Rajaram's bogus "horse seal"

[Steve Farmer]

Nanda Chandran writes:

> The original photo by Mackay though chipped at the edge
> does seem to have, at least partially, a neck and the head
> portion of the animal.

No neck, no head -- neither. Half the torso of the unicorn is
also gone. The crack takes off the *entire* head and neck. Those
cracks only *start* to look like a neck if you distort the
contrast in the image, as seen in the Jha/Rajaram book.

http://www.safarmer.com/pico/delusion3.html

Chandran continues:

> Also if you notice in the photo supplied by M Witzel the belly stretches out
> straight without curving into the genital area.
> But in Mackay's photo the belly of the animal has already curved - seemingly
> towards the frontal part of the body.

What we find in Mackay is a *severely* damaged impression of the
unicorn bull seal. Moreover, you are ignoring the most obvious
identifying information in the photos, which I've already pointed
out: The INSCRIPTIONS ARE IDENTICAL on the two photos (Mackay 453
and Parpola M-272a). I should hardly have to remind you that you
will *not* find identical inscriptions anywhere on Harappan seals
associated with different animal emblems! The fact that the
breaks in the seals apparently come in exactly the same place
also suggests that they may be the same seal impression
photographed in different light.

But note again, in any case: the identity of the two images (=
unicorn bull) is clearly indicated by the fact that the identical
inscriptions on the same seal. Irrefutable evidence.

Both seals are of bull unicorn, as Mackay, Parpola, and
apparently I. Mahadevan already recognized. The broken impression
in Mackay only *starts* to look like a horse (with a neck and
head -- missing entirely in the original) when you heighten the
contrast in the reproduced image to hide the fact that the seal
impression is broken.

Nota bene: You *cannot* tell in Jha/Rajaram that the impression
is broken, which is dishonest. And since their bibliographical
reference is wrong, they make it very difficult for anyone to
discover this. I spent the better part of two days trying to find
the original of this seal. I was only able to find it since I
have access to a good research library. Most of the readers of
Jha/Rajaram back in India don't have that privilege.

> And it would
> be difficult to place the genitals in a spot after the belly
> curve - at least I've seen no bull or cow with such a genital
> positioning.

Again, the original in Mackay is cracked right at this spot,
helping to create the illusion of "curvature." The crack also
comes, by the way, very close to the spot where the genitals are
stuck (as we see in Prof. Witzel's impression) in many scores of
other unicorn bull seals. NB again: We are talking here about
genitals on mythical unicorns, not on any real-life "bull or
cow."

> And your ability to use photoshop to the advantage of the
> horse theory only seems to strengthen the Rajaram's and
> Jha's case!

Come again?? I used PhotoShop to show how you can take an image
of an obviously broken seal in the original (Mackay) that lacks a
head or neck and turn it through creative use of contrast into
something vaguely looking like a horse (or deer)! And you think
that "strengthen[s] ...Rajaram's and Jha's case"?! Interesting
reasoning indeed!

http://www.safarmer.com/pico/delusion3.html

Bijoy Misra writes:

> His claim of decipherment may have
> some merit.  He claims to have "read" scripts
> on 2000 seals and if the reading is scientific,
> he deserves credit.  Does he err 2000 times?

Go back to the Indology archives and read my posts and Michael
Witzel's posts on the subject -- esp. on the Dholavira signpost.
His supposed decipherments have already been thoroughly debunked:
The method that he uses is so flexible that you can get virtually
*any* reading you want out of the texts.

Steve Farmer