The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its Connection with Other Scripts c6.48

c6.48

It is also to be remarked that the houses are all small and surprisingly uniform in their dimensions, and that nothing resembling a king's palace has so far been discovered. This would also seem to point to a democratic (or oligarchic) trading community rather than to a native monarchy. Were these people the Phoenicians of the East? There are times when one is almost tempted to credit the legend of a lost Atlantis, placing it, however, rather in the Pacific and around Easter island than in the atlantic, and to wonder whether there, in early times, did not arise a Neolithic civilization and neolithic script which, spreading thence West and East overseas was the ultimate parent alike of Central American and Indo-Sumerian civilization. One thing that is certain is that there was much more travel and intercourse in archaic times than has been generally supposed. The history of navigation, from the time when the ocean-going ships of Tyre were succeeded by the coasting galleys of Athens down to the days of the Northmen, seems to be one of decay rather than progress. But before the Phoenicians it would seem to have been otherwise, and what was a daring voyage of discovery for Nearchus was perhaps a commonplace of normal trading for the sailors of Mohenjodaro. Indeed, it is possible that the sailors of Mohenjodaro embarked upon voyages much longer than that from the Indus to the Euphrates. I would invite a comparison of the seal¹ published as No. 13, a, b, c, d, (Δ 28) on plate 59 of M. Delaporte's Musée du Louvre, Cylindres et Cachets Orientaux, with the triangular prismatic objects of similar size found at Harappa (Pl. XXX, Nos. 62-83). The design on the side 16E of this Cretan seal may be compared with [Figure:] (see Table LXXI, col. IV) in Proto-Indian texts.