Indus Valley script numerical, not language: Historian

Bengaluru, May 24, 2015: Contrary to the age-old assumption that the Indus script is a language, a veteran science historian has claimed that it is numerical, as evident from numbers and symbols in the seals and artifacts of the Indus Valley Civilisation (3000-1900 BC). "Attempts to decipher the Indus script were based on the assumption that a script should connote linguistic writing. There are many languages the world over without a script even today," the 90-year-old historian, B.V. Subbaraayappa, told IANS here. Though the Indus Civilisation came to light 90 years ago when then Archeological Survey of India (ASI) director general John Marshall wrote about its discovery in "The Illustrated London News" in 1924, its mysterious script became contentious due to different interpretations by linguists, historians and archaeologists the world over. "Over 4,000 seals and other inscribed artifacts were unearthed in the Indus Valley sites or the Harappa culture as archaeologists call it, and located in India and (now) Pakistan. They were used to meet the accounting needs of farm production and management," Subbarayappa asserted. Showing the unique and distinct characteristic features of the numerical-based Indus script, the city-based renowned scholar said the Indus Valley people had widely used the decimal, additive, multiplicative numerical system in their day-to-day occupations, which were primarily agriculture and animal husbandry. "The symbolic representation of six, four and two-rowed varieties of barley, wheat and cotton were depicted in the form of a composite animal - unicorn, a motif in about 1,100 seals, which were intended to be records of foodgrains (wheat & barley) and commodities (cotton), Subbarayappa, a former president of the International Union of History & Philosophy of Science, said. Other animals like buffalos, humped bulls and rhinos were also used as records associated with agriculture activity or production.