The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its Connection with Other Scripts c10.s28.1

c10.s28.1

In this table we have the numerical signs from 3 to 9. The principal evidence that these are numerical signs is their remarkable correspondence with the same numerical signs in Proto-Elamite and Sumerian. It will be noted that the commonest occurrence of these signs is with the tree sign. All of them without exception are found with this sign (in the case of 8 the numerical is compounded with Y doubtless for phonetic reasons). With some this combination forms the majority of the total number of occurrences of the numeral sign. It has been already suggested that we may regard this combination as the sign plus the ordinal suffix. Indeed in view of the fact that this combination is found as a complete text, presumably a proper name, in Nos. 2, 17, 18, 25, 72, 76, 83, 113, it is difficult to conceive any other explanation. Doubtless " and ' were originally numerical signs, but they do not appear in any contexts that will bear a numerical interpretation in our texts. They were used to represent the vowels Y, I, with which their numerical values were perhaps homophonous, and to avoid confusion the place of " as a numeral seems to have been taken by || , at least when the numeral sign for '2' was required in a proper name. This at least is what appears to be suggested by the evidence of Table XXXVI, Nos. 84-87, especially 84, where we get Y|| appearing as a complete text just like Nos. 2, 17, 18, etc. mentioned above. It will be observed that sometimes this || resumed its original size " , and was then written in the middle of the line (see Table XXXVI, Nos. 123-125). But this would not be easy to distinguish from the vowel " which was also occasionally written towards the middle of the line (See Table XXX, Nos. 1-7), and consequently the elongated form || appears to have been normally adhered to. The form | is probably the numeral equivalent of ' , but does not appear to be used in a numerical sense in these texts except in No. 45 of Table XXXVII. To decide whether in a given text a numeral sign is to be read as a numeral or as a word or syllable that happens to be a homophone of that numeral we have two indicators: (a) the recurrence of a particular sign accompanied by several different numerical signs, (b) the recurrence of one numeral sign, and one only, a number of times with one and the same non-numeral sign. In the former case the numeral sign is to be read as a numeral, in the latter as a homophone unconnected with any numeral except by the accident of phonetic identity. There will remain a number of cases where a given sign is found only once or twice with a numeral sign. These will remain for the present dubious.