The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its Connection with Other Scripts c6.54

c6.54

It is clear then that we have no ascertained upper and lower limits, except that the lower limit was probably pre-Buddhist since a Buddhist stupa of the third century B.C. crowns the acropolis (?) of Mohenjodaro. Again the complete absence of Achaemenid remains at Mohenjodaro suggests that it was evacuated at latest before the establishment of Persian rule in that area. The upper limit may well be beyond 4000 B.C. The considerable depth of superimposed buildings all in burnt brick, evidently of successive epochs, which the excavations at Mohenjodaro have revealed suggest that this civilization had a very extended duration. It is true that the script seems to have undergone remarkably little transformation throughout the period. But this need not surprise us when we remember the history of the monumental script of Egypt. The comparatively rapid changes in Mesopotamian cuneiform may be attributed partly to the invention of the clay tablet, and partly to the influence of foreign conquerors with no interest, religious or national, in preserving either cumbrous forms or ideographic values.¹ But in the Indus Valley the negative evidence is clear that the clay tablet failed to establish itself, while there is no positive evidence of foreign conquest. The various successive cities of Mohenjodaro do not appear to have been burned.