Indian Palaeography c9.s2.2

c9.s2.2

A cursory examination of the script of Mohenjodaro and Harappa will reveal that it is distinctive. It is neither Sumerian, nor any other known script, though it bears certain resemblances to several. Some of these are doubtless coincidental, since in the very nature of pictographic writing it is hardly possible to avoid some similarity in depicting the same object. A closer examination will establish that it is precisely the commoner signs of our texts that are the most distinctive—e.g. [Figure:] At the same time it would be rash, in the present state of our knowledge on the subject, to rule out of court the hypothesis of a common descent from some remote ancestor for the script of Harappa and any other pictographic script. We know so little, after all, of the ultimate pictographic ancestry of any script, even Sumerian.