Origns of Writing symposium

[S.Kalyanaraman]

"Yaroslav V. Vassilkov" <yavass at YV1041.SPB.EDU> wrote:
> >         And after all, they are just single signs, most probably owner's>
marks, or potter's marks. Who can say anything about their language?

Even talking about the structure of the script itself, Dr. Vassilkov's comment
seems to be on the mark. There are slides put up by Profs. Kenoyer and Meadow
of these scratchings. Yes, indeed, it will be an article of faith to conclude
that these marks 'led' to the writing system which is very complex, yet well
structured, involving over 100 very emphatic, pictorial motifs and about 400
'signs' which are orthographically unique (even excluding ligatures). Almost
any sign can be derived from these potter's marks, even if they were inscribed
before firing the pots. Of course, Paropola's pictorial corpus (2 vols.) does
include scores of objects with such marks.

Regards,
Kalyanaraman



____________________________________________________________________
Get your own FREE, personal Netscape WebMail account today at http://webmail.netscape.com.