FWD ;'Earliest writing' found

[Senthuran Nagalingam]

Taken from BBC web-site

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_334000/334517.stm

Tuesday, May 4, 1999 Published at 01:04 GMT 02:04 UK
Sci/Tech

'Earliest writing' found

The fragments of pottery are about 5,500 years old

 Exclusive by BBC News Online Science Editor Dr
David Whitehouse

The first known examples of writing may have been
unearthed at an archaeological dig in Pakistan.

So-called 'plant-like' and 'trident-shaped' markings
have
been found on fragments of pottery dating back 5500
years.


They were found at a site called Harappa in the region
where the great
Harappan or Indus civilisation  flourished four and a
half thousand
years ago.

Harappa was originally a small settlement in 3500 BC
but by 2600 BC it had
developed
into a major urban centre.

The earliest known writing  was etched onto jars
before and after firing.
Experts believe they may
have indicated the contents of the jar or be signs
associated with a deity.

According to Dr Richard Meadow of Harvard University,
the director of the
Harappa Archaeological
Research Project, these primitive inscriptions found
on pottery may pre-date
all other known writing.

Last year it was suggested that the oldest writing
might have come from Egypt.

Clay tablets containing primitive words were uncovered
in southern Egypt at
the tomb of a king named Scorpion.

They were carbon-dated to 3300-3200 BC. This is about
the same time, or
slightly earlier, to the primitive writing
 developed by the Sumerians of the Mesopotamian
civilisation around 3100 BC.

"It's a big question as to if we can call what we have
found true writing,"
he told BBC News Online, "but we
have found symbols that have similarities to what
became Indus script.


"One of our research aims is to find more examples of
these ancient symbols and
follow them as they changed and became a writing
system," he added.

One major problem in determining what the symbols mean
is that no one
understands the Indus language. It was unique and is
now dead.

Dr Meadow points out that nothing similar to the
'Rosetta  stone' exists for
the Harappan text. The Rosetta stone
contained Egyptian hieroglyphics and a Greek
translation and thus helped
early language researchers decipher the meaning.

The Harappan language died out and did not form the
basis of other languages.


 "So probably we will never know what the symbols
mean," Dr Meadow told
 BBC News Online from Harappa.

What historians know of the Harappan civilisation
makes them unique. Their
 society did not like great differences between social
classes or the
display of wealth by rulers.
They did not leave behind large monuments or rich
graves.

They appear to be a peaceful people who displayed
their art in smaller works
of stone.

Their society seems to have petered out. Around 1900
BC Harappa and other
urban centres started to decline
 as people left them to move east to what is now India
and the Ganges.

This discovery will add to the debate about the
origins of the written word.

It probably suggests that writing developed
independently in at least three
places - Egypt,
Mesopotamia and Harappa between 3500 BC and 3100 BC.


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