The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its Connection with Other Scripts c6.69

c6.69

The dominant impression mentally registered after a survey of the sites and the remains of Mohenjodaro and Harappa, and especially of the inscribed objects, is that this civilization was independent: remarkably independent when its undoubted commercial connection with Mesopotamia is recalled. Consider the evidence of epigraphy alone. Among nearly 800 inscribed objects we have, to date, not a single inscribed brick tablet, cylinder,¹ cone or mace-head. This civilization vanished. How, when, and why is at present a mystery. The evacuation of Mohenjodaro seems to have been peaceful, and, judging by the comparative paucity of the finds of intrinsic value, deliberate. Probably a sudden shift in the course of the Indus - it is now four miles distant - was sufficient cause. But for the abandonment of the whole region a wider explanation must be sought.