The Script of Harappa and Mohenjodaro and its Connection with Other Scripts c6.73

c6.73

1. The script as we have it is mainly phonetic.
2. It had a pictographic and ideographic origin.
3. That origin was many centuries before 3000 B.C., as is shown by the highly conventionalised form of the majority of the signs at that date.
4. There are clear affinities with Sumerian and Proto-Elamitic, which, in the case of Sumerian, increase as the difference in date increases, i.e., the resemblance of the script of Mohenjodaro to that of Jemdet Nasr (3500 B.C.) is much greater than its resemblance to the Sumerian of contemporary date (3000-2000 B.C.), showing that the common ancestry (or mutual borrowing) of the three scripts dates to before 4000 B.C..
5. That the homomorphous signs (Table XLIX), which are invariably silhouette, and are thus in marked contrast to the Sumerian (which used the head, neck and bust, but never the complete silhouette) suggest borrowing from Egypt.
6. That the superficial (?) resemblances to Cretan, suggest the possibility of the existence in remote times of a very widespread race using a single pictographic system of writing.