The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its Connection with Other Scripts c6.62

c6.62

Method of writing. The examples of direct writing that we possess are confined to objects of copper and stone.³ On clay we have only stamped impressions. But it is obvious that the literature of this people was not confined to the 700 odd seals and amulets etc. unearthed. The absence of lengthier documents among the finds suggests that for ordinary purposes perishable materials were used. That clay was not among them has already been inferred. Perhaps they utilised skins, as Herodotus tells us the Phoenicians did, perhaps papyrus or silk. The signs themselves, on some of our seals, suggest the influence of painting with a brush,¹ being splayed at the extremities. It is quite possible that here we have indications of a change of style due to the introduction of a new writing material, which, as future specimens come to light, may be of aid in dating our finds. The signs are traced vertically from top to bottom, and are arranged horizontally. The animal, in cases where there is an accompanying animal design, is usually placed immediately below the script, and faces to the right.² There are, however, some half-dozen cases in which the animal faces left.³ The large number of signs yielded, after allowing for probable variants, makes it clear that the script is not alphabetic. It was probably, like Sumerian, a mixture of the phonetic and the ideographic. The first point to determine in any attempt to elucidate the script is the direction in which it reads. In accordance with Egyptian usage one would expect it to begin over the head of the subjacent animal and read towards the tail, i.e., in our case, from right to left. And this, as we shall presently show, is what we do find. It is interesting to note however that in the body of our texts the animal designs face to the left;⁴ that is the script reads 'over their backs' so to speak, as in the Meoritic inscriptions. The anthropomorphous signs however face right.⁵ Another observation is that the second line, when the space left by the subjacent animal permits, is frequently complete on the left; while, if sufficient signs to fill the line are not required, it is the space to the right that is left vacant. This in some instances is due to boustrophedon writing. But where we find two-lined inscriptions with both lines reading from the right, and in the second line a blank space left on the right, we may attribute this to an artistic or epigraphic tradition which required the end of the last line to contain the end of the inscription, just as the beginning of the first line contains the beginning of the inscription. The Sumerians evidently had the same convention. Reading from left to right they left the left end of the last line blank. Cf. Gudea, Cylinder A, Col. I, cases 6, 10, 14 - and passim in Sumerian inscriptions.