Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.120

c12.120

The script is essentially pictographic, even though we cannot recognize many of the objects represented. It is stiff and precise, and is exactly comparable in its formality to the hieroglyphic script of Egypt; no equivalent to the more cursive developments such as appeared in the hieratic and demotic hands of Egypt, or in the cuneiform scripts of Mesopotamia, has been recognized in prehistoric India. While this may be thought to be due partly to the absence of any documents of a more or less temporary nature, such as would be written in Egypt on papyrus or in Sumer on clay tablets, yet even in such things as rough inscriptions scratched on pots the signs are still the formal designs known from the carefully cut seal inscriptions.