphology that also exhibit one or both of the other two traits of functional homology are very good candidates indeed for assignment to a functional class. Homology signalized by shared graphology we may style “deliberate homology,” since in such cases, we may assume shared graphemes to be deliberate scribal contrivances that denote some common function. 1.1.2 Adjacency Adjacency is more often an indicator of a syntactic relationship between signs than of functional homology, but certain signs in the Harappan signary (such as some of the aforementioned “fish” and “oval” signs, to be described in more detail elsewhere in this study) have a very marked affinity for adjacency; that is, whenever they co-occur in an inscription, they are nearly always adjacent in groupings of up to three. With such configurations, it is difficult to avoid the rather obvious inference that such signs are members of functionally related classes, whereof the shared grapheme is somehow indicative of the common function.

15

1.1.3 Contrastive Distribution Contrastive distribution is a rather more subtle characteristic, and may be indicative of functional homology among signs with no shared graphology. We sometimes find signs with similar distributions that never co-occur, implying that these signs may form a

substitution set. For example, the so-called “jar sign” , the most frequently-occurring sign in the Harappan signary, almost never co-occurs with the “spear/arrow sign” , but they both occur in very similar environments, suggesting that they have similar but mutually exclusive functions. Given the absence of shared graphology, the similar distribution of these two signs would appear to be independent of scribal design; that is, these signs exhibit incidental homology arising from properties of the underlying language. 1.2 Markedness A universal trait of sign systems, including especially all types of linguistic signs, written and unwritten, is markedness. This fruitful notion, first developed by linguists belonging to the so-called Prague School, which included Roman Jakobson and N. S. Trubetskoy, regards all sign types as possessed of defining features, with contrasts between members of sign classes betokened by the presence or absence of given features. For the Prague School and many semioticians, a “sign” in the most general sense of the term can be anything with significative value, including not only words, affixes, and sentences, but also phonemes (linguistic units so basic that their “meaning” is purely entailed by their being in contrast and in relation to other phonemes); markedness therefore may be applied at every level of linguistic analysis. For example, in the realm of phonology, the English phonemes /t/ and /d/ are both dental stops, that is, we may say that they share the features [+dental] and [+stop]. They thus form a functional subclass within the larger class of consonants. However, /d/ possesses an additional feature that /t/ does not possess; it is voiced, whereas /t/ is not. We may therefore say that the phoneme /d/ is marked with respect to /t/, because it has the feature or “mark” [+voice] which /t/ lacks. At the semantic level, consider the two words ‘do’ and ‘hyperventilate.’ Both belong to the class of English verbs, and both are subject to the same rules of verb morphosyntax (although ‘do’ has suppletive forms like ‘did’ and ‘done’). But it will readily be seen that ‘hyperventilate’ has much more semantic content, or “depth,” than ‘do;’ we may say that ‘hyperventilate’ incorporates the meaning of ‘do,’ and much more besides. Markedness can only be applied to signs belonging to a common class, or that have shared features. It would be nugatory to evaluate, e.g., a vowel like /a/ with respect to a consonant like /t/ in terms of a markedness relationship. Similarly, to claim that a noun like ‘man’ is more or less marked than a verb like ‘do’ would be of little utility.

16

Moreover, markedness may be global or context-specific; a verb like ‘do’ may be semantically unmarked with respect to ‘hyperventilate’ in the English language overall, but the reverse may be true in a monograph on breathing pathologies. Because markedness applies to all types of linguistic signs, including written signs, this notion potentially is a valuable tool for decipherment because it permits us to establish relationships among different members of a given class of signs. This is possible because markedness has certain correlates that allow us to establish markedness relationships even if the precise nature of the signs themselves (in this case, the sound or word values of the Harappan signs) is not known. These correlates include frequency of occurrence, internal complexity, and diversity of context. In general, the less marked a sign is, the more frequently it will occur. This is transparently true in phonology, where unmarked phonemes like English /t/ and /s/ are much more frequent than their marked, voiced counterparts /d/ and /z/. With words also, this rule is true: ‘do’ is far more commonly encountered than ‘hyperventilate,’ for example. In a specialized context (such as the abovementioned hypothetical treatise on breathing pathologies), such statistical correlations may be skewed or even reversed, which is why, in evaluating global markedness relationships, a large and diverse sample of occurrences is desirable. The less internally complex a sign is, the less marked it will generally be. At the level of phonemes, internal complexity is a function of the number of distinctive features, like [+voice], that are present. Voiced stop consonants like English /d/ and /b/ are thus more internally complex and more marked than their unvoiced equivalents /t/ and /p/. Where word-signs are concerned, length is the most obvious measure of internal complexity. Short, less internally complex words like verbs ‘do’ and ‘be’ are almost invariably less marked than longer words like ‘hyperventilate’ and ‘associate.’ Finally, diversity of context is a useful markedness criterion; the more diverse the contexts in which a sign may occur, the less marked it is. Returning to our example from English phonology, unmarked /t/ has more possible phonotactic contexts than /d/, since it can occur in every environment /d/ can occur, and also in some where /d/ is not allowed, such as following initial /s/. The unmarked verb ‘do’ has a much broader range of meanings and idiomatic usages than highly-marked ‘hyperventilate.’ And although all of the foregoing examples are drawn from English, these same traits of markedness are found in all languages. 1.2.1 Markedness in the Harappan Signary The signs in the Harappan signary, whether they represent words, sounds, grammatical morphology, or classifications, may be expected to display evidence of markedness relationships like any other signs. Using markedness criteria will therefore help us to establish relationships among signs that can be shown to be homologous, and therefore to set boundary conditions on allowable values to posit for sign interpretation or decipherment. It should be self-evident from the foregoing that, if two signs may be

17

reasonably assumed to belong to the same functional class, the more frequently-occurring of the two must be the less marked. In practical terms, given hypothetical signs A and B that are functionally homologous, if A occurs much more frequently than B, it is unmarked with respect to B. If A and B are further established to be nouns representing human beings, than it might be plausible to posit A as ‘man’ and B as ‘goldsmith,’ but not the reverse, since ‘goldsmith’ is semantically more highly marked than man (assuming, of course, that all the texts in the sampling do not concern precious metals!). If A and B are established as CV syllables, it might be plausible to posit a syllabic value of *ta for A and *da for B, but not the reverse, because voiced consonants are almost universally (i.e., across languages) marked with respect to unvoiced, and we would hence expect a syllable like ta to be more frequent than da regardless of the underlying language or languages. Markedness qua internal complexity may be difficult to evaluate in graphological terms. However, in scripts like the Harappan script, in which many signs appear to share a common grapheme, the identification of a markedness relationship may be signalized by the presence or absence of some graphological feature. For example, the aforementioned

fish sign has a number of graphological variants. For reasons to be detailed below, several of them show compelling evidence (besides similar graphology) of functional

homology. One of these, , looks like the fish grapheme + circumflex. Given that we believe these two signs to be members of a functional class, we may posit, based on

graphological complexity, that is marked with respect to . The other markedness

criteria support this conclusion; in particular, occurs far more frequently than (381 versus 216 total occurrences, respectively, according to the Mahadevan concordance [pp. 746-747]). Diversity of context is easy to evaluate; for our present purposes, we simply state what

will be shown more explicitly elsewhere in this study, that occurs in a much broader

range of contexts than , as also does than , very persuasive evidence that and

are unmarked with respect to and , respectively. The balance of this chapter will consider certain signs that appear to form, either deliberately or incidentally, functionally homologous classes. Other investigators (Parpola 1995, e.g) have noted previously some of the patterns of distribution discussed in the following sequences, such as the clustering of fish signs and the tendency of prefix signs to occur in initial position, but their interpretations of such patterns and of the implications for the graphology of Indus signs is completely different from what we shall propose. The assumed direction of writing for all inscriptions shown is right to left, one of the few traits of the Indus Valley script upon which all investigators agree1.

18

1.3 The “Juncture” Signs There are three signs in the Harappan signary that I have elsewhere (Bonta 1996:15) termed “juncture signs,” , , and . All three of these signs frequently occur at demonstrable word boundaries in the inscriptions, such that, in general, if we find sign sequence BjA, where A and B are sequences of non-juncture signs and j is a juncture sign, we may segment the sequence B jA; B and jA are assumed to be autonomous sign clusters that may be expected to occur in isolation elsewhere. This pattern in fact occurs very frequently in the Harappan inscriptions, as shown below on Tables 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3; four digit numbers in parentheses in this and all other tables are index numbers of texts from the Mahadevan concordance. Index numbers for inscriptions from the photographic corpus will be take the form [Capital letter(s)]-[numeral] – M-22, e.g. – where letters like M and H denote Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa, respectively. Multiline texts from all sources will have the index number on the first line. Table 1.1:

(2395)

(2191)

(4091)

(3019; 4323)

(4297)

(2600; 5404)

(4017; 5101)

(4237)

(1449)

(3015; 3147)

(2008; 2845; 4160)

(4418)

(1040)

(2920; 3316; 3344)

(1710; 2916;#3362)

19

(1437; 2073; 4120; 5279)

(1319)

(7004)

(2470)

(2144)

(4630)

(1279; 1487) Table 1.2:

(4441; 4443; 8022)

(1232; 2580)

(1279; 1487)

(1310)

(2168)

(2380)

(1158)

(2142)

(2618)

(2502)

(4156)

(2256)

(1416)

(1561)

20

(4055)

(2015; 2575; 5089)

(2424)

(1013; 1619; 2091)

(3060)

(3103; 4408) Table 1.3:

(4110)

(1279; 1487)

(1012)

(1217; 3152)

(1013; 1619; 2091)

(5261)

(2502)

(2492)

(1711; 3356) (4561)

(3068)

(1238)

(2911)

(2015; 2575; 5089)

(1192)

21

(3064; 4146)

(6231) The occurrences of are somewhat complicated by the question of whether a similar sign, evaluated in the Mahadevan concordance as a separate sign but differing only in its apparent elevation relative to other signs in juxtaposition, may actually be conflatable with . We shall therefore confine this discussion to the other two juncture signs, and

, between which a discernible relationship can be established. As will be seen from the above tables, and occur in very similar contexts, frequently left-adjacent to a single sign belonging to a set of signs that occur often in

rightmost or absolute initial position: , , , , and . Curiously, however, only

may have either or left-adjacent (83 and 24 times, respectively; these and all

other similar figures are tallied from the Mahadevan concordance). very frequently

occurs right-adjacent to (about 290 times in the Mahadevan concordance; is the

most frequent sign pairing in the Harappan signary) but never right-adjacent to . , , and frequently occur right-adjacent to (44, 55, and 23 times in the Mahadevan concordance, respectively), but never right-adjacent to . occurs 649 times in the Mahadevan concordance as against only 193 occurrences for . also occurs in far more diverse contexts than . Finally, the graphology of these two signs suggests a functional relationship, inasmuch as looks like with an added segment lengthening the rightward of the two marks. The fact that and occur in similar contexts and have similar graphology suggests that these two signs have a functional commonality. The fact that, of the two, occurs far more frequently and in a much greater diversity of contexts, and that its graphology is simpler or reduced relative to , implies that is unmarked with respect to . In practice, this would signify that if, for example, denotes a case ending of some sort (which has often been suggested; see, e.g., Mahadevan 1989:15-16), then must signify either a more marked case (the instrumental, for example, as against the accusative) or a more marked form of the same case (the genitive plural, e.g., as against the genitive singular, or a given case from an infrequent declension as against the same case from a commonplace declension). All of these, it must be re-emphasized, are merely possibilities intended to show the potential power of markedness analysis; if we can, at some point, determine with a reasonable degree of certainty what the shared function of these two

22

juncture signs is, then the obvious markedness relationship between them will help to narrow possibilities for their respective meanings. 1.4 The “Prefix” Signs. We have mentioned above the frequency of certain single signs right-adjacent to the

juncture signs. The commonest of these signs are , , , , and , although there

are others, such as , that sometimes occur in this prefix-like context. We also note that Wells (2011: 98 et passim) suggests the possible differentiation, with more than a little

plausibility, of the signs and ; in at least one inscription, these two signs appear to co-occur, and both forms appear to occur in the prefix position. The fact that these signs all may occur complementarily in a similar environment – right-adjacent to a juncture sign (and usually, though not always, in rightmost position) suggests a function in common, but the fact that these signs have very disparate graphology (as well as very different distributions outside of the “prefix” environment) suggests strongly that this homology is incidental and not deliberate. Moreover, it is unclear whether any discernible markedness relationship exists among them. They may, for example, all denote different but essentially interchangeable objects – family names, toponyms, or commodities, for example. 1.5 The “Fish” Signs The most iconic of all the signs in the Harappan signary are the so-called “fish” signs,

which share the grapheme which has almost universally been assumed to represent a stylized fish (the major exception is Fairservis [1992], who believed that this grapheme is in fact anthropomorphic; he termed it the “loom-twist man”). This assumption would appear to be buttressed by the discovery of a fish-shaped tablet at Harappa (H-329; see

Parpola 1987, vol. 1, p. 227) bearing the inscription on one side. Although there are a large number of different signs that appear to incorporate the fish grapheme, only a particular subset of these shows clear evidence of forming a functionally homologous set. Moreover, each of these signs has a counterpart enclosed by a quadripartite circumgraph. The fish signs under consideration are shown, along with their “enclosed analogs,” in Table 1.4 below. Table 1.4: The Fish Signs with Enclosed Analogs:

23

As clear evidence that these signs (the unenclosed versions) form a functional class, consider the data on Table 1.5: Table1.5:

(7220)

(3074)

(2574)

(1534)

(8017)

(4271)

(6306)

(2326)

(1345)

(2507)

(4022)

(4104)

(2333)

(2052)

(2193) This table illustrates a very small sampling of one of the most common and readily-observed distributional patterns of the Harappan inscriptions (and one of the cardinal attributes of a large number of “patterned texts,” as we shall show further on), namely, that the fish signs given in Table 1.4 tend to cluster with very great frequency in groupings of up to three. Indeed, only in a very few instances can we find inscriptions containing two or more fish signs from this set, in which the fish signs are not adjacent. This very pronounced, almost exceptionless tendency to cluster, taken together with the similar graphology of these signs, suggests very strongly that these fish signs indeed have some function in common.

24

The enclosed analogs noted above may also occur in clusters with unenclosed fish signs, but nearly always as the leftmost member; no fish sign cluster ever contains more than one enclosed fish sign. Unlike unenclosed fish signs, enclosed fish signs may be right-adjacent to another common sign (to be discussed in more detail elsewhere), the “comb

sign” . Moreover, enclosed fish signs are never right-adjacent either to or . Table 1.6 gives a sampling of occurrences of the enclosed fish signs. Table 1.6: Enclosed Fish Signs:

(5477)

(2513)

(1125)

(4806)

(2307)

(5321)

(3070)

(5323)

(3097)

(4466)

(1235)

(8025) The enclosed fish signs, while obviously akin to their unenclosed analogs, clearly constitute some kind of subclass unto themselves. The strong tendency of the fish signs to co-occur adjacently appears to disallow any notion that the fish signs are related phonetically, as some investigators (e.g., Hunter

1934:74-75) have suggested. Such an assumption might hold the basic fish grapheme

to represent some basic CV, such as “pa.” Then might be “pi,” ”pu,” and so on, on analogy with alphasyllabic scripts (also called “abugidas”) like the Brāhmi script and its descendants in historical South and Southeast Asia, where a basic consonant sign is modified in various ways to create syllables with various following vowels.

25

The function shared by these fish signs cannot be phonetic per se, for at least three reasons: 1) We would expect them to occur non-adjacently at least as often as adjacently;

2) while pairs might be plausible as, e.g., ‘papi,’ etc., the frequency of triple occurrences (a point overlooked in Hunter’s analysis), which might be read as, e.g., ‘papipu,’ renders such an explanation extremely unlikely; and

3) we would expect to find other sign classes with similar distributional tendencies. With the single possible exception of a few of the oval signs, to be discussed elsewhere, there is no other set of Harappan signs with similar graphology that also exhibit adjacency whenever they co-occur. Discarding phonetic explanations for the fish sign functional class, we are left with the likelihood that these signs are united by some semantic commonality. Given their

graphology, we may reasonably ask whether in fact the fish grapheme is some sort of classifier or determinative denoting a function in common, and whether the other signs are, in some sense, compounds of this classifier plus some other basic sign, possibly

representing a phonetic element. That is to say, we might posit, e.g., that = + , =

+ , and so forth. However, such an interpretation would require an assumption that at least some of the signs in the Harappan signary are not in fact “basic,” but are instead compounds of others.

We now present evidence that, in fact, the fish signs other than the fish grapheme are in fact compounds. Consider first Table1.7, where some occurrences of two very

common sign pairings with , and , are tabulated.

Table1.7 and :

(4458)

(2335)

(2537)

(4254)

(2282)

(1120)

(2260)

(2700)

26

(4044)

(1008)

(1079)

(2019)

(2227)

(4263)

From the above evidence, we see that the pairings and occur frequently

adjacent to other fish signs. Therefore, it appears at least possible that and are to be construed not as pairs of separate signs but as functional units, completely

equivalent to our proposed compound signs , , , and .

As noted previously, all of the fish signs have “enclosed” analogs – and so forth. Whatever the function of the enclosing quadripartite circumgraph, it would seem likely

that, if and are functionally equivalent to the other fish signs, we would expect them to have enclosed analogs. Table 1.8 shows that this is, in fact, the case.

Table1.8. Enclosed Analogs of and :

(1177)

(9021)

___ (2053)

___ (7273)

(1048)

(2211)

(2316)

(2340)

(2456)

(4556)

(6211)

27

(7025)

Additionally, consider the following two interesting inscriptions:

(1348)

(1373)

The sub-sequence in 1373 appears to be a scribal variant of the sequence

1348, in which the circumgraph may enclose either both the fish grapheme and right

adjacent (which appears to function as a specifier), or only the fish grapheme, with the right adjacent member of the functional pair unenclosed but still understood to be part of a compounded whole. This latter configuration appears to be the convention with the

enclosed analogs of and , and .

The data on Table 1.8 suggests very strongly that we must recognize two additional compound fish signs along with their enclosed analogs to complete the fish sign functional class:

Table 1.9:

The data further suggests that all the fish signs belonging to the functional class we have identified are compounds except for the fish grapheme itself. It implies that the Indus Valley script admits of compound signs not only of the ligatured variety, but also -- perhaps in instances where conflating two or more signs was too problematic because of their particular graphology – of what we shall term “functional pairs,” that is, adjacent

signs that are to be reckoned as a single unit. The pairs fish + “rake” and fish +

“double bar” are presumably to be read as completely equivalent to compounds like

and . Thus we might posit that ligatured compounds like and are to be read as,

e.g., + and + , respectively (although of course the superscript and the internal

28

mark could be scribal shorthand for many different signs). In any case, it appears that while the graphology of the signs corresponding to the elements attached to the fish

grapheme in , , , and could be written as ligatures, the graphology of and made it easier for these two signs (both of which occur frequently in other environments besides right adjacent to the fish grapheme) to be written as discrete, right-adjacent elements. We note in passing that it is not unknown for compound signs to be written as graphologically discrete elements; many of the signs in the Chinese script, for example, consist of a classifier “radical” and a phonetic marker.

This analysis has very broad implications for our understanding of the script itself. If what we have observed of the fish sign subclass is true more generally, then we may formulate the following rules concerning sign formation in the Harappan signary:

1) There are in the signary both basic and compound signs, where the fish grapheme

is an instance of the former and the compounds and of the latter.

2) Compounds in the Harappan script may be formed by ligaturing ( ), adjacency

( ), or a combination of these two strategies ( ).

3) Compounds may consist of a “classifier” ( ) that assigns the sign to a functional

class and a “specifier” ( , superscript ) which individuate the sign within the class.

4) When a compound is formed by ligature, the classifier will be graphologically dominant (enclosing, central) and the specifier will be graphologically

subordinate (enclosed, attached, non-central). In the case of the circumgraph ,

it appears most likely that it is to be regarded as a classifier with respect to , because it encloses the fish grapheme (i.e., is graphologically dominant).

5) When a compound is formed by adjacency, the classifier will be the left-adjacent element and the specifier the right adjacent element.

6) Graphemes participating in compounds, both as classifiers and specifiers, may also occur in other environments.

Classifiers and specifiers may also be understood in terms of generality versus specificity, that is, classifiers denote a general class, and specifiers a specific entry. Not only that, it appears, from the enclosed fish sign series, that compounds may admit of

more than one classifier. The circumgraph may enclose a number of other signs

29

besides the fish signs, including , , and . It therefore appears to be a classifier or

operator of a more general type than , a fact that is represented iconically by its being the graphologically dominant (i.e., enclosing) element of all compounds where it occurs.

If these rules are generally valid, we may expect to find the following distributional patterns and graphological traits to be typical of the script:

1) Sets of signs with a shared dominant grapheme, with similar distributional patterns.

2) Frequent pairs of signs where the right adjacent member (assumed to be the specifier) is also the right adjacent member in other common pairings, and/or the subordinate grapheme (where recognizable as such) in ligatures (i.e., evidence of being a specifier in more than one context).

3) Frequent pairs of signs where the left-adjacent member (assumed to be the classifier or more general sign) is also the left adjacent member in other common pairings, and/or the dominant grapheme in ligatures (i.e., evidence of being a classifier in more than one context).

As evidence that these rules may indeed be valid, consider first the behavior of two signs

we have already identified as potential specifiers, and . occurs right adjacent to a

wide array of non-fish signs, including (11 times), (12 times), (43 times), and

(78 times). By contrast, the only sign to which it occurs left adjacent in significant numbers (aside from fish signs in clusters and a couple of other functionally akin, probably compound, signs), is (34 times, and in 29 of these, it is right adjacent to

). also commonly occurs right adjacent to one common sign other than the fish

grapheme, (40 times). The pairings and account for the overwhelming

majority of total occurrences of . There are no statistically significant pairings where

is the left adjacent member, except for other fish compounds and a couple of related

signs, to be dealt with elsewhere, right adjacent to . Thus both and tend to occur with statistical significance as the right adjacent members of common sign pairings, suggesting that, in at least some such contexts, they act as specifiers, phonetic or otherwise, analogous to their roles in their respective fish compounds.

The fish grapheme , on the other hand, forms a number of common pairs outside the canonical context of fish clusters per se, as the left adjacent member. These pairs include

(20 times), (16 times), (9 times, although always in an identical

30

inscriptional line), (13 times), and (8 times). It occurs right adjacent only to

other fish signs and terminal signs and with any statistical consistency.

None of the foregoing is to suggest that signs found to participate in compounds, either as classifiers or specifiers, cannot also occur as discrete signs. To the contrary, there is every

reason to suppose that the fish grapheme as well as both and may occur as individual signs as well as in compounds.

1.6 The “Oval” Signs

A number of signs in the Harappan signary appear to share the oval-shaped grapheme . Several of these occur adjacent to one another, in contexts similar to the fish signs

mentioned previously. These signs, which I designate the “oval signs,” include , ,

and .The sign , listed in the Mahadevan concordance as separate from , has an essentially identical distribution to the latter while never co-occurring; I therefore assume

it to be an allographic variant. The oval grapheme per se also occurs as a discrete sign,

but never in association with , , and . Among the many other oval-shaped signs,

is a frequent sign with distinctive patterns of occurrence (including in the “prefix” position mentioned earlier), but it shows no distributional evidence of being homologous with the subset of oval signs listed above.

The oval signs , , and occur frequently right adjacent to fish signs of fish sign clusters (and, less frequently, left adjacent) singly or in pairs. Like the fish signs, they almost never co-occur non-adjacently. Because they so frequently occur in close association with fish signs and fish sign clusters, it is not implausible that the shared function of the oval signs -- evidenced both by their shared graphology and by their tendency to occur adjacently – may be related to the function shared by the members of the fish sign class. Table 1.10 shows some occurrences of oval signs, with evidence both of their shared function and of their functional kinship with the fish signs.

Table 1.10 The Oval Signs:

(1447)

(2335)

(2446)

(4014)

(2138)

31

(4028)

(4005)

(2426)

(8017)

(2033)

(1088)

(4016)

(4056)

(2232)

(3145) It is unclear whether any markedness relationship exists among the oval signs, although it

is probably safe to say that , owing to its relative scarcity, is more marked than either

or . What does appear likely – given the consistent adjacency and similar distributional behavior of the fish signs and the oval signs – is that these two sign classes constitute a sort of functional superset, with a less marked, more general common trait held in common between two groups, and respective functional traits – presumably of a more specific nature, unifying each of the two sign groups as a functionally homologous sets – which are not held in common between the fish and oval signs. We will designate the superset containing both fish and oval signs as the fish/oval sign class.

1.7 The “Tongs” Signs

The sign , which resembles a set of tongs but whose actual graphological motivation

is far from clear, appears to form several apparent compounds – and most

conspicuous among them – which occur in contrastive distribution right-adjacent to . As noted above, also occurs frequently in the prefix context, usually as . In this context, no compound of has so far been found to occur. is also by far the most frequently occurring member of this set of signs, suggesting, together with the

graphological evidence, that it is the unmarked or basic sign, and that , , etc., are

ligatured compounds (analogous to with respect to , , and the other fish sign compounds). Table 1.11 shows some examples of and its apparent compounds in contrastive distribution.

32

Table 1.11 The “Tongs” Signs:

(2244, 7011)

(2868)

(1269)

(1096)

(2541)

(2273)

(5299)

(1533)

(1238)

(2142)

(1158, 7090)

(1447)

(7057)

(3068)

(4410)

(7004)

(2551)

(4370)

Note that in 2273 above, occurs both in the prefix position and right adjacent to .

Note also 3068, in which prefixed occurs in conjunction with . 1.8 The “Terminal Signs” Although there are a variety of signs that typically occur in the terminal (i.e., final or penultimate position, normally corresponding to leftmost or second from leftmost)2, this treatment will focus on two for which a markedness relationship can clearly be

established, and . These two signs very frequently occur in leftmost position, or

33

second to leftmost with the “comb” sign to the left. These two signs only very rarely co-occur, and when they do, they are always in completely separate sign sequences in different domains of a compound inscription. For all intents and purposes, they occur in contrastive distribution, with the following differences:

1) Whereas very often occurs left-adjacent to fish signs or fish sign clusters, does so infrequently.

2) Whereas occasionally has the “anthropomorph” left-adjacent, never does.

Table 1.12 illustrates a sample of occurrences of and . These are two of the most

frequently-occurring signs in the Harappan signary ( is the most frequent sign, and the 11th most frequent, according to the Mahadevan concordance), and so the data given, intended to be representative, will perforce be only a very small part of the whole.

Table 1.12 Terminal signs and :

(2380)

(2444)

(2181)

(3502)

(2085)

(4331)

(2818)

(1087)

(4650)

(5253)

(2446)

(7097)

(1369)

(2523)

(7220)

(1088)

(1365)

(4604)

34

(3103)

(2324)

(2047)

(2193)

(2015)

(4028)

(7009)

(1065)

(4659)

(3165)

(2555)

Both and may occur outside the terminal environment sensu stricto; but almost always, when a cluster of signs is found to be left adjacent to one of these two signs, it can be shown by comparison to be an autonomous sign sequence (an autonomous sign sequence or cluster being defined as a sequence contained within a longer inscription that may stand alone elsewhere, and hence may be assumed to have full lexical or phrasal value). Thus these two signs are reliable markers of the terminus of an autonomous sign cluster. Table 1.13 following shows a few examples of this distributional trait; autonomous sign sequences are underscored for added clarity.

Table 1.13 Text Segmentation and the Terminal Signs and :

(5052)

(3019)

(1805)

(2690)

(1217)

(1013)

35

(1321)

(2360)

(2523)

(4441)

Note that, although the sequence is not recorded in isolation in the Mahadevan concordance, ample comparative evidence exists to justify its being reckoned as an autonomous sign sequence; see evidence of this on Table 1.3 above. In general, we posit that if we have any inscription of the form BtA, where B is any sign sequence and tA is

any sign sequence A with terminal sign or left adjacent, then we may segment the text B tA, where B and tA are understood to be autonomous sign sequences and may be expected to occur in isolation elsewhere.

As mentioned previously, the markedness relationship between terminal signs or is

clear: , because of its much greater frequency and diversity of contexts, must be the less marked of the two signs. Moreover, the functional homology of these two signs must be incidental rather than deliberate, given their utterly dissimilar graphology. 1.9 Summary and Conclusions While all interpretive claims must be reckoned in terms of likelihood rather than ironclad certainty until a comprehensive decipherment is achieved, the evidence is very persuasive that many of the signs in the Harappan signary are compounds, formed both by ligaturing and by functional pairing. The “fish” signs, the “terminal” signs, the “oval” signs, the “prefix” signs, the “juncture” signs, and the “tongs” signs stand out as functionally homologous sign classes; moreover, the fish signs and the oval signs appear to form a larger functional “superclass,” inasmuch as the members of these two groups almost always occur adjacent and have very similar patterns of distribution. The fish grapheme and tongs grapheme are clearly the unmarked members of their respective classes, and more marked compound signs have been shown to be created by functional pairing as well as compounding. Table 1.14 below summarizes these results. Table 1.14 Sign Classes and Markedness Relationships: Class Unmarked Marked/derived/ Functional

/basic member compound members homology

Fish deliberate

Oval ? deliberate

36

Prefix ? incidental Juncture deliberate (?) Tongs (?) (?) deliberate

Terminal incidental The purpose of this chapter being to lay out some fundamental notions of how the Harappan script works and how certain of the signs are functionally related as a necessary foundation for the interpretive claims to follow in later chapters, we have refrained in this context from suggesting any interpretation of the signs or sign classes under discussion, although elsewhere (Bonta 1996) we have proposed a tentative and general interpretation of the fish and oval signs, to be discussed later in this study. At very least, it should be evident from the clear and analyzable patterns of sign distribution and composition that the Harappan inscriptions are not random “pictograms” but have an internal logic and syntax that bespeak of a carefully-conceived system of written representation, whatever the meanings underlying the texts may ultimately turn out to be.

37

CHAPTER 2: The Fish Signs

2.1 The Fish Grapheme We have already discussed (section 1.5) the fish sign class in some fair detail, and have proposed that the distributional and graphological evidence supports the notion that the fish signs as we have defined them appear to constitute a functional class, whereof the

fish grapheme denotes the shared function. In this chapter we shall consider what that function is likely to be.

The fish grapheme occurs in a wide diversity of contexts outside of the clusters mentioned earlier (see Table 1.5). For one thing, unlike any of the compound fish signs,

may occasionally occur in leftmost or final position, as shown from the small sampling on Table 2.1:

Table 2.1: in Leftmost Position

(1190)

(2323)

(2004)

(7105)

Moreover, may occur as a doubled or geminate sign, a trait exhibited by certain other signs in the Harappan signary but by none of the compound fish signs:

Table 2.2: Geminate

(2436)

(2592)

(4232)

(4324)

(4826)

(7277)

38

___

The fish grapheme , unlike any of the compounds, is also found in association with various “short stroke numeral” signs, as shown on Table 2.3 below:

Table 2.3: With Stroke Numerals

:

(1041)

(1365)

(1376, 2374)

(2594)

(3246)

(3351)

(4073)

(4141)

(9822)

:

(2524)

(1019)

(2229)

(7243)

:

(4171, 4873)

(1314)

(4356)

(4377)

39

(2128)

(2233)

(4116)

:

(4009)

:

(7224)

Of the above pairs, only and are relatively common. , it should be noted, only occurs in the sequence shown as 7224 above; all instances of this inscription are from one site, Lothal (Mahadevan 1977).

(and the fish sign compounds, to be shown further on) has a strong affinity for the terminal sign , to which the fish grapheme very frequently occurs right adjacent. Table

2.4 provides some examples of the co-occurrence of and :

Table 2.4: Co-occurrence of and

(3067)

(2590)

(1554)

(1365)

(4377)

(1103)

In summary, we have seen that can occur in word- and phrase-final position,

sometimes occurs as the doublet , and very frequently occurs right-adjacent to .

2.2 The Fish Compounds , , , , , and

In contrast to the basic fish grapheme , the compounds , , , , , and never occur in final/leftmost position (though there are recorded in the Mahadevan

40

concordance two possible soli for and one for ). Additionally, as already mentioned, none of these signs ever occurs as a geminate. These two points enhance the notion that the fish-sign compounds are a marked class or subclass apart from the basic, unmarked

fish grapheme .

There are significant distributional similarities between the fish grapheme and the fish compounds, however. Apart from the tendency to cluster, illustrated and discussed in the

previous chapter, the fish-sign compounds share with a strong affinity for left-adjacent

:

Table 2.5: Fish Sign Compounds with

(2324)

(6206)

(2852)

(2026, 2047, 2161)

(1388)

(8048)

(2132)

(1327)

(1254)

(4659)

(3113)

(4112)

(1551)

(4071)

(3103, 4408, 4418)

(4458)

41

Fish signs also occur in clusters of up to three right adjacent to . Table 2.6 documents

fish sign clustering with ; note that the fish grapheme is involved in these clusters along with all of the compounds.

Table 2.6: Fish Sign Clusters with

(7247)

(8017)

(7220)

(3074)

(1088)

(1155)

(2193)

(2675)

(1277)

(1324)

(1380)

(1534)

(4285)

(4702)

(4056)

(4673)

(2523)

Fish signs also occur singly or in groups before certain other signs which, like , usually

occur in the terminal/leftwards environment in inscriptions -- , (which nearly

always occurs right adjacent to ), , and . Such occurrences are nowhere near as

common as with left-adjacent , but are frequent enough to warrant documentation:

42

Table 2.7: Fish Signs with Other Left-Adjacent “Terminal Signs”

(2574)

(3213)

(4143)

(2552)

(1531)

(4467)

(2469)

(1119)

(1109)

(2818)

(2375)

(1053)

(5052)

(7066)

(1098)

(1060)

(4485)

(4479)

(2637)

(6127)

(4036)

Most of the terminal signs, and especially and , have the aspect of “bound” elements, that is, they do not ordinarily occur independently and appear to be linked with signs or sign sequences right-adjacent to them. Whatever their meaning, the presence of one or more of these signs left-adjacent to a sign or sign cluster would appear to be a strong indicator that the sign or cluster possesses full word or phrase value, whereof the

43

left-adjacent terminal sign(s) serve to complete the inscription in some sense (as affixes or determiners, e.g.) rather than to represent independent meanings. The implication of this is that individual fish signs and fish sign clusters would appear to have full word (rather than syllabic) force. Perhaps the most remarkable distributional characteristic of these fish signs is their tendency to occur, both individually and in clusters, right adjacent or preceding sign groupings that can be isolated by comparison as autonomous sign sequences that presumably represent independent word units. Table 2.8 illustrates such “prefixed” fish signs and fish sign groups, with documentation of isolated inscriptions (without left-adjacent fish signs) for comparison. Note the presence in some inscriptions of “prefix

clusters” like right-adjacent to fish clusters in some of the inscriptions: Table 2.8: “Prefixed” Fish Signs and Fish Sign Clusters

(7097, 5474, 4306)

(1369)

(1628)

(4263)

(1629, 2863)

(5084)

(4237)

(9022)

___

(2087)

(2360)

(1283, 6226, 7043)

(5237)

(1373)

44

(1279, 1487, 2181, 2258)

(2291)

(5237)

(3121)

(2906)

(2821)

(7101)

(5277)

(1005, 4018)

(1120)

(2643)

(2326)

(2221)

(1351)

(4101)

(1208)

(1013, 1019, 2091)

(1087)

(1549)

(2537)

(3120)

(1021)

45

(3307)

(1370)

(2144, 2308, 3252)

(4076)

(9071)

(4661)

(4371)

(4650, 2600, 5404, 6128)

(2325)

(2046)

(1040)

(2375)

(2606)

___ (1323)

(2489)

(4670)

(7056)

(2222)

(2244, 2652, 7011)

(1269)

(1096)

(5469)

46

(1238)

(2142)

(2079)

(1180)

(1447) 2.3 Other Signs Associated with the Fish Signs. In addition to the fish signs as such, there exist several other signs that are typically found in close association with the fish signs. One interesting pair of signs very frequently

found adjacent to the fish signs is . Both and occur individually in other environments, but this particular pairing appears to be semantically akin to the fish signs

in some regard. As Table 2.9 shows, frequently appears with fish signs and sign clusters, usually (though not exclusively) left-adjacent to them in prefix-like contexts (i.e., right-adjacent to autonomous sign sequences), as well as right-adjacent to certain terminal signs (especially ).

Table 2.9: Distribution of a. With fish signs right-adjacent to autonomous sign sequences:

(4237)

(2654)

(1279, 1487, 2181, 2258)

(2426)

(2244, 2652, 7011)

(1456)

(4672)

(2541)

(2214)

(2446)

47

b) Singly or with fish/oval signs right-adjacent to :

(2015, 2575, 5089, 7229)

(1068)

(4015)

(4028)

(1326)

(6207)

(7009)

(2123)

(1170)

(1345)

(3160) c) Right-adjacent to or to the right of other terminal signs:

(4358)

(6127)

___ (4049)

(2655)

(3110) d) Right-adjacent to autonomous sign sequences:

(1005)

(1711, 3356)

(4650, 2600)

(4001)

48

For the most part , when found in association with fish signs, oval signs, or clusters of same, is the leftmost entry with respect to such signs and clusters. This pairing also

occurs very frequently as , and is always adjacent to when found in

combination with other fish/oval signs to the right of . However, only occurs

once right-adjacent to and three times right-adjacent to (all shown). Although

occurs very often with fish/oval signs and sign clusters right-adjacent to autonomous sign clusters, it very seldom occurs by itself in such contexts.

The “oval signs” , , and have been mentioned and their affinity for the fish signs illustrated in Table 1.10. We will now show in more detail the distributional traits of these three signs, both with and without fish signs.

Table 2.10: a) in clusters with fish signs:

(1447)

(1709, 3322)

(2918)

(5052)

(1306)

(2335)

(2446)

(3089)

(4016)

(4056)

(6207) b) singly or with fish/oval signs right-adjacent to :

(4028)

(6207)

49

(2183)

(4056) c) right-adjacent to other terminal signs:

(4813)

(1134)

(2498)

(2207)

(1044)

(1306)

(3089)

(5466)

occurs very frequently in combination with fish signs, as noted previously, as well as

with . However, it only occurs four times (all shown above) with , and never

adjacent to it. On the other hand, has a strong affinity for , and when co-occurring

with nearly always occurs right-adjacent to it (40 total occurrences).

Table 2.11: a) in clusters with fish signs:

(2426)

(4358)

(1701, 1801, 8023)

(4015)

(4005)

(2480)

(1213)

50

(2534)

(6127)

(4028)

(2081)

(1104)

(2396)

(1615, 4716)

(3405)

(5253)

(2033)

(4022)

(5062)

(1149)

(4019) b) singly or with fish/oval signs right-adjacent to :

(1088)

(1172)

(6206)

(2324)

(2384)

(2081)

(3091)

(2123)

(4028)

(2589)

51

c) right-adjacent to other terminal signs:

(1217, 3152)

(1213)

(2534)

(1095)

(7068)

(2682)

(1045)

occurs in clusters to the right of but, unlike the fish signs and , is never

immediately adjacent to . is also found, somewhat more sparingly than , right-

adjacent to and other terminal signs. Earlier we showed the “enclosed” analogs of the various fish signs (Tables 1.6 and 1.8),

including and . These signs often cluster with other fish and oval signs,

usually as the leftmost element. They may have left-adjacent , but are never right-

adjacent to or . Of the three oval signs, only has an enclosed analog. The

distribution of is shown on Table 2.12 below:

Table 2.12:

(4117)

(2067)

(2196)

(1308)

(4373)

occurs much less frequently than the other relevant oval signs; accordingly, Table 2.13 shows all occurrences of this sign tabulated in the Mahadevan concordance.

52

Table 2.13:

(1623, 2847)

(2232)

(3145)

(3504)

___ (2568)

(7048)

___

(2946, 2947)

___ (2865)

(2335)

(2418)

The data on Table 2.13 shows, although sparingly, that seems to have the same distributional traits as the other oval signs, namely, a propensity to co-occur with fish

signs and with , to the right of terminal signs and as well as of autonomous sign clusters. 2.4 Distributional Patterns of Fish Signs and Related Signs.

We have so far seen that, while the fish signs, oval signs, and all seem to have a related function, as evidenced by their graphology, their similar patterns of distribution, and their tendency to occur contiguously, the data suggests that this “fish/oval superclass” can be broken into several subclasses, as follows:

1) itself: The basic fish grapheme has several distributional traits that the other unenclosed fish signs lack – it may be geminate, it may occur in leftmost or absolute final

position, and it may be left-adjacent to certain apparent stroke numeral signs. may also

53

occur in various contexts aside from those where fish sign clusters typically occur (right

adjacent to autonomous sign clusters and to ), such as in the pairs and .

2) Fish sign compounds , , , , , and : Members of this group almost always occur either singly or in clusters right-adjacent to an autonomous sign cluster or a

terminal sign (usually , but occasionally ). They never occur in leftmost position or as geminates.

3) Oval signs , , and : Often found, singly or in (non-geminate) pairs, in association with fish signs and sign clusters. They ordinarily occur right-adjacent to fish

signs. All three may also occur right-adjacent to , but never to . Only has an attested enclosed analog.

4) : Frequently co-occurs with fish/oval clusters, and ordinarily as the leftmost

element, either right-adjacent to an autonomous sign cluster or to . also occurs as

without right-adjacent fish or oval signs, implying the autonomy of this sign

sequence. Like oval signs and compound fish signs, does not occur as the leftmost element in an inscription.

5) Enclosed fish signs , , , , , , and , as well as enclosed oval sign

: These eight signs frequently occur in leftmost/final position and as soli, in contrast to their unenclosed analogs. When part of a cluster with other fish/oval signs, they are nearly always the leftmost member of the cluster. They are frequently in penultimate

position with left-adjacent . The canonical sequencing of these signs, therefore, is as follows (with direction of writing right to left, and brackets indicating the admissibility/possible presence or absence of a sign/sign cluster): 1) With left-adjacent autonomous cluster (AC):

AC [ ] [fish sign/sign cluster] [oval sign/sign cluster]

Examples: (2426) AC

(2446) AC 2) With left-adjacent :

[ ] [fish sign/sign cluster] [oval sign/sign cluster] (but oval sign[s] cannot occur right-adjacent to ).

Examples: (2123)

54

(6207)

(4028) 3) With leftmost enclosed sign (EC):

EC [ ] [fish sign/sign cluster] [oval sign/sign cluster]

Examples: (2041) EC

(3070) EC

(1235) EC

(1308) EC

4) With left-adjacent :

[oval sign] [fish sign/sign cluster]

Examples: (1044)

(3089)

(2534)

(1213)

(2480) 2.5 Functions of the Fish Signs and Related sSigns Taking account of all of this data, we may now consider what the functions of the fish and related signs are likely to be. For the fish signs in particular, the evidence appears overwhelming that their similar graphology coincides with a common function. As we

have already noted, 1) they are all probably compounds (except for itself) based on the

basic fish grapheme, 2) they have similar patterns of distribution (again, except for itself, which is found in a wider variety of contexts than the compound fish signs), 3) each has an enclosed analog, and 4) when different fish signs co-occur in an inscription, they are nearly always adjacent in a pair or cluster of three.

55

Since the element common to all of the fish signs is the grapheme , it is logical to suppose that the meaning or function of this sign/grapheme will coincide with the semantic trait held in common by the various members of the fish sign class (as already argued in section 1.5, it is unlikely that this shared trait is phonetic; if for no other reason, it is highly unlikely that sounds sharing some phonetic trait would obey the peculiar distributional patterns associated with the fish signs).

must therefore denote some semantic or morphosyntactic common feature. The fish sign compounds may then be understood to consist of the fish grapheme – a classificatory sign akin to the radicals employed by the Chinese writing system – and a second grapheme individuating each sign within the class. It is tempting to regard the fish signs and fish sign clusters as morphological prefixes per se, whereof the fish grapheme simply denotes the prefixing function. However, languages tend to have a finite set of prefixes, whereas the number of different fish sign groupings is very large. Moreover, we have identified seven fish signs, plus at least three additional

signs (the oval signs) and a sign pair ( ), that all participate in clustering. It is unlikely that a language would have a hundred or more different prefixes, each seldom occurring more than once, composed of various permutations of a very limited set of around ten or twelve different signs. Finally, fish sign clusters are often found right-adjacent to terminal signs (especially ) – signs that are not themselves autonomous.

Such fish sign(s)-terminal sign sequences ( [2852], [8048], [4285], and

[3074], e.g.) would then have to consist merely of a prefix-morpheme and some sort of suffix or other non-autonomous element, a typologically highly unlikely if not impossible state of affairs. Only one general interpretation seems consistent with all the data, namely, that the fish-sign class has some sort of numerical or number-related function. We have seen, for example, that the fish grapheme is frequently left-adjacent to certain stroke numerals, strongly suggesting an association with numbers. In this connection, consider also the

following inscriptions, in which occurs in association with , a sign that is itself usually associated with stroke numerals and is probably numerical:

Table 2.14: in Association With

(4448, 5461)

(4452)

56

(5484)

(4363, 5250)

Besides the very frequent occurrence of in association with stroke numerals, the fish sign clustering is reminiscent of numerals; individual fish signs and sign clusters occur as autonomous units right-adjacent both to other autonomous sign clusters and to certain non-autonomous terminal signs, especially . These syntactic characteristics are very similar to what we might expect for numerals, which can function both as modifiers and as nouns, e.g., “Forty-one cows” (modifier) versus “There are forty one” (noun). However, there are several good reasons to discard any notion that the fish signs are numerals per se. For one thing, if they were numerals, we would expect to see individual fish signs occurring as doubles or multiples on analogy with Arabic numerals like 66 or

Roman numerals like XXX (as, e.g., or ), but, with the exception of the

geminate , which does not occur in the same sort of contexts as the fish sign compounds and clusters, particular fish signs do not occur as multiples. Moreover, why

do combinations like and not occur in clusters, if the fish signs, individually and severally, are merely numerals? Finally, the Harappan signary contains a number of obvious stroke numerals, as well as certain other signs that are probably numerals per se (see Wells 2011: 117-136 for a detailed discussion of Harappan numerals). It therefore seems exceedingly unlikely that the fish signs are numbers as such. Far more likely is that the fish signs and fish sign clusters (and by extension, other signs found in association with them, like the oval signs) denote information that is number-like and that is typically represented in association with numerals. There are several categories of information that could potentially fit the idiosyncratic distributional characteristics of the fish signs and related signs and that might also be expected to occur in the types of contexts (seals, tablets, pottery engravings, commercial tags, e.g.) that the Harappan inscriptions are typically found. One of them is calendrics, since the seals at least might display birth or other significant dates, and commercial tags might show dates of manufacture or some such. Fairservis (1992: 60-66), e.g., believed that many of the Harappan inscriptions were calendrical (although he did not interpret the fish signs as calendrics). However, calendrics would likely have a very different format, reflecting at minimum a day, month, and year, whereas many of the fish sign inscriptions consist of

only two entries ( [2852], e.g.). Such brief inscriptions, even if they could be accommodated by some difficult to imagine system of calendrical notation, would be extremely unlikely contextually, since they would presumably display a date and nothing else. Also, there appear to be far too few signs involved in these inscriptions to accommodate a calendrical system.

57

Another possibility, suggested to me by a student in India, is street addresses, but this possibility appears to be disallowed by the same problems noted for calendrics: many of the inscriptions involving fish signs are too brief, and there would appear to be little practical motivation for inscriptions that would have to be read as a simple street address with no other information. Only one general interpretation for the fish signs seems plausible, given both their distributional peculiarities and the contexts in which they occur, namely, that they are metrological or indicative of some kind of mensuration. This would require an assumption, to be discussed in greater detail further on in this chapter, that the seals and other similar objects (like tablets) were capable of bearing notations indicative of amounts of commodities, or personal wealth, or goods traded or pledged, or inherent values. This might seem unlikely if, as many investigators have assumed, the seals (particularly those with animal motifs and other devices) all bear votive formulae, caste and personal names, and/or names of deities and royalty. For now, the reader should bear in mind that the types of inscriptions found are remarkably uniform amongst seals, tags, tablets, and so forth. We find fish sign inscriptions on all of the above object classes, as well as other inscriptions with clearly numerical or number-like purport; for example, the

inscriptions and both occur, as complete inscriptions, on seals with “unicorn bull” motifs (see M-178 and M-179, e.g., Joshi and Parpola 1987: 51), sign sequences that are very difficult to imagine interpreting as names or votive formulae. Thus, the same kinds of inscriptions meaning the same sorts of things are found on various kinds of objects, from the most elaborate seals to the coin-like incised copper tablets found in large numbers, and with many duplicate inscriptions, at Mohenjo-Daro (ibid., pp. 126-148). One of the most conspicuous classes of objects found at many Harappan sites are weights of various sizes used in commercial transactions. If the most commonly-encountered weight (which weighed roughly half an ounce) is assumed to be the “standard” weight (as Marshall did; see Marshall 1931:589-598), then it can be assigned a relative value of 16 within the Harappan weight system, because the next smallest weight was approximately ¼ ounce (or 8), and successive weights corresponding to values of 4, 2, and 1 are also encountered (with one apparently anomalous weight at 8/3). Above 16 units, the Harappans also used weights corresponding roughly to 32 and 64 units, for a series of seven weights, from 1 to 64, each successive member of which was double the weight of the next lightest unit. Above 64 the series shifted to 160, 320, 640, and then to 1600, 3200, 6400, and finally to 8000 and 12,000 units (Mainkar 1984: 142). A second “anomalous” weight of 200 units was also listed by Marshall. Thus the entire known series of Harappan weights, where parentheses denote anomalous units and / denotes a break in the series, was 1, 2, (8/3), 4, 8, 16, 32, 64/160, (200), 320, 640/1600, 3200, 6400/8000/12,800. There were thus three subseries of weights based on the aforementioned doubling principle, 1,…,64, 160,…,640, and 1600,…,6400.

58

The economy of using a series of weights based on doubling, of which the first entry is 1, is that notations of any amount of weight equal to or less than the sum of the entire series of weights can be rendered without repeating any individual unit. Thus, for the series 1,…,64 units, any amount less than or equal to 1 + 2 + 4 + 8 + 16 + 32 + 64, i.e., ≤ 127 units, can be expressed with a sequence of non-repeating symbols. For example, 11 units = 1-2-8, 59 units = 1-2-8-16-32. In practice, of course, all possible permutations are unlikely to be realized, especially in commercial transactions, because of the tendency of all weight systems to evolve standard amounts of use. For instance, we tend to sell milk in one-, two-, or four-quart containers; we might sell milk by three or five-quart units, but we never do so. In the area of numismatics, modern American gold bullion coins are minted in 1 ounce, ½ ounce, and 1/10 ounce units, but not in 2 ounce or ¾ ounce units. Likewise, we never find six inch or two foot rulers, or twenty-cent coins, because our standards have evolved to exclude them. In all, there are seven standard weights in the lower series from 1 to 64 units. It happens

that there are seven fish signs -- , , , , , , and -- which could conceivably coincide with these seven weights. Some of the other signs that associate with the fish signs might then represent other series of weights; for example, the three

oval signs -- , , and -- might well correspond to the heavier series 160, 320, 640. The fact that, although these ten signs are frequently found in clusters, they never repeat or geminate within an inscription, is consistent with what we might expect of weight series in which, as mentioned above, there would be no need for repetition of given units

within a very broad range of possible weights. Moreover, instances of left-adjacent to

stroke numerals (mostly , , and ) might represent unusual amounts or anomalous weights, like the 8/3 unit. Besides the number-like distributional behavior of the fish signs, other circumstantial evidence suggests an association of the fish signs with weights. There is, for instance, the interesting circumstance that one of the most prevalent international weight units (or, more properly, weight names, since the amount varied from one place to another) in the ancient world was the mina (Akkadian ma-na, Aramaic mene, etc.). It was found in many different ancient weight systems, including the Peyem (Palestine), the Daric (Sumer, Babylon, and later, Assyria), the Beqa (Egypt), the Mecef (Syria), the Sela (Phoenicia), the Khoirine (Persia), and the Stater (Achaean) (Skinner 1967: 38). Also, most crucially, the mina was found in ancient Bahrain (apparently the Dilmun/Tilmun known from the tablets of Ur and Sumer); Leemans (1960: 38-39) records a tablet from Ur from the time of the king Rim-Sin that distinguished between the “minas [ma-na] of copper [urudu] according to the standard of Tilmun” (line 1) and the talents and minas of copper “according to the standard of Ur” (line 18). Other tablets given by Leemans (ibid., pp. 24-29) evidence the heavy volume of trade between Ur and Dilmun, with copper the main import from the latter, especially during the time of the early Larsa kings. The system of weights used in ancient Bahrain/Dilmun was the same as that used by the Harappans (Mitchener 1978: 14-15), and a number of Harappan seals have been found on Bahrain, suggesting close commercial ties. Thus, it is reasonable to suppose that the mina, found

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from Egypt and the Mediterranean to Mesopotamia, was also used in Harappa, and that it was identical to the Dilmun mina of Bahrain. But more importantly, we note that the word “mina” is very similar to the word for fish in two South Asian language groups. In Proto-Dravidian (presumably the origin of the word), the word for ‘fish’ was *mīn (see Tamil mīn, e.g.), and in Sanskrit, the word is mīna-1. Several scholars (Parpola 1986, 1995, e.g.) have suggested that the fish grapheme

be assigned the Dravidian phonetic value –min-, but interpreting this sign as a unit of weight has not previously been suggested. Another possibly significant fact is that one of the most widespread weight units in historical South Asia was the māsha (Pāli māsa), named after the bean Abrus precatorius, which was equivalent to roughly 1/16th of a karshapana (Pāli kahāpaṇa) or suvarna (Pāli suvaṇṇa). Although the word denoted the bean or the weight based thereon, its name, too, is a near-homonym to the second major word for fish (indisputably Indo-Aryan in origin), Sanskrit matsya- (Pāli maccha). From a linguistic standpoint, the word māsha could easily have originated from an earlier form like *matsya, with the complex cluster *–tsy- simplifying to –sh- and the root vowel *-a- lengthening compensatorily. It is therefore plausible that the fish grapheme was chosen because of its rhebus-like character in two major South Asian language groups, either denoting the mina or the māsha. If this is indeed the case, then the language or languages underlying the Harappan inscriptions could presumably be limited to one of two major possibilities, Dravidian and Indo-Iranian, since these are the only two language groups where a fish sign denoting one or both of the weights proposed would have rhebus value. Such linguistic clues are not the only circumstantial evidence suggesting a correspondence between the fish grapheme and a unit of weight. There is also the fact, mentioned in several tablets translated by Leemans (1960: 36, 38 et passim), that the Dilmun mina was a unit of copper. A large number of square tablets from Mohenjo-Daro, as already mentioned, were made of copper, and strongly resemble, in outline at least, the famous square “punch-marked coins” or puranas from the Subcontinent that date from the first millennium B.C. These copper tablets are clearly not seals (although the inscriptional material on them, including fish signs, is structurally similar to that found on the seals), and were probably units of exchange or proto-coinage. That they were copper suggests that copper may have been the primary metallic standard for the Harappans as it apparently was for Dilmun. It therefore would appear at least a possibility that the Harappans reckoned in minas (or māshas) of copper, and that the fish grapheme denoted this weight unit. 2.6 Implications for Understanding the Use of Seals and Other Harappan Inscribed Objects. A major objection to regarding the fish sign as a unit of weight is that many of the seals found elsewhere in the ancient world, which have been translated, exhibit the names of

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bearers and religious formulae; thus, seal inscriptions including or denoting units of weight might be deemed improbable. There are several responses to this argument. First and foremost, not all Harappan inscriptions, on seals as well as on other artifacts, contain fish signs or other possible numerical or metrological notations. It is therefore likely that the seals and other inscribed items contain a variety of information, although, as we shall see further on, a very significant proportion of the total number of inscriptions conform to certain canonical patterns that often (though by no means always) appear to include a metrological notation possibly indicative of personal assets. A second point to consider is that the inscribed objects belong to a variety of classes, including seals (mostly of steatite) with a field figure (usually an animal, like the celebrated “unicorn bull” motif, but also some scenes of apparently mythological or religious content), seals without a field figure, and inscribed square tablets of various types. Some of this last category, such as the aforementioned copper tablets found at Mohenjo-Daro, are very repetitive. The copper tablets typically feature a field figure, whereas other classes do not. There are also sealings (impressions of seals on clay tags) and inscriptions on potsherds and implements. The difference between “seals” and “tablets,” so styled, is that the former typically include a raised boss on the reverse with a hole through it, presumably to wear on a thread or string of some kind, whereas the tablets have no such feature. Generally speaking, there is very broad overlap between the types of inscriptions we find on “seals” and those on “tablets,” including fish sign clusters and stroke numerals, which occur very commonly in both contexts2. Thus it is reasonable to assume that the same kind of information is contained on both classes of object. Yet both kinds of objects are rife with inscriptions that, because of their brevity and/or obvious numerical content, are difficult to defend as votive formulae, family names, or whatever, and which – were they found in any context (such as accountancy tables) besides what have been deemed “seals” – would doubtless have long since been recognized as numbers and metrological notations (consider by way of comparison the nature of proto-Elamite and proto-Cuneiform accountancy tablets shown and described in Englund 2004 and Cooper 2004, respectively; see also Wells 2011). Table 2.15 below illustrates a sampling of such inscriptions, along with field object and artifact type. Table 2.15: Numbers and Metrology on Seals and Tablets (Catalog Numbers from Joshi and Parpola 1987) Inscription field object artifact type

(M-32) unicorn bull seal

(M-83) unicorn bull seal

(M-96) unicorn bull seal

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(M-178) unicorn bull seal

(M-179) unicorn bull seal

(M-186, M-208) unicorn bull seal

(M-187, M-193) unicorn bull seal

(M-224) unicorn bull seal

(M-227) unicorn bull seal

(M-247) bison seal

(M-254) bison seal

(M-262) zebu seal

(M-283) elephant seal

(M-318) zebu seal

(M-404) none rectangular seal

(M-429) unicorn bull tablet (circular)

(H-9) unicorn bull seal

(H-71) unicorn bull seal

(L-102) none rectangular seal

(K-19) unicorn bull seal

(K-50) tiger/man hybrid seal

(B-9) markhor seal (B-10) markhor seal

(B-12) goat seal

If we had only the copper tablets from Mohenjo-Daro, it would be difficult indeed to escape the impression that such objects, bearing inscriptions such as those shown above, are a sort of proto-coinage. Add to this the singular fact that very many tablets, particularly those in bas-relief, clearly show signs of considerable wearing and rubbing – evidence of objects that were circulated (see, for example, tablets in bas-relief illustrated in Joshi and Parpola 1987: 110-122) – and the notion that the tablets at any rate may have functioned as a type of currency seems not at all far-fetched. The seals, however, show no evidence of use as currency as such, and seem to have been possessed by a single owner for use in other commercial or non-commercial contexts.

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But the fact that they did not circulate does not mean that they could not have been used monetarily – to represent, for example, a potential claim on assets when borrowing money or engaging in other transactions in good faith. After all, modern-day credit cards, checks, and other non-circulating instruments are used in monetary transactions but function very differently from currency per se. Moreover, some seals – especially those with brief, obviously numerical-type notations, may have been used to mark specific, repetitive quantities of goods such as, e.g., the contents of vessels. The very abundance of the seals – which Parpola and Joshi (1987: xi) term “the object type that has remained most characteristic of the Indus Civilization” -- at Harappan sites suggests that their uses may have been different from the uses of seals in other ancient cultures. It is worth noting that the nishka, which in proto-historical India was a coin apparently equivalent to 1 karsha, was originally a “golden ornament for the neck or breast (also used as money)” (Monier-Williams 1990 [reprint]: 562). The point is not that the nishka had anything to do with the Harappan seals but that various objects, including personal ornaments and even cattle, were used for money before coinage was invented3. It would therefore not seem admissible to reject out of hand any notion that the Harappan seals could have had a monetary or commercial function. 2.7 Harappan Seals Compared With Other Ancient Seal Types It is also worthwhile to consider in brief other types of seals from comparable time periods. The full range of administrative contexts for which seals were employed is not entirely clear, but there were variations in function from culture to culture. For example, Mesopotamian cylinder seals, in addition to their sphragistic uses, had some sort of religious or talismanic value, as attested by the fact that they have frequently been uncovered in funeral troves (see, e.g., Collon 1990:24), as also seals from the Minoan/Mycenean culture of the Aegean (Betts, pp. 54-67, in Collon [ed.] 1997) and cylinders and some kinds of stamp seals from Egypt (James, pp. 32-33, in Collon [ed.] 1997). Harappan seals, by contrast, have not been found in association with burial sites (Parpola, p. 50, in Collon [ed.] 1997). Mesopotamian cylinder seals typically display complex religious and mythological scenes with multiple figures, and as often as not bear no inscription; when inscribed, the legends tend to consist of multiple lines of text, and each legend is unique to the seal that bears it (and its owner) – this in stark contrast to the brief and highly repetitive inscriptions found on Harappan seals, where some inscriptions, like the

aforementioned and and a number of others, are repeated on various seals. Minoan and Mycenean seals – usually round – often show animal motifs like Harappan seals, but almost never have written inscriptions. According to Betts:

Writing systems were inextricably linked with the sphragistic use of seals: tablets and sealings are frequently found together and sealings were ‘countersigned’, even ‘endorsed’, in Linear B script.... However, Aegean glyptic is distinguished from Egyptian and Near Eastern by the fact that writing very rarely appears on the

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seal itself. None carries Linear B script; Linear A occurs on only two seals…. Only the earlier (Middle Minoan II-III) hieroglyphic script-symbols appear regularly on seals but they rarely seem more than decorative and are used in conjunction with pictorial and natural motifs. (Betts, p. 63, in Collon [ed.] 1997).

Egyptian cylinder and stamp seals typically bear brief inscriptions in Hieroglyphic Egyptian, but not the elaborate field figures or scenes typical of Mesopotamian seals. Harappan seals fall into several classes, including “button seals” with only a design, such as a svāstika, and no inscription. The majority of seals, however, bear a brief inscription (usually one line with two to ten characters). Many inscribed seals resemble the smaller “tablets” in having no field figure and being elongate rectangular. Others, the most familiar type of Harappan artifact, are square or nearly so, and bear an animal field figure beneath the brief inscription; a small minority have more elaborate scenes, evidently of a mythological or religious nature. 2.8 Numerals on Harappan Seals As to seal inscriptions themselves, a striking difference between the Harappan seal inscriptions and those from the Near East is the obvious and frequent presence of numerals in the former. Whereas a very significant proportion of inscribed Harappan objects, seals and tablets in all their varieties, exhibit various stroke numerals in the inscriptions, cylinder seals from Mesopotamia, e.g., apparently seldom if ever do (see, e.g., Collon 1987, Teissier 1984, Eisen 1940, and Hammade 1987 for hundreds of images of Middle Eastern cylinder seals and [of those that bear writing] their inscriptional fields). In addition to the brief inscriptions shown on Table 2.15 above, many longer Harappan inscriptions also include stroke numerals, as shown on Table 2.16: Table 2.16: Stroke Numerals in Longer Inscriptions from “Seals” and “Rectangular Seals” (Catalog Numbers from Joshi and Parpola 1987). Inscription Field object Artifact Type

(M-17) unicorn bull seal

(M-18) unicorn bull seal

(M-29) unicorn bull seal

(M-40) unicorn bull seal

(M-53) unicorn bull seal

(M-59) unicorn bull seal

(M-64) unicorn bull seal

(M-75) unicorn bull seal

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(M-95) unicorn bull seal

(M-103) unicorn bull seal

(M-117) unicorn bull seal

(M-138) unicorn bull seal

(M-158) unicorn bull seal

(M-172) unicorn bull seal

(M-194) unicorn bull seal

(M-247) bison seal

(M-278) elephant seal

(M-292) gharial seal

(M-315) none rectangular seal

(M-362) none rectangular seal

(M-378) none rectangular seal

(M-380) none rectangular seal

(M-385) none rectangular seal

(M-386) none rectangular seal

(H-4) unicorn bull seal

(H-10) unicorn bull seal

(H-23) unicorn bull seal

(H-25) unicorn bull seal

(H-55) unicorn bull seal

(H-82) bison seal

(?) (H-131) none rectangular seal

(H-141) none rectangular seal

(H-151) none rectangular seal

(L-20) unicorn bull seal

(L-36) unicorn bull seal

(L-88) none rectangular seal

(K-49) tiger + seated figure seal

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(K-59) none rectangular seal

(B-21) none rectangular seal

(Sktd-1) unicorn bull seal

While some signs with the appearance of stroke numerals – “long stroke” and , for example, as well as and in some contexts – may represent non-numerals, most such signs cannot reasonably be assumed to be other than numerals; if nothing else, the

contrastive distribution of various small stroke numerals right adjacent to signs like ,

, , and , yielding minimal pairs like, e.g., M-178 ( ) and M-179 ( ), would appear to confirm their value as numerals. We are therefore left with the inescapable inference that the seals and rectangular seals, not to mention the various kinds of so-called tablets, often contained information of numerical purport, similar to the early accounting tokens and tablets of Mesopotamia but

unlike, e.g., cylinder seals. Add to this the presence of signs like and , which, as Fairservis (1992:60-61) has suggested, appear to represent stalks of grain, and which, based both on their graphology and on their frequent association with numerals, might represent dry measures (see section 4.1.2 below for discussion of these two signs), and the hypothesis that many of the Harappan inscriptions encode numbers and mensuration – to represent claims on assets, amounts of goods contained, and property pledged – seems perfectly reasonable. In any case, this conclusion seems inescapable to this author, and it will be assumed from this point forward. 2.9 Metrology clusters. We shall henceforth refer to a cluster containing fish signs and/or oval signs and/or the

pair as a metrology cluster or M-cluster (MC in glosses). Table 2.17 following shows a few examples of patterned inscriptions (see Wells 2011 for first use of this term) containing MCs. Table 2.17: Examples of Metrology Clusters (Shown Underlined) in Patterned Inscriptions:

(1345)

(1620)

(1087)

(4028)

(2325)

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(2273)

(2446)

(2138)

(4005)

(2426)

(8017)

(1088)

(4016)

(4056) One obvious question worth considering is how to ascertain which fish signs (and oval signs) correspond to which weights. Given that there appear to be three oval signs used in

metrology clusters ( , , and ), and recalling that the complete Harappan weight system may be represented as 1, 2, 8/3, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 160, 200, 320, 640, 1600, 3200, 6400, 8000, 12,800, the most likely denotata for these three signs would appear to be the three-member subset 160, 320, 640 or the subset 1600, 3200, 6400. The members of each of these subsets are related by doubling the next-lowest member, as with the members of the subset 1, …, 64, which we have already suggested may correspond to the seven fish signs. The subset 160, 320, 640 would appear to be the more likely possibility, since it is immediately higher than the subset presumed to correspond to the fish signs, but this is purely conjectural. Moreover, we cannot venture any guess as to what the members of this weight series might actually have been called, given the state of the evidence. Given the assumption that the lower subset 1,…, 64 corresponds to the fish signs, we might enquire which fish sign is likely to correspond to which weight unit. The following discussion is of necessity speculative; a complete answer to this question will probably elude us until the script is further deciphered. There are, however, several possible approaches to the question that, individually or in combination, may allow us to clarify eventually this problem. The first approach would involve attempting to correlate those fish signs found on potsherds with the estimated carrying capacity of the vessels. This would require assuming that the fish signs can denote carrying capacity instead of, say, the value of items of contained or of the vessel itself. The other two approaches would involve trying to correlate the seven fish signs with the seven weights actually found. Marshall found the weights 1 through 64 units with the following relative abundances (Marshall 1931: 591):

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Unit designation Number of weights found 1 1 2 6 4 12 8 26 16 41 32 39 64 7 The reader will observe that designating “16 units” as the standard within this series is quite tenuous, based on these data. In terms of frequency of use, 32 and 16 both appear to be likely candidates, although it is worth noting that in later Indian systems of weight, the number 16 was very significant; one karsha or karshapanna (also called a suvarna when reckoned in gold) generally equaled 16 mashas.

Of all the fish signs, the basic fish grapheme is by far the least common to participate in fish sign clusters (though it is commonly encountered in various other contexts, as previously noted). As the most basic sign in the fish sign class (i.e., the grapheme common to all the fish signs), it might be regarded as a very good candidate for the lightest weight unit (corresponding to 1) – by far the least common of the above series of weights.

The second least common sign in the fish sign class is , with only 66 occurrences given by Mahadevan. The second least common weight is 2, with six occurrences. Again, given the graphology of this compound sign (with two strokes), a value of 2 units seems plausible. The higher weights are much more problematic, however. The three most common weights are 8, 16, and 32 units with 26, 41, and 39 occurrences, respectively. The three

most common fish signs are (279 total occurrences), (216 total), and (188 total).

These numbers suggest that most likely corresponds to 8 units, to 32, and to 16. These last two, in particular, may be reversed; obviously, more data on the weights found

will be necessary. Finally, (76 total occurrences) and (73 total), under these assumptions, would probably correspond to values 4 and 64, respectively, though again, the data is too scant to be certain.

Another possibility, that represents not the lightest but the heaviest weight in the series, should also be considered. This is because this sign alone is found with various

short-stroke numerals (particularly and ) which (if assumed to represent multiples of

), might represent higher multiples of the heaviest unit beyond what could be

represented economically by lower units. For example, would represent 192 units, which would be extremely cumbersome to represent using fish signs that stand for lighter units.

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A final possibly relevant feature of fish sign distribution is the order in which they tend to occur, if it should turn out that they are typically given in some canonical order, presumably in ascending (lightest to heaviest) or descending order from right to left.

From the data in Mahadevan, we find that tends to precede (i.e., occur right-adjacent

to) all other fish signs. usually precedes all fish signs except ; then follow , ,

and , in that order. and occur too seldom in fish sign clusters to be reliably evaluated. None of these ordering rules is 100% reliable, for fish sign clusters sometimes violate these tendencies. In the next chapter, we shall examine the implications of these metrology clusters for the meanings of other domains in patterned inscriptions.

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CHAPTER 3: Interpreting the Context of Metrological Clusters

3.1 Patterned Inscriptions We have established the likelihood that signs and sign clusters of the type (F)(O), where F indicates a sequence of up to three fish signs and O a sequence of up to two oval signs, and where parentheses indicate that either or both of these sign classes may occur in a sequence under consideration, are indicative of metrology. That is, in the following inscriptions, which may be viewed as typical of such sequences, the cluster FO may be identified as the metrological cluster (MC):

(4005) MC

(2335) MC Examples like these illustrate a very common canonical structure in the Harappan inscriptions. Inscriptions with such a structure, which I call, after Wells (2011), “patterned inscriptions” (or “patterned texts;” see also Table 2.17 previously), consist of four basic potential domains, some of which may be absent from given inscriptions. I shall call them, for convenience, the “prefix” or P-cluster (PC), the “metrological” or M-cluster, the “core” or C-cluster (CC), and the “terminal” or T-cluster (TC). These domains are shown on the preceding two inscriptions as:

TC CC MC PC

TC CC MC PC

Note that with the preceding, as with all inscriptions shown below for domain analysis, the gaps in text are for ease of recognition only; Harappan inscriptions generally exhibit no discontinuities except for line breaks. Certain of the aforementioned domains may occur in isolation or in inscriptions with one or more of the other elements missing. For example, the sequence TC-CC may occur, and frequently does, with no MC or PC right-adjacent, for example:

(1013, etc.) TC CC

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(4650, etc.) TC CC Likewise, we frequently find inscriptions of the kind TC-CC-MC, as for example:

(3120) TC CC MC

(2046) TC CC MC We sometimes find the sequence TC-CC-PC, as with:

(1232, etc.; cf. as an autonomous cluster elsewhere) TC CC PC

(2168; cf. elsewhere) TC CC PC Certain (but by no means all) PCs may also occur in isolation, such as:

(4441, etc.) PC We also frequently encounter the sequence TC-MC, especially when the TC includes :

(2183) TC MC

(3074) TC MC Finally, we find inscriptions of the type TC-MC-PC:

(4056) TC MC PC

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(6206) TC MC PC

(1400) TC MC PC

We do not find the sequence TC-PC, such that, for example, a hypothetical inscription like

* TC PC

is apparently inadmissible. Likewise, we only rarely encounter inscriptions of the type CC, with no TC left-adjacent. Nor do we find any other combination of CC, MC, and PC without a TC left-adjacent, with the sole exception of inscriptions of the type PC shown above. There are, however, inscriptions of the type B-MC and B-MC-PC, with no TC left-adjacent, where B denotes a bracketed fish or oval sign, e.g.:

(3070) B MC

(2452) B MC

(6211) B MC PC

(1308) B MC

(2067) B MC PC

But if we assume that the brackets are in fact somehow analogous to terminal signs

and , then this issue is resolved; we may assert that, with near 100 percent certainty, no combination of CC, MC, and PC, except for PC itself (and rarely, CC), may occur without a TC left-adjacent.

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Moreover, the order in which these inscriptional domains occur is inflexible, that is, if we have more than one heterogeneous domain present in a sign sequence, they will almost always occur in the order given. Thus, we may see, e.g., TC-CC-PC, TC-CC-MC-PC, and TC-MC-PC, but never, e.g., *TC-PC-CC, *TC-MC-CC-PC, or *MC-TC-PC-CC. 3.2 Complex Inscriptions A majority of Harappan inscriptions follow these rules; these patterned inscriptions are characterized by very predictable patterns of sign distribution. Patterned inscriptions will be the basis for most of the rest of our analysis and for our conclusions both about the meaning of the script itself and about the nature of at least one of the underlying languages. It is important to stress, however, that a significant number of Harappan inscriptions from various sources (but especially from the square seals) exhibit much greater randomness in distributional patterns of signs. These I will term complex inscriptions or texts, after Wells (2011). Such inscriptions may be much harder to interpret, much less decipher, unless a significant number of Harappan signs interpretable in patterned contexts can be found in complex contexts as well. For the purposes of this study, I list without further comment a few complex inscriptions on Table 3.1: Table 3.1: Complex inscriptions:

(M-1)

(M-3)

(M-6)

(H-29)

(1018)

(1038)

(1056)

(4024)

(5078)

(1406)

(4003) 3.3 Analyzing the patterned texts.

3.3.1 We will now consider patterned inscriptions in more detail. We have seen that many of these contain what we have termed a “metrology cluster” (MC), a combination of fish

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signs, oval signs, and the pair . We have suggested already that the fish series and

the oval series may denote related units of weight, but what about the pair ? This pair usually occurs leftmost when in combination with a fish/oval cluster, and it may also occur alone with left-adjacent . When in combination with a fish/oval series, it behaves almost like a term somehow significative of weighing or measuring, instead of a unit of mensuration per se – as a modifying term, as it were. But this pair is also autonomous, inasmuch as it can stand alone with nothing besides left-adjacent terminal sign (see Table 2.9 for the contexts in which this sign pair occurs). It so happens that there is a term in South Asian languages that would appear to fit the

characteristics of , the Indo-Aryan pleonastic number/measurer mā-tra-m (also found as mā-tri), whose Dravidian equivalent is probably to be found with the root aḷ- (Tamil aḷavu, ‘number, amount, measure’; see Murray and Emeneau 1984: 27-28). mā-tra-m is a peculiar word, meaning literally ‘measure’ and ‘amount,’ but also denoting a specific, fundamental unit, a conventional “measure” such as was also found in Mesopotamian systems of weights and measures. But more than this, the term is often difficult to translate since, following a particular number or amount, it has the sense of “exactly” or “the exact amount of;” thus we have, from Monier-Williams (1990: 804), the following discussion of the uses of mā-tra-m:

Measure, quantity, sum, size, duration, measure of any kind (whether of height, depth, breadth, length, distance, time or number, e.g. ańgula-mātram, a finger’s [ańgula] breadth… artha-mātram, a certain sum of money…krośa- mātram, at the distance of a Kos [krośa] …māsa-mātre, in a month…śata- mātram, a hundred in number…. [additional definition] amounting (only) to (pleonastically after numerals; cf. tri-mo).

Tamil aḷavu appears to be the closest attested Dravidian synonym; its meanings include (Winslow 1989: 49): “measure, degree, proportion, quantity, magnitude, size, capacity, bound, limit, compass, number, standard…the proper or required measure, the complement number, size, weight, &c.” It thus appears that in both Indo-Aryan and

Dravidian, a pleonastic number-measurer was used. We hypothesize that the pair represented this term (as a pleonasm, translatable as ‘exactly, in the amount of’, etc.) when left-adjacent to a fish/oval cluster, and signified simply ‘a [standard] measure’ when it did not. I shall gloss this pair, for now, as [MEAS] when occurring in the pleonastic sense, and MEASURE when intended to signify a conventional measure. Note that, in both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, this term would normally follow a number or

unit of measurement indicated, which squares with the tendency of to occur as the leftmost element in a metrological cluster.

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A few examples of glossed in context are shown in Table 3.2, with entire MCs

underlined as before, and divided into a fish/oval cluster and :

Table 3.2: as measure/pleonastic number-measurer:

(2015, 2575, 5089, 7229) TC MEASURE

(4015) TC [MEAS] MC

(4028) TC [MEAS] MC PC

(2426) TC CC [MEAS] MC

(1456) TC CC [MEAS] MC PC

(2446) TC CC [MEAS] MC PC

(2541) TC CC [MEAS] MC

(2654) TC CC [MEAS] MC PC

We note that there are a few instances when the pair is not the leftmost member of an MC, but these are not the norm. Given that the canonical order of signs in the script is never absolute, even in patterned contexts, and given also that the script, although generally (but not always) written in a “linear” style, is nonetheless probably not a “linear” script in the sense that Linear A or B are, such occasional deviations from a general pattern should not be upheld as absolute disproof. In our view, the facts that 1)

is always apparently associated with metrological contexts; 2) does not appear to

be a functional pair or compound along the lines of, say, or (and hence does not appear to be completely homologous with the fish series or the oval series), but instead has the appearance of two discrete syllables or lexemes; and 3) may stand alone (with a

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left-adjacent TC) to denote an autonomous pair as well as in association with fish/oval clusters, are all distributional and graphological traits suggestive of the characteristically South Asian pleonastic number-measurer. 3.3.2 Attributional Clusters We thus see that the MC is often resolvable into at least three subdomains, the fish cluster, the oval cluster, and the pleonastic number-measurer, which we have glossed as [MEAS]. We are now in a position to consider in turn each of the other three domains, the T-cluster (TC), the C-cluster (CC), and the P-cluster (PC). Before doing this, however, it is worthwhile to consider what kind of information is likely to be contained by the rest of an inscription bearing a metrology cluster. We would expect that a full-fledged patterned text (i.e., one containing a TC, CC, MC, and PC) would have an attribution (i.e., an indication of ownership) and an indication of whatever type of commodity or property is being reckoned (as, e.g., precious metals, gems, land, grain, or whatever). We might also expect markers indicating the relationship of these terms one to another. It is also possible that originary data might be given, i.e., the town or city from which the person named was from. The most likely of these to occur would be the attribution – the name of the person or persons to whom the artifact, or the property named, belongs. This is a near universal trait of seals, seal-like objects, and Mesopotamian accountancy tablets and related records (see, e.g., Leemans 1960 and Collon 1987). Since the MC cannot coincide with the attribution, we are left with the TC, CC, and PC, of which only the latter two are reasonable possibilities, since the TC is too brief (usually only one or two signs) and exhibits too little variation (only a few signs are actually found in TC contexts, nowhere near enough to account for the presumed variation that would be found in personal, occupational, family, or clan names and titles). We are left to resolve whether the PC or the CC is more likely to be the attributional domain. PCs, as we have already seen, are not often found by themselves, and never with a left-adjacent TC. CCs, on the other hand, are frequently found without either a right-

adjacent MC or PC ( [1013, etc.] as against [3120] or

[2537], e.g.). It is therefore exceedingly more likely that the CC is the attributional domain; in the examples given in the preceding sentence, this

would signify that is the attributional domain, denoting the name and/or title of the person or persons to whom the seal, or the property indicated, belongs. This being the case, the prefix cluster would have to signify a commodity or commodities reckoned (precious metals, cowrie shells, grains, gems, etc.) or originary information of some kind (place or origin, caste or sodality of bearer); PCs may quite possibly contain both kinds of information. From this assumption we might surmise that what we have been calling “juncture signs” -- , , and -- are in fact case markers, presumably

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indicative of the genitive and possibly other cases or case-marked relationships. That juncture signs are case markers is believed by some other investigators of the script, like

Mahadevan (1989:15-16). We note passim that at least one other sign, , is sometimes the leftmost member of a prefix cluster, and may well turn out to be a case marker as well. We shall deal with possible interpretations of the juncture signs further on.

3.3.3 The ‘Jar Sign’ This leads to an interesting question, one that has vexed investigators of the script from

Hunter (1934) onwards: What is the meaning of , the so-called “jar sign” that occurs more frequently than any other in the Harappan signary, and overwhelmingly as a

member of T-clusters in patterned texts? does not appear to be a phonogram (sound-denoting sign) per se, because its patterns of occurrence are far too predictable (almost always in the terminal environment, and usually in final or penultimate position), especially for a sign that occurs far more frequently than any other in the signary. By contrast, phonograms that occur most frequently in a signary will typically be unmarked, and will tend to have a greater diversity of contexts than other, more marked signs (i.e.,

signs with a more complex phonological content). must, in other words, have some sense-determinative or semantic element. This means that it must be either some kind of determinative/taxogram or stand for a morpheme or lexeme of some kind.

The most popular candidates for have been grammatical affixes of various types.

Mitchiner (1978), for example, assumed that denoted a case ending (the genitive), Parpola (1994: 277) a “possessive suffix,” and Wells (2011) an affix of some type. But

the relationship between and other terminal signs, particularly -- which usually

occurs left-adjacent to , but occasionally, in association with c-clusters, may occur

right adjacent to it – makes identification of as a case ending difficult to defend on

close analysis. Identifying as any sort of grammatical affix, attractive though it may seem at first blush, is hard to sustain for several reasons:

1) (and , which, as we have observed, is functionally homologous with ) frequently occurs to the left of sign sequences, like fish/oval clusters, that demonstrably represent multiple coordinated lexemes, such as in the underlined sequences in the following two examples:

(6129)

(3074)

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Why, if and represent grammatical affixes like gender markers or case endings, would they occur only singly in such contexts (i.e., instead of occurring separately and discretely with each lexeme to be marked with a given grammatical feature)?

2. has several other forms, apparently akin in graphology but differing strikingly in

distribution from , although not from one another: , , and . These three signs, as shall be discussed in detail later on, are frequently found in rightmost position, i.e., in

the prefix environment, rather than in T-clusters. Assuming, as seems warranted, that ,

, and are derived from while being distinct in some way yet to be determined, it is hard to imagine how a sign representing a grammatical affix can have modified versions occurring in the initial or prefix environment.

3. Besides and , there are a number of other signs and graphemes typical of the terminal environment, which would presumably also have to be grammatical affixes or be

associated with them. Certain of these – the “bearer” sign and the enclosing brackets

, for example – occur in contrastive distribution with and and would presumably

have homologous functions. If were shown to be a case marker, then , , and would have to be markers for different cases (or perhaps different genders, numbers, or declensional realizations of the same case), with other signs typically found in the

terminal environment, like and , furnishing additional affixal information. If were

regarded as some other type of affix, then , , and would then be other markers of

the same property. If, for example, is the Dravidian masculine gender marker –an (a view apparently favored by Mahadevan; pers. communication, 2009), then , less

frequent and marked with respect to , would most likely be its feminine counterpart -al. The other terminal signs, however, would likely denote entirely different kinds of affixes, a conclusion that militates against the distributional evidence for homology (their

occurring in contrastive distribution with and ).

4. Interpreting and other homologous terminal signs as grammatical affixes would suggest a very well-developed system of affix marking as against a comparatively impoverished logosyllabary; as I argue further on (section 7.1), and as others (Farmer et al 2004, e.g.) have noted, the Harappan signary is lacking in signs that occur both frequently and randomly, suggesting a paucity of simple phonograms. This is precisely the reverse of what we would expect for a script with a supposedly well-developed system for representing case affixes, given that ancient writing like proto-Cuneiform and early Maya only developed grammatical affixing well after the initial invention of writing and the creation of complete signaries (Cooper 2004; see also discussion further on in this section).

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Although interpreting and other terminal signs as affixes is viscerally appealing, especially in view of the success such an approach has had in prior decipherments, such as the work of Kobers and Ventris on Linear B (see Chadwick 1958), it does not appear to be defensible with the Indus Valley script. Such an interpretation would leave us with an unwarranted multiplicity of cases or other affixes that would make no sense contextually (Why, e.g., would the same lexeme be marked with several different cases in otherwise identical inscriptions with no further textual environment, as we see with

minimal pairs like [1707, 2294, 2663] and [2372, 4284] or [1261]

and [4659]?). Clearly, a different interpretation of and other terminal signs is in order.

has never, as far as this author is aware, been suggested to correspond to a full lexeme, but the strongest likelihood, in this author’s view, is that the “jar sign” in fact represents a discrete word that happens to be extremely common in the sort of contexts

where Harappan inscriptions are used. It is worth noting in this connection that does

not, except for a very few possibly ornamental contexts, occur as a solus. appears to complete an idea, or to render a preceding string of characters meaningful. It therefore resembles most a predicate of some kind1, and withal – because of its frequent occurrence -- a predicate that is very common and unmarked, at least in the context of Harappan inscriptions.

Under such an assumption, there is an explanation for that fits very nicely with South Asian language typology, namely, that this very common sign in fact represents the predicate ‘be’ in either Indo-Aryan (as- or bhū-) or Dravidian (uḷ-, ā-, or iru-). In both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian, there is no separate word or root meaning ‘to have, own, possess.’ Instead of saying, e.g., “I have such and such,” speakers of Indo-Aryan and Dravidian say, anciently and in modern times, “Such and such is to me” (similar to English constructions using a form of ‘be’ with a possessive adjective as a subject complement, like ‘this book is mine’ and ‘the money is Jim’s’). For example, in the Rig Veda, we find expressions like yā vah śarma śaśamānāya santi, ‘The shelters [śarma] which you [vah ] have [santi] for the zealous man [śaśamānāya]’ [literally, ‘which shelters are to you for the zealous man’] (RV I, 85:12). From the medieval Pāli commentary the Purana Vinaya Sannaya, we find phrases like hiraññam me atthi, ‘I have gold’ [lit. ‘gold is to me’]. And from the Buddhaghosa Kankhāvitarani Atthakatha (a commentary, the Kankhavitarani, by Buddhaghosa, on the Vinaya Piṭaka, a part of the Pāli Tipiṭaka) a contract for debt is given as asukasmin nāma thāne mama hirañña suvaṇṇam atthi, tam tuyham hotu, ‘In such a place, I have a suvarna of gold, you may have it’ (literally, ‘In such a place, a suvarna of gold [hirañña suvaṇṇam] is to me [mama atthi], to you [tuyham] let it be [tam hotu]).’

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In modern South Asian languages, similar usages are found. In Colloquial Sinhala, for example, the verb tiyenәwa, ‘be,’ is used with a dative case subject to indicate ownership, as in maṭә potak tiyenәwa, ‘I have a book (literally, ‘a book [potak] is [tiyenәwa] to me [maṭә]’).’ In modern written Tamil, the same sentence would be rendered enakku oru puttakam irukkiratu (enakku = ‘to me,’ oru puttakam = ‘a book,’ irukkiratu = ‘is’). Nor are such uses unique to South Asia. Although most western European languages have a word corresponding to ‘to have, possess,’ the word corresponding to ‘be’ in various forms is frequently used to signify ownership. For example, as we have noted above, in English we have constructions such as ‘this book is Harry’s’ and ‘the red car is hers’. Spanish has similar constructions, using objects of the preposition de (‘of’) with forms of the verb ser, as in:

Este libro es de Juan (‘this book is Juan’s;[literally] this book is of Juan’) The association of the verb corresponding to ‘be’ with possession is extremely frequent across languages (at least in languages with an explicit copula).

is thus likely to represent the root ‘be,’ in its various senses, the most general, all-purpose predicate, as it were (hereafter glossed BE). In Indo-Aryan, the root as- may mean, among other things, ‘be,’ ‘exist,’ ‘fall to the share of,’ ‘be equal to,’ and ‘belong to’ (Monier-Williams 1990: 117), and the root bhū- similarly means, among other things, “be,” “exist,” and “to fall to the share or become the property of, belong to” (ibid., p. 760; note that the primordial meaning of bhū- was more along the lines of “to arise” or “to become,” and its use as a copula may have been a later development). In Dravidian, meanwhile, the root iru- may signify ‘exist’ and ‘belong to’ (Burrow and Emeneau 1984, entry 480), while uḷ- may mean both ‘be’ and ‘have’ (ibid., entry 697); ā- is not accorded either the meaning ‘have’ or ‘belong to’ in Burrow and Emeneau, but is ascribed meanings like ‘be,’ ‘be fit,’ and ‘be equal’ (ibid., entry 333). We therefore suggest the following interpretations for inscriptions 1013 and 3120, which embody the two very common patterned inscriptional subtypes, TC-CC and TC-CC-MC, respectively:

(1013, etc.) BE CC

‘belongs to / is ’s’

(3120) BE CC MC

‘[amount designated by MC] belongs to / is ’s’

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There are relatively few examples like 6129, , in which is left-adjacent

to an M-cluster; in most such, another terminal sign, like , is typically left-adjacent to

. Where falls left-adjacent to an M-cluster, and the C-cluster is lacking, the

probable interpretation of predicate sign is ‘equals’ or ‘amounts to.’ 6129 would thus be interpreted as:

BE MC PC ‘equal to [amount designated by MC] PC’

We note again that such occurrences of (left-adjacent to an M-cluster) are very

infrequent compared to the various patterned inscriptional subtypes wherein is left-adjacent to a C-cluster. Note also that we shall take up the topic of the interpretation of P-clusters (PCs) further on in this study.

It is also worth noting that may have a broader interpretation beyond that of a copula ‘be.’ It may be interpretable in some contexts as a basic indicator of predication in general, whether or not it always stands for an explicit copular verb. Many South Asian languages have predication markers (usually derived from a form of the copula ‘be’ reduced to affixal status). Colloquial Sinhala, for example, uses the predication marker –yi (-ya in the written language), which has the force of ‘is/are’ with subject complement adjectives (and with nouns in the written language), as in ēka honda-yi, ‘that [ēka] is [-yi] good [honda].’ In Malayalam, the affix/copula -āṇu may be used with subject complement nouns and adjectives alike, as in, e.g., itu nallad-āṇu, ‘this [itu] is [-āṇu] good [nalladu]’ and ‘itu nalla sāriy-āṇu, ‘this [itu] is [-āṇu] a good [nalla] sari’ (see Moag and Moag 1967 for these and many other examples from Malayalam, a regrettably under-studied Dravidian language). In Tamil, on the other hand, an explicit predication marker is required for adjective complements but not for nouns acting as subject complements; thus Tam. avan nalla-van, ‘he [avan] is [-van, literally a pronominal affix] good [nalla]’ requires a pronominal affix to mark predication, but avan yen tambi, ‘he [avan] is [Ø] my [yen] younger brother [tambi]’ involves a subject complement noun for

which no explicit predication marker is required. A general predication marker – if is to be construed as such – could conceivably represent both explicit copulae and copula-like predication markers, as well as copulae where the predication is not morphologically

explicit. Much additional study will be required to clarify the precise range of use of . The reader familiar with other attempts to interpret or decipher the Harappan inscriptions

may well wonder at this point how a single sign , and a very common sign at that, could denote an entire lexeme, given that most investigators have assumed that the Indus Valley inscriptions are likely to give full representation to grammatical morphology, and

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the signs a full scribal accounting of the language as it was spoken. This, after all, is the kind of thing we see in well-developed writing systems in Mesopotamia and elsewhere, or so it is often believed. In point of fact, the earliest writing systems did not as a general rule seek to represent all grammatical and even lexical morphology; such flexibility did not develop until much later, when what originated as, in the main, tools for accountancy and administrative record-keeping, were expanded for use in recording literary and religious texts. According to Cooper (2004: 80-81):

[E]arly writing systems were not the full writing systems that they became. This development is particularly obvious for Sumerian cuneiform … and Egyptian …, where the gradual addition of grammatical and syntactic capability can be observed over centuries, as it can for Maya…. Early Sumerian and Egyptian were probably not more versatile than Inka khipu …, perhaps even less so…. All of these early systems express language, but only in highly restricted applications, and all depend to some degree on non-linguistic features – tablet format, string placement, figural representation, institutional context – for their interpretation. Although there seems to be a small amount of phonetic writing in proto-cuneiform, there is no certain expression of Sumerian grammatical affixes until the archaic tablets from Ur, c. 2800 BC, that is, four centuries or so after the invention of proto-cuneiform. This absence of grammar did not impair the utility of proto-cuneiform, because its use was restricted to administrative accounts; even today, grammar has little or no role to play in ledgers.

Trigger (2004: 47-48) terms the earliest phase of what became writing in many parts of the world “semasiologography,” in which inscriptions are primarily intended to convey ideas rather than represent languages:

The Aztecs had professional scribes who produced elaborate barkcloth codices. In some of these books they used standardized symbols to record the migrations of families and ethnic groups and the births, marriages, and deaths of leading individuals…. Nevertheless, their codices recorded ideas, not actual sequences of words. Verbal accounts had to be conveyed orally, while the pictograms served to refresh the transmitter’s memory. Some pictures were used as rhebuses to suggest the names of people and places, but it is unclear how far the process of phoneticization had developed prior to the Spanish conquest…. An analogous situation is found with the proto-cuneiform texts…. These texts used signs to itemize goods, names, and quantities but phonetic complementation was rare and for several centuries no attempt was made to record speech or even to present information in a specific (grammatical) order…. It was…not until c. 2400 BC that the Sumerians wrote extended texts with spoken language determining the order of signs. Even then vital grammatical elements that native speakers of Sumerian could supply from context were often omitted…. Maya texts, consisting of glyphs

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with minimal syntactical transparency and syllabic context appear in the archaeological record between 100 BC and AD 150.

Even Egyptian writing began with signs for keeping records of certain grave goods, in which certain rhebus signs and logograms were inscribed on bone and ivory tags found in tomb U-j at Abydos (Trigger 2004: 48; Baines 2004:150 189). The majority of such inscriptions consisted of one or two glyphs (Baines 2004: 154), including numerals (ibid, p. 157).

In sum, the notion that the Indus writing could employ a single sign like to represent a lexeme with many different morphological instantiations (depending on tense, person, number, mood, etc.) is not at all inconsistent with what we now know of other early, or “proto” writing systems. We have so far found no evidence that Harappan writing was used in any of the sort of more advanced contexts that might prompt its users to modify it in the direction of more fully representing language in its full morphosyntactic sense. Instead, we have every reason to assume that Harappan writing as we have received it on the seals and other imperishables was most likely devised for maximal economy of expression, where physical context supplied what grammar would furnish in spoken language. 3.3.4 The “Spear/Arrow” sign

If is in fact a predicate, then it is likely that is as well. appears to be the most fundamental, least-marked of all predicates, as we have already seen; must be more

marked, or more semantically complex, than , yet still be a predicate of very frequent occurrence in patterned inscriptional contexts. The most significant distributional fact about is that it nearly always occurs left

adjacent to an M-cluster (a fish/oval cluster or ). It also occurs in a few instances left-adjacent to a C-cluster, the implications of which will be discussed elsewhere. But overwhelmingly, occurs in the terminal environment with an M-cluster right adjacent, some examples of which are shown on Table 3.3: Table 3.3: Adjacent to Metrological Clusters:

(2523) MC

(3074) MC

(1088)

83

MC

(7252) MC

(1277) MC

(4458, etc.) MC

(1198) MC

(6206) MC

(2026, etc.) MC

(4315, etc.) MC

(2384) MC

(8048) MC

(1380) MC

(1400) MC

(2132) MC

(1327) MC

(1254, etc.) MC

(4551)

84

MC

(4374, etc.) MC

(4428) MC

(4056) MC

(2193) MC

(4673) MC

(2081) MC

(2081) MC

(4112, etc.) MC

(3091) MC

(2015, etc.) MEASURE

(1068) [MEAS] MC

(1094) [MEAS] MC

(4015) [MEAS] MC

(4028)

85

[MEAS] MC

(6207) [MEAS] MC

(2123) [MEAS] MC

(1065) [MEAS] MC

(2208) [MEAS] MC

(1170) [MEAS] MC

(5062) [MEAS] MC

(1345) [MEAS] MC

(2507) [MEAS] MC

(3160) [MEAS] MC

(1168, etc.) MEASURE

(2251) MEASURE

Note again that two lined inscriptions with + stroke numeral are found on small

tablets or tokens, where + stroke numeral sequences are found on the reverse side from the first line given. Inscriptions of the type + right-adjacent M-cluster are found on seals, sealings, tablets, and tokens, but are particularly frequent on small tablets and tokens. For example, a small series of circular tablets in bas-relief from Harappa includes

one with the inscription on one side and on the other, and another with

on one side and a pipal-leaf design on the other. The inscription occurs 26 times, all on small well-worn rectangular tablets in bas-relief; a unicorn bull is shown on the other side. If is a predicate, then what is its probable meaning, given its pronounced pattern of occurrence with right-adjacent metrological clusters? Since such clusters themselves are

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indicators of value, the most likely meaning of is ‘be worth, be valued.’ An inscription

such as 2081 above, , would then be interpreted as “worth [amount],” and one

like 2015, , would be read as “worth [one] measure.” 2123, which incorporates

both a fish/oval cluster and the pleonastic number measurer -- -- would

mean “worth exactly [amount],” where corresponds to “exactly” or “the amount of.” The most likely root or lexemic value for in Dravidian would be tāḷu, ‘be worth’ (Burrow and Emeneau 1984, entry 3188), and in Indo-Aryan ish-, ‘be worth’ (in the passive; Monier-Williams 1990:169), gaṇ- (ibid., pp. 342-343), and arh- (ibid., p.

93). For now, we will gloss as WORTH, such that the foregoing three inscriptions will be represented as follows:

(2081) WORTH MC

(2015) WORTH MEASURE

(2123) WORTH [MEAS] MC

To summarize, we have found a basis for suggesting that and are not affixes but predicates, the former being the universal unmarked predicate ‘be,’ which in both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan also means ‘have, own,’ and the latter indicating ‘be worth, be valued.’ We have also fleshed out the likely composition of metrological clusters,

discerning within them evidence for a sign pair ( ) that acts both as an indicator of a fundamental unit of measure and as the pleonastic number/measurer used in South Asian languages to signify ‘exactly, in the amount of’ with all kinds of measurements and with numerals. In the next chapter, we shall look in more detail at the P-cluster (PC), to see what its range of meanings is likely to be.

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Chapter 4: The P-Cluster and Other Features of Patterned Inscriptions

4.1 Interpreting the P-Cluster We now consider in some detail the P-cluster. In the previous chapter, we showed two inscriptions that exemplify the “complete” patterned format, namely, TC-CC-MC-PC:

(4005)

(2335)

From these, we isolate the two common P-clusters, and , which both consist of a juncture sign ( ) left-adjacent to one other sign. Several other common P-clusters occur that similarly consist of a single sign right-adjacent to one of the three juncture signs. The three most common P-clusters besides the two mentioned above are the pairs

, , and ; there are others besides. We also see longer sign sequences right-adjacent to a juncture sign in the PC field; we list a few inscriptions with such complex P-clusters (underscored) in Table 4.1 below: Table 4.1: Complex P-Clusters:

(1087) PC

(1065) PC

(2325) PC

(1033) PC

(1077) PC

(1142) PC

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(2018) PC

(4028) PC

(9011) PC

(2271) PC

(1540) PC

4.1.1 The modified “jar” signs , , and

One very common P-cluster doublet, mentioned above, is the sequence , which deserves special attention before we examine the function of P-clusters in general. This

pair is nearly always right-adjacent to one of three signs -- , , or -- which naturally begs the question as to whether these three signs, which appear to be modified

versions of the “jar sign” , are also to be reckoned as part of a P-cluster. We might suppose, for example, that the marks internal to these signs are somehow related to the marks , , and , which occur so frequently as the leftmost member of other P-clusters. Table 4.2 below shows a sampling of these three signs in their most distinctive

context, left-adjacent to :

Table 4.2: , , and Adjacent to

(2402)

(1024)

(1041)

(2298)

(1140)

(7045)

89

(2041)

(1145)

(2537)

(1021)

(4104) At first blush, the three “modified jar” signs do appear to form part of a P-cluster with

, but a closer look at the distribution of these three signs suggests that this is in fact

not the case. , , and do appear occasionally in P-clusters, but usually only as the rightmost member, and also sometimes occur in rightmost or absolute initial position (Table 4.4 following). These three signs may also appear as the rightmost members of metrological clusters (Table 4.3).

Table 4.3: , , and Right-Adjacent to Fish/Oval Clusters

(8017)

(4241)

(1155)

(4263)

(2614)

(2193)

(1388, etc.)

(1420)

(4014)

(2643)

___ (1419)

___ (1017)

(1404)

(4113)

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Table 4.4: , , and in Rightmost or Initial Position (Both in MCs and PCs)

(4263) MC

(6132) PC

(2447) PC

(4238) PC

___ (1419) MC

(2253) MC (?)

(2916, etc.) PC

(4801) MC (?)

Note that the distributions of , , and are quite dissimilar from that of terminal

sign ; despite apparent shared graphology with , these three signs often appear in

initial position either in a P-cluster or M-cluster, whereas , as earlier noted, almost always is found in the terminal field. Although in a few contexts, these three signs may

appear to be mere positional variants of , as when they are left-adjacent to sign

sequences that appear elsewhere as core clusters left-adjacent to ( appears twice as

, for example [2300 and 1081], which are reminiscent of the common TC-CC

sequence ), but several points about their distribution suggest that they are not:

1) , , and sometimes occur in rightmost or initial position, whereas never does;

2) occurs very frequently in leftmost or absolute final position, whereas , , and never do;

3) , , and often occur right-adjacent to fish/oval clusters, whereas seldom occurs adjacent to such clusters, and when it does, it is always left-adjacent.

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Despite evidence that , , and are somehow functionally distinct from , their similar graphology suggests some kind of relationship. I suggest that, if we have assumed

correctly that is a full lexeme (the verb ‘be’), then in all likelihood, , , and should be regarded as full lexemes as well. Their similar distributional patterns inter alia suggests a close relationship among them, and the sharp contrast between their patterns of

occurrence and those of suggest that they are probably in an entirely different lexemic class.

The most likely possibility is that , , and are nominalizations, i.e., nouns

formed from verb . The internal marks could indicate a contrast between singular and plural (and perhaps include even a dual, if the language represented turns out to be Indo-

Aryan; it is perhaps significant that is somewhat more common than , suggesting

that the latter is more marked – precisely what we would expect if corresponded to the dual and to the plural, since the dual number in Sanskrit has simpler morphology and occurs much less frequently than the plural – that is, it is marked with respect to the

plural1). In any event, we propose that the meaning of et al in these contexts would likely be ‘belongings, property.’ This seems to be a reasonable supposition, given the

frequent association of these three signs with metrological clusters; like , they occur at the “edge” of M-clusters, suggesting a semantic affinity with the fish and oval signs without, perhaps, representing metrological data per se. A term for ‘belongings’ or ‘property’ would be expected in such contexts. More than this, however, both Indo-Aryan and Dravidian languages appear to have used a nominalization of the root ‘be’ to denote ‘property’. In Sanskrit, we find the term astimat, meaning ‘possessed of property, opulent’ (Monier-Williams 1990: 122). The suffix –mat means ‘having, possessing, characterized by,’ so the term asti, derived from root as-, ‘be’ (and identical in form to the third person present tense indicative asti, ‘is’), must have been a noun denoting ‘property’ or ‘wealth’ at some time. Add to this the singular fact that the modern Tamil word for ‘property’ is the non-Dravidian (and very Indo-Aryan looking) āsti, and the case for such a term having been used at some time in South Asia seems strong. Moreover, the Sanksrit verb root bhū-, ‘be, become,’ also meant, in noun form, ‘[landed] property’ (ibid., p. 761). In Tamil there exists the term iruppu, a nominalization of the root iru-, ‘be, exist, have,’ which means ‘balance on hand, surplus, stores, merchandise, wares’ (Burrow and Emeneau 1984, entry 480). Another suggestive term is uṭai (ibid., entry 593), ‘wealth, property’ (from which also one of the modern Tamil genitive case endings, uṭaya, has arisen), which is without doubt a nominalization of the other Dravidian root for ‘be,’ uḷ- (ibid., entry 697). There is therefore ample reason to suppose that a nominalization of ‘be’ in either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian could have denoted a word like ‘property’ or

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‘merchandise,’ e.g., that would be expected in association with M-clusters. Since the word ‘property’ would appear to encompass all of these possible meanings, I shall adopt

the working notation PROPERTY for , , and , with the understanding that these signs could have more specific denotata like ‘merchandise,’ ‘wares,’ ‘stores,’ or some such.

4.1.2 The “Staff Signs and Two other signs of interest with respect to the P-cluster are what I shall style the “staff

signs” and , which the Mahadevan concordance treats as two separate signs despite patterns of distribution that are virtually identical and ample graphological grounds for assuming that these two signs are in fact allographs. For the purposes of this study, I shall represent these signs as distinct, with the suggestion that they are very probably allographic variants. The term “staff” reflects the fact that, as noted by other investigators (Fairservis 1992: 60-61), these signs resemble staffs of grain. While their appearance may be significant, we shall focus first on the context in which these two signs typically occur.

Both and occur frequently in P-clusters, as Table 4.5 illustrates:

Table 4.5: and in P-clusters:

(3083) PC

(1087) PC

(2018) PC

(9091) PC

(1150) PC

(4141) PC

(4351)

93

PC

(second line)

(2271) PC

(4023) PC

(4315, etc.) PC

Another salient trait of both and is their very marked propensity to occur right-adjacent to various stroke numerals, such as in 9091 shown on the previous table. Other such occurrences are shown on Table 4.6 following:

Table 4.6: and Adjacent to Stroke Numerals: (1220, etc.)

(2370)

(1091, etc.)

(2572, etc.)

(1361)

(2858, etc.)

(1143, etc.)

(1076)

(1301)

(1131, etc.)

(1243, etc.)

(2198)

(4238)

(2298)

(2127)

(1411, etc.)

(7063)

94

(2008, etc.)

(1207)

(1246, etc.)

(2387)

(4843, etc.)

(1422, etc.)

(4669)

(7072)

(1309)

(1439)

(1025, etc.)

(2025)

(5057)

(4047) It is worth noting that inscriptions involving staff sign + stroke numeral are found quite frequently on square seals, including those with unicorn bull motifs, besides other contexts like tablets (see Table 2.15 for some such inscriptions from the pictorial corpus).

Finally, and occasionally occur repetitively, in groups of three or more, as shown on Table 4.7:

Table 4.7: and in Repetitive Groups of Three or More:

(2949)

(2950)

(2322)

(7201)

___

All of these data suggest very persuasively that the two staff signs and are very

likely numerical and/or metrological, like the fish signs. Like , and very

frequently occur left-adjacent to stroke numerals. Unlike the fish grapheme, however,

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and do not form compounds with which they may occur in clusters, and do not ordinarily occur in M-clusters as we have defined them nor right-adjacent to . Finally, fish signs and staff signs do not occur in contrastive distribution. The staff signs are therefore likely to be quite distinct from the fish grapheme, denoting possibly a dry measure (see also section 2.8) or a measure of some other type used in different contexts

from the fish/oval signs. The fact that and are numerical/metrological in some way, however, is strongly suggested by a) their graphology, b) their extremely frequent occurrence adjacent to stroke numerals, and c) their occurrence in repetitive clusters of three or more. It is perhaps not coincidental that one of the most important units of measurement in ancient India, equivalent to 4 karshas, was called the pala, whose literal meaning was ‘straw’ (Monier-Williams 1990: 609; see also palāla, ‘stalk, straw,’ and palya, ‘a sack for corn,’ ibid.). 4.1.3 The P-cluster Reconsidered Returning to the P-cluster per se, we may examine several patterned inscriptions that exhibit all four of the domains we have identified, viz., T-cluster, C-cluster, M-cluster, and P-cluster: Table 4.8: Segmented Inscriptions of the TC-CC-MC-PC Type

(2271) TC CC MC PC

(1087) TC CC MC PC

(4005) TC CC MC PC

(2325) TC CC MC PC

(1033) TC CC MC PC

(1077) TC CC MC PC

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(1142) TC CC MC PC

Considering 4005, the P-cluster is the most common doublet in the Harappan corpus, occurring sometimes by itself, but very frequently right-adjacent to an M-cluster or C-cluster. Based on what we have argued so far, the rest of 4005 is to be interpreted as:

BE [owner/-s] [measured amount] ? ‘Such an amount belongs to so and so/is so and so’s’

In such a context, there appear to be several plausible categories of meaning for ,

they being a) commodity or property measured by the M-cluster ( ), b) place of

origin, c) caste or sodality of origin of the C-cluster ( ), and d) title of C-cluster, such as “king.” We have seen that P-clusters not infrequently contain either one of the “property” signs

, or (Table 4.4), or one of the staff signs or , which we have tentatively identified as measurers of some sort. This fact alone suggests that P-clusters likely contain information regarding commodity(ies) or property(ies). This is given additional credence when we consider the frequency with which sequences of staff sign + stroke numeral occur left adjacent to signs that also frequently occur as prefix clusters in other

contexts. The prefix clusters , , , and all occur in such contexts,

with and occurring especially often. The following table, a reduction of Table 4.6 above, re-lists a few such sequences for the sake of clarity and convenience:

Table 4.9: Prefix clusters , , , and with staff sign + stroke numeral

(1091, etc.)

(2572, etc.)

(1361)

(1143, etc.)

(1076)

(1131, etc.)

(2198)

(2298)

97

(1246, etc.)

(2387)

(4843, etc.) A number of the above inscriptions (those with “etc.”) occur multiple times. It is extremely unlikely that the prefix clusters in such inscriptions can be understood to denote anything other than commodities, given the likelihood that the staff sign + stroke numeral sequences almost certainly represent measured amounts of some sort or another. Therefore, we propose that the general meaning of the “prefix cluster” in patterned inscriptions is a notation of property, including commodities various sorts. The full generalized meaning of inscription 4005 is then:

BE [owner/-s] [measured amount] [commodity/property] ‘Such and such an amount of commodity/property belongs to so and so/is so and so’s’

The other inscriptions given in Table 4.8 above would then be glossed as follows:

(2271) BE [owner/-s] [measured amount] [commodity/property]

(1087) BE [owner/-s] [measured amount] [commodity/property]

(2325) BE [owner/-s] [measured amount] [commodity/property]

(1033) BE [owner/-s] [measured amount] [commodity/property]

(1077) BE [owner/-s] [measured amount] [commodity/property]

(1142) BE [owner/-s] [measured amount] [commodity/property]

We can extend this analysis to inscriptions with predicate leftmost, as in

(2081) WORTH [measured amount] [commodity/property] ‘Worth such and such an amount of commodity/property’

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Some other similar inscriptions would be glossed as shown below:

(5062) WORTH [MEAS] [measured amount] [commodity/property] ‘Worth exactly such and such an amount of commodity/property’

(1088) WORTH [measured amount] [commodity/property]

(6206) WORTH [measured amount] [commodity/property]

(3091) WORTH [measured amount] [commodity/property]

(4028) WORTH [MEAS] [measured amount] [commodity/property] Note that inscriptions of the type TC-MC-PC, where constitutes the TC, such as those shown above, argue very persuasively for interpreting the PC as assets/commodities instead of, e.g., titles or places of origin. As for the types of commodities and properties that might be indicated by the profusion of P-clusters, we have already noted the

frequency of the “staff” signs and in such contexts and in association with signs

like and that are usually founds in P-clusters. If and are indicators of some

“dry measure,” (see sections 2.8 and 4.1.2), this would imply that signs like and

are commodities liable to being reckoned in such units. Thus and could be used in association with a range of goods, including grains, precious metals, cowrie shells, gems,

and the like. itself, as well as several other signs found in P-clusters ( and , e.g.), have a gem-like appearance and might be indicative of various precious stones owned and traded by Harappans. 4.1.4 The “Juncture” Signs Reexamined. We close the discussion of P-clusters with a note on the “juncture signs,” whose meaning, as we noted earlier, has been assumed by some investigators to be a case ending or endings. This is certainly possible; as the leftmost elements of P-clusters which appear to denote commodities/property, the juncture signs and , at least, could well represent the genitive case in its partitive sense. But given that these signs appear so often in association with apparent commodities, they need not be case endings per se. They could, for example, denote partitivity. Or they could be commodity or property markers, perhaps

99

analogous to the infixes and in the “property” signs and , respectively. This last possibility appears the most likely, since we have so far uncovered little evidence of

noun inflectional marking in the Indus script; both and , often assumed to be case endings, are, as we have already shown, much more likely to be predicates and, although

would, if interpreted correctly as BE in the sense of denoting ownership, require a case ending (presumably a dative or genitive) on the noun or NP preceding (i.e., the C-cluster), there is no evidence of case endings on C-clusters. It would therefore seem somewhat odd if the script marked cases on P-clusters but not on C-clusters.

Alternatively, if and were case endings, then the juncture signs would likely be something else altogether, inasmuch as their distribution and graphology give no

evidence of functional homology with respect to and . Therefore, the notion that the Indus script does not mark case endings at all (at least on a consistent basis; see section 6.5 for one possible candidate for a case marker) – requiring the juncture signs as well as

and to be something other than case markers – would appear to be both the simplest solution and the one most consistent with the available data.

4.2 The “Bearer” Sign Now that the general meaning of each of the four clusters in full patterned inscriptions has been established, it is worth enquiring whether any other Harappan signs have the appearance of predicates and, if so, whether their meaning can be reasonably guessed at.

By far the best candidate for predicate status besides and is the less frequent but

graphologically suggestive “bearer” sign . Investigators of the script have almost universally agreed that this sign is a stylized man bearing a load over his shoulders. A

sampling of occurrences of is shown on Table 4.10.

Table 4.10:

(2076, etc.)

(1563)

(2637, 4617)

(6127)

(4489)

(2344)

(4116)

100

(2293, etc.)

(2018)

(2609)

From the data given above, we see that , like and , occurs typically in the

terminal environment. Also like and , may be left adjacent to either a C-cluster

or M-cluster, and may be right-adjacent to . It sometimes occurs beside C-clusters that

elsewhere occur right-adjacent to , such as and . It also occurs left-adjacent to fish and related signs, like . In other words, although it occurs less frequently than

either or (with 80 total occurrences tabulated in the Mahadevan concordance), it shares a number of distributional traits with these two signs, and is therefore most likely functionally homologous with them. Broadly speaking, this sign occurs in two contexts, both of which ought to be explained by any stab at interpretation: with M-clusters and with C-clusters. With the former, it should be a predicate that could rationally be associated with mensuration and property, while with the latter, it should also have a meaning allied with ownership. Such a predicate does exist in Indo-Aryan, and withal one for which representation by a stylized bearer would be perfectly reasonable: the root bhṛ-, ‘bear.’ In point of fact, this root has a number of meanings attested by Monier-Williams, all of which are found from the Rig-Veda onwards, including “to bear, carry, convey, hold” as well as “to bear i.e. contain,

possess, have, keep” (Monier-Williams 1990:764)2. In other words, may denote possession or ownership (with C-clusters) as well as carrying or conveyance of amounts

(with M-clusters). Following are several glossed inscriptions, with glossed as POSSESS or CONTAIN, according to context:

(1563) POSSESS [owner/-s] [commodity/property] (“So-and-so/-s possess/-es such and such property”)

(2018) POSSESS [owner/-s] [commodity/property]

(2637, 4617) CONTAIN [measured amount] (“Contains such and such an amount”)

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(6127)

CONTAIN [measured amount; note that is out of sequence] The Dravidian root corresponding to ‘bear, carry’ is eḍu- (Tamil eḍu-, e.g.), for which the Dravidian Etymological Dictionary also offers “to take up, raise … hold up, weigh in a balance, undertake” (Burrow and Emeneau 1984, entry 851). This root does not appear to

have had a sufficiently broad range of meanings to satisfy the contexts of as we have interpreted it. In the next chapter, we shall examine whether any of the interpretive evidence we have assembled suggests an underlying language for the Harappan inscriptions and sound values for any of the signs we have examined.

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CHAPTER 5:

The Harappan Language: Evidence from the Patterned Inscriptions

5.1 Introduction Although a full decipherment of the script lies far off, barring some major new discovery – longer textual materials or a bilingual, perhaps – it is nonetheless worthwhile at this stage to consider whether the present state of evidence as interpreted in this study suggests a direction of enquiry as to a language underlying the Harappan inscriptions. It is of course possible that the language or languages of the Harappans have no surviving relatives, in which case, a full decipherment is likely to be impossible, as has proven to be the case so far with Etruscan. However, given the enormous antiquity of both major language stocks in South Asia, it seems reasonable to assume that the language underlying the inscriptions (if indeed there be only one; in all likelihood, some Harappan seal texts unearthed in the Middle East record foreign words and names) is either of the Dravidian or Indo-Aryan stock. Competing orthodoxies favoring Dravidian or Indo-Aryan based on cultural assumptions or archaeological claims are not, in this author’s opinion, grounded on any sound scientific basis. To argue, as many Western scholars have, that the Harappans must have spoken a Dravidian language because of the existence of a Dravidian isolate (Brahui) in Pakistan or the absence of horse remains at Harappan sites is no less dogmatic than the insistence that the Indus Valley was the ancient Sarasvati Civilization of the Vedic rishis. In both instances, investigators have tended to start from an assumed language and attempted to fit the Harappan signs to the hoped-for result. The evidence we have assembled so far from the patterned inscriptions points to several general interpretive patterns concerned with mensuration, ownership, and commodity and/or property value, in addition to names of individuals, families, or social groups. In this chapter I shall examine those interpretive patterns in both Dravidian and Indo-Aryan contexts, to see whether the evidence favors one solution or the other.

5.2 The Pleonastic Number/Measure

We first consider the sign pair , which we have identified as a pleonastic number/measure that also may represent the word “measure” as a defined amount of substance. This pair consists of two signs that are frequently found individually in other

contexts. is one of the more randomly occurring signs in the signary, often found in

non-patterned inscriptions. A sample of non-patterned occurrences of is shown on Table 5.1:

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Table 5.1: in Contexts Other Than

(2105)

(2107)

(2284)

(1464)

(1038)

(1142)

(2440)

(3105)

(1337)

(1310)

(5078)

(1340)

The triple stroke , while looking like a stroke numeral, sometimes appears in contexts

aside from in which it seems to have non-numeric value, a sampling of which is shown on Table 5.2:

Table 5.2: in Probable Non-Numeric Contexts Aside from :

(4482)

(2109)

(4474)

(5480)

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In such contexts, as with , appears to be pairing not on the right, as we have seen

Harappan stroke numerals do, but on the left. This suggests that in such contexts may not be numerical but may represent something else, perhaps a concept or sound akin to the number three.

We noted earlier (section 3.3.1) that the Sanskrit word for ‘measure’, also used as a pleonastic number measurer is mātra- (with variant mātrā-). This word is composed of two elements, the root mā-, ‘to measure,’ and the rather productive suffix –tra used to create both agent nouns and nouns “expressing the instrument or means” (MacDonell 1990: 257); other common Sanskrit nouns derived from verbal roots that employ this suffix include kshetra-, ‘field,’ patra-, ‘cup,’ vastra-, ‘garment,’ mantra-, ‘prayer,’ kshatra-, ‘power, dominion,’ yantra-, ‘instrument, device,’ gotra-, ‘family, lineage, race,’ and mitra-, ‘friend’ (ibid., p. 258). However, the root tra- also has another meaning: it is, along with tri, one of two root forms of the number ‘three’ in Sanskrit (Monier-Williams 1990: 457). We might therefore propose, in an Indo-Aryan context, that the most likely

reading of the pleonastic number-measurer is mā-tra, with = mā and = tra.

Furthermore, we would expect to read elsewhere as mā, and possibly also as ma, if we are able to ascertain whether phonemic vowel length is differentiated by the Harappan signs.

The likely Dravidian root for ‘measurement, amount,’ on the other hand. is aḷa- (Burrow and Emeneau 1984, entry 295), while the Dravidian root for ‘three’ is mu(n)-. It is

difficult to see any motivation for assuming a Dravidian basis for , since there are

no obvious correspondences or rhebus values linking aḷa- with or with the Dravidian numeral ‘three.’

5.3 The Predicate , ‘Be Worth’

We consider now the predicate , which we have taken to mean ‘be worth’. There are three Sanskrit/Indo-Aryan roots that may convey the meaning ‘be worth’, they being arh- (Monier-Williams 1990:93), gaṇ- (ibid., pp. 342-343), and ish- (ibid., p. 169). resembles a stylized spear or arrow, so we might enquire whether any Indo-Aryan words for ‘spear’ or ‘arrow’ are reminiscent of any of these roots.

An obvious candidate is ishu (ibid., p. 168), a very common word for ‘arrow’ in both Vedic and Classical Sanskrit, familiar to every student of the language. It is important to note that the verbal root ish- is realized in a great number of inflected forms, and is, like most Indo-European word roots, an abstraction, which was recognized – like many other Sanskrit roots – by the very earliest Indian grammarians of which we have record. In

105

inflected forms, it tends to be realized as icch-, as in icchyate, ‘is worth.’ Assigning a value of ISH to , where capital letters denote root form rather than concrete phonetic realization, would require assuming a) that the Harappans had some notion of word roots -- not an altogether rash assumption, given both the antiquity and precocity of Panini’s Ashtadhyayi – and b) that the Harappan script, at least as realized on seals and other such brief contexts, does not represent some verb inflectional morphology.

sometimes, though not too often, occurs in contexts like , in which instead of being

left-adjacent to a fish sign, a fish cluster, or , it occurs instead left adjacent to a C-cluster. A sampling of such occurrences is shown on Table 5.3 below:

Table 5.3: left adjacent to C-clusters (CCs underlined):

(1803, etc.)

(2490)

(6304)

(3165)

(2674)

(4233)

(2548; cf., e.g., [2680])

(2143; cf., e.g., [4076])

Both and (for which is probably an allographic variant) are found as

common core clusters right adjacent to ; the fact that they and other apparent core clusters occasionally turn up right adjacent to suggests that in contexts like these

may have a common meaning element with .

As it happens, an Indo-Aryan solution would furnish a neat explanation for this distributional trait. A near homophone of the root ish- in Indo-Aryan is īś-, a verb meaning ‘to own, possess; to belong to’ (Monier-Williams 1990: 171), and differing from ish- only in vowel length and in the place of articulation of the shibilant. If we assume that can represent both ish- and īś-, then this sign can be interpreted as ‘belong to’

106

wherever it occurs left adjacent to a core cluster; in such contexts, it would be essentially

synonymous with , ‘be, have, belong to.’

The image of a rather spectacular seal has been published online (see image at http://www.safarmer.com/newseals/newseals.html) for the first time which would tend to lend support to this hypothesis. It is an extremely rare example of a Harappan cylinder seal (cylinder seals were widely used in ancient Mesopotamia, as mentioned previously). This one, belonging to the Schoyen collection in Norway, shows a hunting scene with a brief inscription to the right:

Mesopotamian cylinder seals very frequently bore inscriptions indicating ownership. I have argued elsewhere that many of the objects indiscriminately called “seals” and “tablets” in the Indus materials may have had other functions besides or instead of the sphragistic. But with a cylinder seal, at least, we may be reasonably sure that it functioned analogously to its Mesopotamian counterpart, and that its inscription would likely display the same sort of information. The hypothesis that may sometimes denote a verb root meaning ‘belong to; own, possess’ fits nicely with this inscription and its context, as we would expect the above inscription to mean something like “belongs to so-and-so.” The above inscription (of which the middle two signs are new additions to the Harappan signary, unacknowledged in any corpus) would then be parsed as follows:

BELONGS TO [OWNER’S NAME]

However, a potential Dravidian solution also suggests itself for . Among the various words in Dravidian for ‘spear’ and ‘arrow,’ one of them, vēl, ‘spear,’ stands out. This appears to be the primeval word for ‘spear,’ and is frequently used in association with Murugan, the patron deity of Tamilnadu (one of whose common epithets is Vēl Murugan, ‘Murugan of the spear’). One word associated with worth and value in Dravidian is the verb root vil- (Tamil vil-, ‘to sell’), from which are derived nouns like Tamil vilai, ‘price,’ Kannada bele, ‘price, cost,’ and Telugu vela, ‘price, value, cost.’ It is plausible that is in fact the term for ‘value, be valued,’ because of the near-homonymic status of Dravidian vil- with vēl. Such a hypothesis would not explain the appearance of left-adjacent to C-clusters, however.

5.4 The predicate , ‘Be, Have, Belong to, Equal’.

The so-called “jar sign” we have identified as the predicate ‘be,’ used frequently in the characteristic South Asian sense of ‘belong to.’ Whether this sign is in fact a stylized jar is not at all clear. It has been suggested, for example (Bryan Wells, personal

107

communication, 2009), that this sign may be in fact a stylized aśvattha or pipal tree (Ficus religiosa, the sacred banyan so important to Hinduism). This tree, with its characteristic cordate leaves, is depicted on Harappan materials, including M-1186, a famous if enigmatic seal depicting an elaborate mytho-religious scene. One part of the scene consists of a horned figure bowing before another figure with long locks standing on a stylized pipal tree whose twin branches look quite similar to the two halves of the “jar sign.”

Given the uncertain graphology of this sign, however, it would be irresponsible to try to perceive whether there is any intended homophony or rhebus value attached to it.

5.5 The Predicate , ‘Bear, Contain, Possess’

We have also seen (section 4.2) that the “bearer sign” appears to have predicational force, and that the Sanskrit root bhṛ-, ‘bear,’ furnishes a broad range of meanings that explain very nicely the occurrence of this sign in association with both C-clusters and M-clusters, whereas no comparable Dravidian root for ‘bear’ or ‘carry’ appears to fit the bill.

While, in this author’s view, the proposed identification of as the Indo-Aryan number/measurer mā-tra-/mā-trā-, the interpretation of as a stylized arrow representing either the Indo-Aryan root ish-, ‘be worth,’ or īś-, ‘belong to,’ because of the near-

homonymic value of ishu-, ‘arrow,’ and the nice fit of with the Indo-Aryan root bhṛ-, ‘bear, contain, possess,’ are all suggestive in and of themselves, they certainly do not amount to unimpeachable evidence that one of the underlying languages of the Harappan script is Indo-Aryan (or, perhaps more accurately, Indo-Iranian). There is, however, one more interesting coincidence that is worth considering that may have bearing on this question.

5.6 Ligatures with the “Anthropomorph” .

A large number of signs in the Harappan signary have ligatured variants with the

anthropomorth (see Fairservis 1992: 29 et passim for prior use of the term “anthropomorph”). This grapheme, which may or may not be related to the independent

sign , is usually the dominant, leftmost element in the ligature, in such apparent

compounds as (cf. ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), ( ), and

( ). Occasionally, the ligatured element appears to be doubled, as with , , and

(cf. , which also occurs as a double or geminate sign; see section 6.2 for discussion of gemination). Some of these “anthropomorph” ligatures appear to bear some relation

with their non-ligatured counterparts, specifically, and , and , and especially

108

and . Evidence for a close relationship between the ligatured and unligatured signs in the former two pairs is shown on Table 5.4.

Table 5.4: / and /

(4483, 5269)

(2366)

(1050)

(1037)

___ (7089)

(1542, 2346, 4133)

(4651)

(2088; only occurs in one other inscription)

Comparative evidence such as this suggests that pairs of sign strings like

/ and / are variants representing the same

words or word groups, and that, correspondingly, / and / are sign pairs representing the same or very closely related sounds or lexemes whereof the ligatured

grapheme indicates some variation in sound, sense or morphology of the other member of the compound. It might, for example, denote some affix or a change in meaning from nominal to attributive.

5.7 and .

The same pattern of overlapping occurrences suggests a similar interpretation for and

, as Table 5.5 shows:

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Table 5.5: and :

(2466)

(2027)

(1087)

___ (2228)

___ ___

(2018)

(2638)

(2413)

(2519)

(2390)

(4260)

(4231. 6109)

(9073)

(2169)

(5473)

(5283)

As with / and / , the pair / likely denotes variants of the same root or

lexeme, whereof the grapheme denotes the variant property, whether semantic,

morphological, or phonetic. But unlike and , occurs quite frequently, and

often in contexts that suggest an association with mensuration, i.e., adjacent to / and

.

110

The “staff signs” and , as we have seen (Table 4,6), are frequently found left-adjacent

to stroke numerals and likely indicate a measure of some kind, possibly grain-based. typically occurs adjacent to a stroke numeral on the reverse side of small tablets or

tokens, and presumably is either a number or measurer of some kind. also occurs

several times adjacent to , which we have also determined to be a likely measure::

(5484)

(4448, 5461, 5460)

(4363, 5250)

and occur in association with , and often occurs with / , as Table 5.6 illustrates:

Table 5.6: and in Association with / and

(4231. 6109)

(9073)

(2169)

(5473)

(5283)

___ (4624)

(2449)

(1092)

(1060)

(1400)

(1087)

111

___ (2228)

___ ___

(2018)

(6116)

(9091)

(4131)

(2241)

(2271)

From the above inscriptions, sequences like , , and are particularly interesting in light of our previous conclusions about the nature of P-clusters.

/ we analyze as follows:

[Property marker] [Unit of Measurement] [Commodity]

Elsewhere, we have seen occurring with only a commodity marker in P-clusters; in particular, it is worth comparing 9091 above with inscriptions like 1076, 3099, 1076 and

2387, which show in a P-cluster with stroke numeral + / left-adjacent:

(9091)

(1076)

(2387)

(1076, 3099)

In such a context, the sequence seems almost redundant, as if to clarify or reinforce

the relationship between and the stroke numeral + / . thus seems to act like a

numeral in its association with measurer / .

Much the same could be said of an inscription like (2449), in which

is right-adjacent to , which we have previously identified as a nominalized , meaning “belongings” or “property” in all likelihood. In this context, however, the

sequence is unaccompanied by any other sign that could denote the property

referred to by . itself must therefore refer to the stuff that composes the property

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indicated. If is a measurer, then could conceivably be a numeral of some kind,

given that it may occur right-adjacent to / and beside , where stroke numerals may

also occur. But we also see the sequence / occurring in an apparently

superfluous context, in P-clusters left-adjacent to , in inscriptions where a stroke

numeral + / occurs elsewhere. Also, although does occur adjacent to , it is left-adjacent, whereas stroke numerals in such contexts are always right-adjacent. In

5283, falls to the left of , while the stroke numeral falls to the right.

The evidence suggests that (as well as , in contexts like [9073]

shown above) is not a numeral per se, but, given its adjacency to / , is unlikely to be another unit of measurement. Instead, it is likely to denote the notion of exchangeability or commodity equivalence, akin to what we now term money, currency, or “legal tender.” Are there any lexemes in either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian in which a term for ‘bow’ and a term for ‘money’ bear any similarity? There is one rather striking coincidence, namely, a very common Sanskrit word for ‘bow,’ dhanu-, which is nearly identical for the Sanskrit root for ‘money, wealth’ dhana- (and also a Sanskrit word for ‘grain,’ dhānā-). Specifically, Monier-Williams defines dhana- as “any valued object, (esp.) wealth, riches, (movable) property, money, treasure, gift” from the Rig-Veda onwards. The alternate noun form dhanya- (also an attributive), “treasure, wealth,” is also given (Monier-Williams 1990: 508-509). Meanwhile, the root for ‘bow’ may be realized either as masculine (dhanu), feminine (dhanū) or neuter (dhanus), as well as the variant dhanvan (ibid., p. 509). Finally, we note that the aforementioned Sanskrit word for ‘grain’, dhānā-, also has alternate form dhānya-, a neuter noun derived from an attributive (ibid., p. 514).

I have argued that (and in some contexts, ) likely denotes ‘money,’ but the penchant for these two signs to occur left adjacent to signs resembling stylized staffs of grain might be a persuasive reason for interpreting this sign pair to represent ‘grain’ instead. In either case, the homonym/near-homonym afforded by Indo-Aryan is a

compelling clue. I therefore propose that / be read as DHAN, with as DHAN1

and as DHAN2 . What the anthropomorph represents is not entirely clear, but there are at least three possibilities: 1) it represents the very productive affix –ya, which often created attributives from noun roots that were sometimes then reinterpreted as nouns, resulting in pairs like dhana-/dhanya-, dhānā-/dhānya-, and śala-/śalya- (‘dart, spear’); 2) it represents a change in noun gender, since, as we have seen above with dhanu/dhanū/dhanus, e.g., , individual roots sometimes produced more than one synonymous noun that differed only in gender; or 3) it represents the lexeme in an attributive sense.

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5.8 Some Proposed Sign Values Whatever be the case, I believe that, taking this interpretation of the ‘bow’ sign into account, the evidence overall favors an Indo-Aryan over a Dravidian solution. I propose the following sign values (where capital letters denote a root sign and lower case denote an actual phonetic value):

= AS (predicate) ‘be, have, belong to, be equal to’ (and/or possibly BHŪ, but we will discount this as the less likely value, since a) the root bhū- seems to have meant ‘become’ before developing an additional meaning identical to as- and b) the nominal bhū- appears to have been confined to landed property, inasmuch as the root also denotes earth, soil, and the like).

/ / = AS (nominalization; asti?) ‘property’ = ISH/ĪŚ (predicate) ‘belong to’

= BHṚ (predicate) ‘bear, possess, contain’

= mā (ma?)

= tra

= dhan/DHAN1

= DHAN2 (dhanya?) ‘money, wealth’ (‘grain’?) , = [commodity/property field markers] (possibly as well)

= MĪN(A) (MĀSHA?), ‘unit of weight’

/ = PALA, ‘unit of weight, straw’

= ratna, ‘goods, wealth, riches; gem’ The last three are of necessity more tentative. Whether the fish grapheme represents a heavy weight akin to the Mesopotamian mina or a lighter weight like the South Asian māsha is not entirely clear. Moreover, its value in non-metrological contexts is far from clear.

5.9 The “Wheel” Sign

The identification of the “wheel” sign with ratna-, ‘goods, wealth, riches; gem,’ is motivated in the first place by the sign’s frequent occurrence in P-clusters as an apparent measure of wealth and in the second by the fact that the Sanskrit word for ‘chariot’ (ratha-, a cognate with an Indo-European root for ‘wheel’) is a near homonym with ratna-. Note that the earliest meaning of ratna-, as attested by its usage in the Rig Veda, is “a gift, present, goods, wealth, riches” (Monier-Williams 1990: 864). This sign occurs not only in P-clusters, where it would be expected to denote some form of property or assets (making either the reading ‘gem’ or ‘goods, wealth’ completely plausible), it is

114

also found in contexts where it appears to act either as a determinative or as a repeated lexeme. Table 5.7 shows a few instances of the use of this interesting sign outside the P-cluster context.

Table 5.7: in Non-P-Cluster Contexts:

(2069)

(1110)

(2029)

(1490, 2692, 4303)

(4603, 4606)

(1037)

(3067)

(the “Dholavira signboard” inscription)

(2119)

(4097)

(4024)

(4003)

(2468)

(2628)

(8020)

(1186)

(4010)

(2005)

(2651)

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occurs a number of times as geminate ; whether geminate signs are to be regarded as separate signs, as Wells (2011) has postulated, or whether the doubling has some modifying function, is not clear. Wells (ibid., 152-153) has also pointed out the

possible significance of the sequence occurring both on the Dholavira signboard and on 2119 above (a seal) as well as on a tag from Mohenjo-Daro. Instances

of repeated, non-geminate occurrences of are also interesting; 2069 is particularly interesting in that the sign almost looks like a determinative in this context, occurring thrice, as every other sign in the sequence, so to speak. A more subtle and possibly more important point worth noting – bearing as it does on the

nature of the script as a whole – is the way co-occurs with a number of signs in

seemingly free sequences, those signs being , , and in this data set. We see both

(4097, 4024) and (2651, 4010). In 4024 we find the sequence , but in

4003 we have . In 2468 is right-adjacent to , but in 8020, it is

sandwiched between and . This sort of distributional behavior – the very variable sequencing of certain associated signs whose occurrence overall is too infrequent and whose broader distribution too restricted for them to be simple, common syllables like *ta and *pa – is a good reason to assume lexemic rather than syllabic value for such signs, and a relatively restricted, repetitive subject matter for the bulk of the inscriptions. Finally, it is worth noting that both ratna- and a synonym, mani- , in addition to meaning ‘gem,’ are also common components in given and family names in certain modern Indo-Aryan languages; -ratna/-ratne is very common, e.g., in Sinhala family names. It is at least remotely possible that such terms may have been included in Harappan clan or personal names, as well.

As for itself, assuming a value of ratna- would appear to be a good working hypothesis based on: 1) Its graphology, if it is assumed to represent a stylized (chariot) wheel, and the near-homophony of ratna-, ‘goods, wealth; gem’ and ratha-, ‘chariot’.

2) The frequent occurrence of in P-clusters, including environments like

(2572, 3099) and (9091) and many other such, where its association with numbers and measures is extremely probable.

3) The common use of ratna- in both family names and place names in South Asia, which could account for some occurrences of this sign outside P-clusters and metrological contexts.

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So far, we have seen evidence that the script has signs with lexemic and with determinative value. In the following chapter, I examine whether the script exhibits any features that might be interpreted as grammatical marking, a trait often assumed to demarcate writing from non-writing.

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CHAPTER 6: Other Features of the Script

6.1 Agreement. So far, we have not seen any clear evidence for the marking of grammatical properties in the Indus Valley script. Certainly we have not yet identified a particular sign or set of signs that appear to represent grammatical affixing. But grammar can be marked by other than overt signs corresponding to affixal morphology. The Harappan signs exhibit a number of features, such as superscripting, gemination, and elaboration via the addition of internal or external hatch marks, which could denote grammatical properties. A feature of grammar found to a greater or lesser extent in every language is agreement, that is, the use of morphology to mark properties assigned to related words. If a writing system marks some grammatical trait that exhibits agreement in the underlying language, we might expect that the graphology signifying such agreement to display regular repetition. In other words, suppose the grammatical property [feminine gender] exhibits adjective-noun agreement in a hypothetical language, and the writing system uses a sign X to denote [feminine gender]; we then might expect to see repetitions of sign X whenever a sequence (feminine) adjective-(feminine) noun is represented. If Y represents some adjective and Z a noun in the feminine gender, we would observe the sequence YX ZX (assuming that adjectives precede, or are represented as preceding, nouns). Finding sign X frequently in such repetitive contexts might then be construed as evidence that X denotes some grammatical trait subject to agreement. Nor need grammatical properties be represented only by discrete signs. The Indus script, as noted above, appears to have a number of systemic properties whereby signs may undergo positional and graphological modifications. 6.2 Gemination One prominent feature of the Indus script is the occurrence of many doubled or

“geminate” signs, two of which ( and , as against and ) actually occur more frequently than their non-geminate counterparts. Most such geminates are of the

repetitive, side-by-side variety, as for instance , , and , but some are mirror-

image doublets along either the horizontal ( , e.g.) or vertical ( , e.g.) axis. Some

signs, like and , have the appearance of “overlapping” geminates, though they

may in fact be separate signs unrelated to . There are, furthermore, doublets that appear to be quasi-geminate, that is, pairings of two signs that have the same fundamental graphology but differ by some added graphological character; such “quasi-geminates”

include , , and . Some of these quasi-geminates will be discussed further on (section 6.2). Finally, gemination of ligatured features sometimes seems to

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occur, especially where is the dominant grapheme. There are two occurrences of ,

three of , 21 of , (as well as one apiece of the sequences and , where the signs in question are not technically ligatured, but which give every appearance of

being analogous to , etc.). It is of course possible that gemination is not a graphological operation at all, but that instead doubled signs are either purely distinct signs by convention or that their occurrence is simply representative of repeated sounds or lexemes. The second possibility

seems extremely unlikely, inasmuch as two common signs ( and noted above) occur far more frequently doubly than singly, a circumstance that would seem to disallow the

notion that, e.g., is merely a repeated syllable or word – though of course it is possible and even likely that at least some doubling of signs is incidental and not systematic1. The first possibility, that geminate signs are completely distinct from their non-geminate counterparts, is plausible, but also unlikely. It is likely that many such geminates are to be read – like the fish signs – as compound pairs, but, given the sheer number of geminates, it appears probable that gemination is a systematic way of deriving

a compound pair from an individual sign. It is worth noting that the fish grapheme

occurs as a geminate 7 times in the Mahadevan concordance, suggesting that may be

yet another compound pair (along with and , and possibly and )

based on . But if gemination does represent some significant linguistic property, what might that property be? The data is probably insufficient to make a confident determination, but one clue might be the co-occurrence of various geminates within the same inscription, sometimes (though not always) adjacent. Table 6.1 shows some examples of co-occurring geminates: Table 6.1: Co-Occurring Geminates and Quasi-Geminates:

(8108-8115)

(9902)

(2436)

(4589, 5490)

(2035)

119

(2043) (2405)

(4003) In light of data such as this, gemination might be regarded as denoting some grammatical property, such as a gender change, that is susceptible to agreement, but given the paucity of examples, a surer determination will have to await the publication of more texts. 6.3 Elaboration by Internal “Hatching” and External “Bristles” Another interesting property of the script is the rather conspicuous tendency to modify signs by means of either internal or external “bristles” (sometimes also called “hatching;” I assume, perhaps too readily, that both internal “hatching” and external “bristles” likely denote the same property). Some sign pairs with similar graphology except for the presence versus the absence of bristles are shown on Table 6.2: Table 6.2: Some Signs with “Bristled” and “Hatched” correlates:

For at least some of these signs, there is distributional evidence that their similar graphology is not coincidental, but that these sign pairs really do have a shared meaning

element. In the case of the pair , we actually find them in juxtaposition in several instances:

(4320, 5263)

(4589, 5490)

We also find one occurrence of the pair :

(4188)

is too scarce a sign in the available corpus to furnish much useful information, but it is worth noting that, in one of the three occurrences recorded in the Mahadevan

concordance, it occurs in a context where is also known to occur, namely, right-

adjacent to (see Table 6.8 for occurrences of )::

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(4359)

occurs only six times, but one of them is in a context characteristic of and

several of its apparent compounds ( , , and ): right-adjacent to (cf. Table. 1.11):

(4410)

Both and are rather frequent signs with rather divergent patterns of distribution, but

at least one common context (right-adjacent to ) suggests a possible relationship:

(2005)

(4010)

(2651)

(4599)

(1337) Although none of these hatched signs occurs with anywhere near the frequency of their unhatched counterparts, the evidence does suggest that many of them are in fact compound signs whereof the hatching/bristles represent some additive property. A very interesting inscription recorded by Mahadevan is

___ ___ (4707) This incomplete inscription is potentially of interest because of the fact that elsewhere the

hatched pairing occurs quite frequently, at least in proportion to the total number

of occurrences of and :

Table 6.3: Occurrences of :

(4074)

(5336)

(5335)

(4679)

121

(4372)

(2157)

(2018)

(2603)

(1140)

If we assume that the sequence is merely the hatched variant of , then we might also conclude that the internal hatching denotes some grammatical property being

applied to both and , if these two signs represent separate lexemes. Table 6.4

shows evidence that / and / may indeed have discrete lexemic values:

Table 6.4: / and as Discrete Lexemes

(1328) AS CC MC PC

___ (5065) AS CC PC

(4522; second line ) ? AS CC

(2360) AS CC

(1283, 6226, 7043) AS CC MC

(4343, 5237 – 5240;

AS CC MC PC second line )

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The fact that , , and may all occur as individual signs corresponding to C-clusters suggests strongly their potential value as lexemes. Although we have no

unambiguous examples of as a discrete lexeme, the evidence does suggest that is

to as is to . It is also worth noting that, although we apparently have the unhatched/hatched pair

/ , never occurs adjacent to , but does six times, in the sequence (4672, e.g.). I conjecture that the hatching/bristling probably denotes some grammatical property that may be found on adjacent or agreeing lexemes, and that a good candidate for the property

in question is plurality. That is, we would read as [singular ] and as [plural ]. The property [plurality] for hatching/bristling is suggested by the iconicity of its graphology; what more likely denotatum for numerous small bristles or internal markings than the plural number? A few other examples of possible co-occurring hatched/bristled signs (underscored), which may denote discrete lexemes exhibiting plural agreement, are shown on Table 6.5: Table 6.5: Other Co-occurrences of Hatching/Bristling

(5293; second line )

(4419: second line )

(1058)

(2677)

(9232)

6.4 The “Comb” Sign

Adding conjecture to conjecture, we propose that the so-called “comb” sign may be

related in some way to hatching/bristling. For one thing, never occurs left-adjacent to

any sign with elaboration that resembles hatching or bristling. frequently occurs left

adjacent to (as seen in 4419, e.g., on Table 6.5 above) and to -- that is, it may be associated with verbs/predicates. But it also is found left adjacent to signs that apparently are neither predicates nor verbs – that is, directly adjacent to C-cluster-type sign sequences, which, as we have seen, are likely to be nouns. A few examples both types of

occurrences of are shown in tables 6.6 and 6.7:

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Table 6.6: Left-Adjacent to Predicates and

(4403, etc.)

(2444, 2864)

(4666)

(5282)

(5274)

(5487)

(4471)

(4659, 4664)

(1173)

(1251)

(4684)

Table 6.7: Left-Adjacent to C-Clusters

(2527)

(1070)

(4296)

(2175)

(2571)

(5124)

(2603)

(1406)

(4421, etc.)

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(2844)

___

is found left-adjacent to both predicates and non-predicates, suggesting that, if it represents some grammatical property, it would have to be a property typical of both

verbs and non-verbs. Such an interpretation would rule out as a case marker, but would certainly allow for plurality, a grammatical trait typically marked on both nouns and verbs, as a reasonable possibility.

Note that in examples 4684 and 4296 shown on the tables above, repeats within the same inscription, but not adjacently. Such occurrences might be indicative of the same

phenomenon we have noted with hatched signs, except that, in a sequence like ,

we might regard as a left-adjacent classifier representing the grammatical property,

elsewhere denoted by hatching or bristles, on two signs ( and ) for which scribal convention did not contrive to add ligatured bristles or internal hatching. If that property

is [plurality], then we might regard any sequence A, where A denotes any sign, to mean [plural A]. In the case of examples 4684 and 4296 noted above, multiple non-

adjacent occurrences of would represent additional instances of grammatical agreement for plurality across lexemic boundaries. Note also that several of the signs we

have identified as hatched or bristled analogs look very much as though has been

ligatured to another sign, e.g., = + , = + , = + .

Alternatively, might denote some common lexeme associated with the property

signified by hatching/bristles; if that property is plurality, then might signify a word like “these” or “many,” for example.

is one of the few common signs in the Harappan signary that shows a remarkable variation in frequency of occurrence among the major object types. It is comparatively infrequent on inscriptions found on seals, but is very commonly found on small tokens

and tablets lacking a field figure, which frequently bear a notation like or on the reverse. 6.5 The Case for Case Marking. If we adopt the hypothesis that the “juncture” signs , and are not, as is commonly supposed, case markers, but are instead markers denoting commodity and property/asset fields in the inscriptions, then, as we have seen, a number of other properties of the script

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become clearer. We could then reasonably suppose that signs shaped like gemstones, like

, , and , which frequently occur in P-clusters right adjacent to , and , as well as with and right adjacent to apparent numerical/metrological notations like

, , and the like, do in fact represent various kinds of gems (and, as we have seen

in the previous chapter, , found in the same contexts, likely means ‘goods, wealth,

riches,’ as well as [possibly] ‘gem.’) . We could also assume that , and , which

we have suggested to be nominalized forms of , likely meaning ‘property,’ ‘assets,’

‘belongings,’ or some such, may in fact be ligatures of + , and , respectively. But if , and are not case markers, then are there any other signs that might so

qualify? Other “usual suspects” include and , but these we have identified as

predicates. and might be considered, but both of them occur in frequent association

with predicate (and also with ), making them poor candidates for nominal case endings. One sign that that was once proposed as a case ending (Knorozov 1976), but which has

subsequently attracted little attention, is . This sign frequently occurs right adjacent to

a juncture sign, and frequently between a juncture sign and another sign, such as , that

often occurs elsewhere right adjacent to a juncture sign; i.e., we see , e.g., in

some contexts where we also find . Table 6.8 illustrates some occurrences of ,

with comparative inscriptions to show similar contexts where is absent:

Table 6.8: Occurrences of in Association with Juncture Signs and Stroke Numerals:

(8006); cf. (2124)

(4156)

(2556)

(1103); cf. (2590), (1554)

(7005); cf. (2100)

(4085); cf. (1091, etc.)

(2635)

126

(4630); cf. (1232, 2580)

(3031)

(1186); cf. (1361) and numerous other instances of as a P-cluster

(2373)

(4103); cf. (1395), (1315), and other

inscriptions with as the leftmost element in a P-cluster.

From the above sampling of inscriptions, we see the tendency of to alternate with

juncture signs and (as vs. , for example), or to be alternately present

right-adjacent to either of these two juncture signs (as, e.g., vs. ). These

distributional traits might be explained in terms of as a case marker whose use was deemed optional in a script where economy of space was the most important concern, and in which encoding of grammatical traits like case endings may have been a late and

inconsistent development. In other words, case marker may have been regarded by many scribes as superfluous, since commodity/property field markers like already conveyed sufficient information. Moreover (as with Proto-cuneiform [Cooper 2004]), the Indus script may not have evolved to the point where the possibility of marking some grammatical traits overtly had even occurred to Harappan scribes; in general, for those scripts of which we have good diachronic developmental data, there is a consistent trend from little or no grammatical marking in the earliest stages of development to more and more sophisticated representation of grammatical features over time and as the writing system becomes used for a greater array of tasks, up to and recording literature (Trigger 2004: 47-48).

Besides its association with the juncture signs, is found overwhelmingly either in leftmost/final position or in contexts (between a P-cluster and M-cluster, e.g.) where it can be shown to be the terminus of a P-cluster. It is thus a very strong candidate for an

affix. A sampling of additional occurrences of is shown on Table 6.8:

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Table 6.8: in Final or P-Cluster Final Fosition.

(21065)

(1008)

(1029)

(2408)

(1069)

(4050)

(4267)

(5102)

(8020)

(2464)

___ (1265)

(4080)

Of the 99 occurrences of given in the Mahadevan concordance, 47 are either in leftmost position or are the leftmost element of a P-cluster. An additional 31 fall right-

adjacent to a juncture sign. Only four times does occur in rightmost (i.e., initial)

position. In a few cases (four instances in Mahadevan), occurs right-adjacent to a stroke numeral (see 1029 above, for example), leaving open the alternate possibility that

this sign may in fact be yet another determinative having to do with mensuration, like

and , at least in some contexts.

If is a case marker, the most likely case to which it would correspond is the genitive, in the partitive and possibly also in the possessive sense. Partitivity is the most likely, at

least wherever this sign is found in P-cluster contexts, like and . These two

sign groups, as well as the more common , would then all be variants signifying

partitivity of , where is the commodity/asset field marker and the optional

partitive genitive marker. Variants and would thus be slightly more

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sophisticated representations of , in which the commodity/asset field marker is

either dispensed with in exchange for a full-blown genitive case marker ( ) or

supplemented by said case marker ( ). In all three instances, the case marked by

would be understood to exist in the underlying language – whether or not it is marked in a given inscription – but the commodity/asset field marker would have no linguistic realization.

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CHAPTER 7: Conclusions

7.1 Overview of the Signs As far as we have treated it, the Indus Valley script is a highly elliptic form of notation adapted primarily to indicate ownership of assets and to convey amounts of commodities, at least in the context of “patterned inscriptions.” This view of the script would explain a number of its peculiar features, including 1) the paucity of signs that occur both frequently and randomly, 2) the preponderance of numerals, 3) the presence of sign classes, like the fish signs, whose distribution resembles no morphosyntactic category, and 4) the lack of well-developed grammar marking. Whether indeed the script is properly deemed “writing” (as opposed to semasiography) is beside the point; it is a system of signs adapted for certain very specific purposes which, while not displaying anywhere near the linguistic adaptations of full-fledged cuneiform or Egyptian hieroglyphics, for example, has nevertheless encoded enough linguistic information to suggest an underlying language. We have seen that the script incorporates signs that apparently denote simple syllables,

like (tra) and (mā/ma), as well as signs, like (AS) and (ISH), that seem to denote entire roots whereof the specific affixal morphology is not ordinarily recorded. There are also signs that, when occurring in compounds, may well act as determinatives -

- , , , and , for example – that may have no sound value at all. We have identified

only one possible case ending ( ) and have suggested that elaboration in the form of

bristles and internal hatch marks, as well as the “comb sign” , may mark either plurality or plural-like words such as ‘many.’ Finally, we have seen a number of signs that seem to denote numbers, measures, and related information, including the fish and oval sign

groups, the “staff” signs and , the stroke numerals, , and . It remains for us to consider the rest of the signary in brief. As Farmer et al (2004) and Wells (2011) have pointed out, a large number of entries in the signary are singletons, thereby affording little hope for interpretation, let alone decipherment. But a significant number of signs and sign sequences occur in the context of P and C-clusters and may be interpretable if not decipherable with sufficient attention to comparative data. Some

common C-clusters that occur with include:

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Such sequences as these presumably denote names, titles, and the like. There is a slight overlap between signs in C-clusters and those associated with mensuration elsewhere; the

signs , , and / , for example, are found commonly in C-clusters, although the

“staff” signs occur almost exclusively left-adjacent to . In general, though, signs found in C-clusters are not found in M-clusters. There is also some overlap between C and P-

clusters; , found so frequently in the latter, is occasionally found as well in the former,

while , found in the common P-cluster , is also encountered often in C-clusters as

. If further progress toward decipherment is to be made, it will likely come from study of the most idiosyncratic signs and sign classes. These include: and its compounds; the

anthropomorph and its many compounds; and certain notably common sign pairs, such

as and . One daunting feature of the script is the scarcity of signs with random enough

distributions to be justifiably assumed to have simple monosyllabic values. , as we have suggested elsewhere, appears to be one such sign (it occurs in both P and C-clusters,

in addition to the frequent pairing with in M-clusters). But most Harappan signs either display far too predictable patterns of distribution to be interpreted as anything other than lexemes or determinatives, or do not occur often enough for any conclusive analysis. The script as it has come down to us therefore appears to be composed mostly of lexographs (some of which may be better understood as denoting roots instead of concrete words,

like the posited value AS for ) and determinatives, and to lack the significant number of simple syllabic signs that one would expect from a conventional logosyllabary. Because the script’s syllabic component appears to be so underdeveloped, the oft-encountered argument that the script must be logosyllabic based on sign count alone is misleading. Yet if the signs denote mostly lexemes, why are there only a few hundred, instead of the thousands expected from such a system? There are likely to be several contributing

131

factors. The first is that the data field is extremely limited; although thousands of inscriptions are known, many of them are repetitive – what we would expect if, as this study has contended, the material is predominantly concerned with weights, numbers, and amounts, but not what we would expect if, as so many investigators have assumed, every inscription contains names, titles, votive formulas, and the like. So far, the only piece of evidence that the script may have been used outside the contexts of seals, tokens, pottery markings, sealings, and implement heads is the provocative Dholavira signboard, so it is not yet possible to say whether a more elaborate version of the script, adapted for recording literature, votive formulae, and the like, may have been used. What does seem clear from the evidence is that the script as we know it has been adapted for condensation of information on very small fields, whence perhaps the paucity of grammatical markers or, indeed, any type of sign beyond those that convey essential information. A second factor that may contribute to the low sign count is that, as we have shown previously, certain sign pairs must be interpreted as unitary compounds. If compounds are to be reckoned as signs in their own right, then our total signary, which already boasts

demonstrable compounds like , , and , must be expanded to include compound

pairs like , , and possibly many more. 7.2 Review: The Function of the Seals Whatever be the case, the sign count seems consistent with a notational system devised for recording assets, amounts, and ownership on very small fields. As I have already pointed out, given the preponderance of numerals and the quirky distributional patterns of the fish signs and other sign and sign classes that we have suggested have metrological force, were such inscriptions found on any other medium besides seals, their meanings would have been deduced long ago. From Cooper’s (2004: 77-78) description, proto-cuneiform is typologically similar to the Indus script as we have posited it to be:

The proto-cuneiform system draws on the one hand from the rude system of numerical notation of the tokens, and on the other from a long tradition of pictorial and symbolic representation known especially from glyptic art…. The idea that commodities, titles, names, and transaction types could be represented graphically led almost immediately to the elaboration of an entire system of signs, and, in contrast to the very simple enumeration of the earlier numerical tablets, we are confronted with an irrationally exuberant metrological system with over a dozen different sets of numerals for recording amounts of various kinds of discrete objects, weights, area, liquid and dry measures and time.

As the supposed nature of the seals and the metrological data I claim they contain is likely to be the most forceful argument made against this hypothesis, it is worth summarizing my reasons for believing that many (not necessarily all!) inscribed Harappan objects contain such information:

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1) The inscriptions, on both “seals” and “tablets,” are full of numerals, something which is not conspicuously the case with seals from other Bronze Age cultures.

While some of those “numerals” (as with the large stroke in ) clearly have non-numeric force in some contexts, many of them demonstrably do not; such include, for example, the various stroke numerals that occur in contrastive

distribution right adjacent to , , and several other signs. 2) Among seals from other cultures that most typically include an inscription (especially Mesopotamian cylinder seals), the inscriptions are lengthy and individualized. With Harappan seals, the inscriptions are brief and strikingly repetitive, even among seals with a field object – suggestive of items of commerce more than personalized talismans. 3) Egyptian, Minoan, and Mesopotamian seals are frequently found in funerary contexts, whereas Harappan seals never are, a strong suggestion that the latter were perceived and used differently from the former three. 4) While it has been the tendency of archaeologists to classify most inscribed Harappan objects as either “seals” or “tablets,” there is in fact a considerable range of inscription-bearing object types, many of which seem to be termed “seals” for want of a better term (the pictorial corpus contains many “seals” that appear to be tablets or tokens of exchange [see, e.g., objects such as M-327 through M-331 and M-410 through M-414, given Joshi and Parpola 1987, which have neither a hole nor raised boss, yet are still characterized as “seals”].). In fact, large numbers of “tablets” are extremely repetitive and have every appearance of being tokens of exchange of some kind, as do the so-called “copper tablets” found in such numbers at Mohenjo-Daro. But, with a few exceptions (the tendency of

notations with + stroke numeral to appear on the reverse of certain “tablets,” for example), we find much the same sort of patterned inscriptional material on all of these media – fish signs and M-clusters, e.g. We may therefore ask, in response to the objection that weights and measures could not appear on seals, why the same, or similar, information that appears on seals also appears, and often very repetitively, on other completely different types of objects, whose every appearance suggests that they did have some kind of commercial or monetary purpose. 5) While at least one prominent investigator of the script (Fairservis 1992) has claimed that the stroke numerals in the inscriptions are evidence of calendrics (he

suggested, e.g., that inscriptions of the form / + stroke numeral -- , e.g. -- were indicative of months; see Fairservis 1992: 60-62), this seems very unlikely

given the number of inscriptions like , etc., that occur on seals used for repetitive functions. Why would an article like a seal, to be used transactionally over and over again, be inscribed with nothing but a date? Moreover, such a calendric system would have to embrace not only stroke numerals, but also fish

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clusters, oval clusters, and everything else we have explained in numerical/metrological terms. There are no apparent notational correlates among these sign classes and inscriptional types of days, months, seasons, years, nor any conceivable context for them.

In sum, there are on the various Harappan seals, tablets, tokens, and other similar objects simply too many inscriptions that are far too brief, repetitive, rigidly patterned, and numerical or number-like for any reasonable investigator to be able to insist that these are like the lengthy, diverse inscription panels typical of inscribed cylinder seals – names, titles, and votive formulae. Names there most certainly are, and perhaps, on those seals with non-patterned/complex inscriptions, other information as well. But the evidence also suggests that Harappan seals were more commercial and less talismanic than Middle Eastern seals, and that the system of notation used on them was presumably, like other early forms of writing, first developed for accountancy purposes – perhaps on early perishables that have been lost – and was deployed for use on seals, tablets, tokens, and other such objects without significant modification. Our conclusions suggest that not only did the seals contain names, but also information about personal wealth or assets – perhaps assets left on deposit where the seal was made, or assets that were pledged as collateral by implication whenever the seal was used to effect a transaction. A significant number of seals – those displaying an M-cluster with no C-cluster – seem to have only asset/metrological data. These may have simply indicated a pledge of assets, or may have been used to stamp values or carrying capacity on vessels of similar size. And none of these functions is less plausible than seals bearing no inscription whatsoever – yet the great majority of Near Eastern cylinder seals, for example, had no inscription at all (Collon 1987: 105). To be sure, such inscriptional formulae are different from Mesopotamian seals, but so was Harappan culture strikingly divergent from that of the rest of the urbanized ancient world. Unlike the Egyptians or the Babylonians, for example, the Harappans apparently did not emblemize their religion in their architecture; they constructed no soaring ziggurats or pyramids (unlike, interestingly enough, the Dravidians, from the beginning of historical South India). They carved no statues or friezes of the gods and mythic heroes they worshipped. On the other hand, they excelled at engineering and urban planning, and their weights and measures were strikingly accurate. The testimony, at least of the imperishable remnants of their genius, is of a culture where the utilitarian and the orderly were paramount. Artists and sages the Harappans may have been as well, but perhaps – as with the culture that originated the Vedas – their religion and literary output may have been composed and transmitted orally, and their sacred observances carried out not in grand temples but by hearths and sacrificial posts. Whatever the irretrievable details of their culture and history, the preliminary evidence from their inscriptions appears to suggest that their voice may have been Indo-Aryan.

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Notes: Introduction: 1 The claim is sometimes made that the place name Hariyūpīya (“sacrificial post of Hari”) referenced in the Rigveda Book 6, Hymn 27, verse 5, is one and the same with the site of Harappa. While this is certainly possible, it remains an isolated reference and the equivalence Hariyūpīya =Harappa must be deemed conjectural. The relevant passage reads

vadhīdindro varaśikhasya śeṣo.abhyāvartine cāyamānāya śikṣan vṛcīvato yad dhariyūpīyāyāṃ han pūrve ardhe bhiyasāparo darta In aid of Abhyavartin Cayamana, Indra destroyed the seed of Varasikha. At Hariyupiya he smote the vanguard of the Vrcivans, and the rear fled frighted. (transl. Ralph T. H. Griffith (1896); reproduced at sacred-texts.com)

Chapter 1: 1 The canonical direction of writing has been established as a result of overlapping characters from certain inscriptions, where rightwards signs were clearly inscribed prior to leftwards signs that overlap (Parpola 1994: 64-67). 2Other signs that frequently occur in the terminal environment include the series of

“bearer signs” , , and , the “comb sign” , the “plough sign” , and the

“anthropomorph” . Chapter 2: 1The Sanskrit word is often assumed to be of Dravidian origin, although Monier-Williams (1990: 818) was doubtful, and words like English minnow, of Germanic derivation, make an Indo-European source of this root at least possible. 2There are a couple of interesting differences between inscriptions on seals and those found on (non-copper) tablets. For one thing, the latter frequently have a line of text on

the reverse consisting of a “long stroke” numeral + . For another, the “comb” sign , while not absent from seals, is much more frequently found on tablet inscriptions, often

those bearing a stroke numeral + on the reverse. 3As Plutarch famously pointed out, cattle were used anciently as money; the word “pecuniary” derives from Latin pecus, ‘head of cattle’ (cognate with Sanskrit paśu). In this light, the preponderance of bovine animals – especially the oddly-stylized “unicorn bull” – on the Harappan seals may be significant.

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Chapter 3: 1I owe the initial insight that might be a predicate to my thesis advisor John Robertson. Chapter 4: 1There is a single incidence of recorded in Mahadevan (1977). 2Another common Indo-Aryan root, dhṛ-, also means “hold, bear” and “possess, have” [ibid., p. 519], but the range of meanings ascribed to it to does not include notions of containing or holding, and hence would most likely be insufficient to explain the

presence of in association with M-clusters. Chapter 6: 1Reduplication does play a role in South Asian languages. Dravidian languages use a form of quasi-reduplication, replacing the initial syllable of a repeated noun with a canonical syllable to denote generality or a tag term like English “and such” (e.g. Tamil vaṇḍi-kiṇḍi, ‘cars and such’, fr. vaṇḍi, ‘car’). Sanskrit, especially Vedic Sanskrit, is rife with reduplicated forms, which for nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs usually have an iterative sense (MacDonell 1990: 281), as, e.g., dive-dive and ahar-ahar (‘day by day’), dame-dame and viśe-viśe (‘in every house’), agnim-agnim (‘Agni again and again’), pañca-pañca (‘five each time’), and panyaṃ- panyaṃ (‘again and again to be praised’) (ibid., p. 282). It is possible that some geminate signs denote such iterative compounds.

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