Harappan Deciphered?! (correction)

[Steve Farmer]

Mea culpa -- by error the link I've been providing doesn't lead to the
Dholavira inscription, but to a smaller long inscription.  M. Witzel's
recent post gives the correct link:

Dholavira "signboard":
http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/html/Corpusmain.htm  (midpage)

The other long inscription I gave:  http://www.harappa.com/seal/14.html

Messages + typo corrected:

> K. Elst wrote:
>
> > >An obvious weak point is that several sounds have
> > >more than one sign representing them, though care was taken to avoid cases
> > >where two such "allographs" appear on the same seal.
>
> Michael Witzel wrote:
>
> > Now that's already the *third* major ambiguity, added to those pointed out above.
> > And the one which finally destroys the "system" altogether.
>
> I suggest that we let Dr. Elst post and explain in detail the
> Jha/Rajaram decipherment of the Dholavira sign, as previously
> suggested. Any and all flaws in their system can be analyzed easily
> enough once we have some empirical evidence in front of us. I'm
> personally damn curious to see how a "Late Vedic" Sanskrit text is
> drawn from a third millennium inscription!
>
> http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/html/Corpusmain.htm  (midpage)

xxxxxxx

> What does the great "Dholavira 'signboard'" -- which Jha/Rajaram claim
> to decipher in Part II, Chapter 6, of their book -- say? Let's break
> this down for discussion purposes:
>
> 1. What does the Dholavira inscription say, according to Jha/Rajaram?
> 2. How exactly do they derive their reading?
> 3. What alternate readings are possible in their system (arising from
> the "many degrees of freedom" point raised above?
> 3. How do they interpret each of the characters, determinatives (if
> relevant), etc.?
>
> Getting at that question -- and leaving aside, for now, the thorny
> chronology issue, to which we can return -- we should be able to get
> at their deeper principles.
>
> An image of the Dholavira inscription that we can all work from is
> found at:
> http://sarasvati.simplenet.com/html/Corpusmain.htm  (midpage)


Typo also corrected below: