Harappan 'non-texts'?

[N. Ganesan]

>Besides, one may suppose (please correct me if there are archeological
>evidence against my claim) that these were always written on the same
>medium, unlike chinese that was written on scapula, turtle shells, bamboo,
>silk, clay (in the moulds used in casting bronze inscriptions) which in my
>opinion contributed in some way to the great variety of pre-imperial
>chinese scripts.
>Guillaume

This possibly is not right. Not only on the steatite sealings, but on
metal, clay and wood. 2-3 signs on metal amulets, on ceramics. The
famous Dholavira inscription is on wood which is partially decayed.
(I think Dr. Farmer wrongly spells this as Kholavira).

Many wooden materials and palm leaves, possibly written with IVC
signs, would have been lost forever due to the harsh climate.
It looks to me that IVC people created signs for the things they
made with wood. Examples: 1) the pestle-and-mortar sign (possibly
connected with the husking platforms and vedic ulUkhala (related to
tamil "ural-kal"), 2) Spoked wheels - what are they? Potters' wheels,
as the cart wheels were made of solid wood. And, spoked wheels in
chariots come after several centuries. Representing "vELir" etc.,
3) The parasol sign with a vertical line topped with an inverted V.
(This sign is different from the arrow sign where the tip of the
arrow forms a triangle with a horizantal base. The arrow sign,
occuring more numerously than the "parasol" sign, is a the female
gender marker, and the rimmed jar is a male gender marker,
acc. to I. Mahadevan. Read his paper in http://www.harappa.com).
The "parasol" sign may represent "chief","god", "vEntu"etc.,
This occurs with the sign what I. Mahadevan calls as Muruku(=Skanda).
If correct, Sargon's frieze in the Louvre with an attendant
holding parasol behind may be a borrowal from the Harappans.
Sargon of Akkad had heavy trade relations with the IVC.

Regards,
N. Ganesan


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