"Horse Seal" - New Data

[Steve Farmer]

In the past week, M. Witzel and I turned up quite a bit new
evidence on the "horse seal" fiasco. Below - in what I hope is
the *last* post I ever have to make on this topic - I append an
updated webpage that covers the whole story from beginning to end
as we now understand it.

http://www.safarmer.com/horseseal/update.html

I had hoped that it wouldn't be necessary to say *anything* more
about the topic, but Rajaram continues to angrily defend the
veracity of the seal - and to threaten those who have debunked
it. Hopefully, posting all the new evidence will put the seal
permanently to rest. Rajaram claims to be a scientist; let's see
if he repudiates his claims in the face of overwhelming evidence
before the Indian press picks up on the story.

M. Witzel will soon have much more to say on the Jha/Rajaram
"decipherment" issue, so the update doesn't cover this issue.

Update highlights:

1. Positive identification (through the Mohenjo-daro field
numbers - 6664) has been made of the ORIGINAL SEAL that created
the faded impression (Mackay 453) that Rajaram claims as
evidence. The photo of the original seal in Asko Parpola's
magnificent two-volume _Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions_
(remarkably, not used by Rajaram) is *exceptionally* crisp,
sending the horse seal story permanently out to pasture. Asko
Parpola himself has weighed in, via emails to M. Witzel,
providing data on how the original was photographed by his team
in Pakistan. Prof. Parpola also confirms the obvious: That the
original of the "horse seal" is a unicorn bull seal broken off
about where the genitals should be.

2. Photos of "telephone feeding troughs" are shown to help test
Professor Vassilkov's interesting suggestion about the strangely
familiar object that appears at the bottom right of the "computer
enhancement" of the seal -- but not in the original. What can't
be doubted, as Dr. Vassilkov first pointed out, is that
*something* shows up in Rajaram's reproduction that IS NOT found
in the original. How it got there remains a mystery.

3. A beautiful image of a unicorn (with genitals) is provided
with instructions on how to create a convincing "horse seal" of
your own through a "index-finger genital" test. Interestingly,
the results are much more convincing than the claimed "horse seal."

4. Some background on the "horse seal" question is provided at
the start.

And with that, I retire from the "horse seal" profession and get
back to my own work, long overdue. Please email me directly about
any glaring errors on the webpage.

http://www.safarmer.com/horseseal/update.html

My best,
Steve Farmer