Rajaram's bogus "horse seal"

[Steve Farmer]

If you are going to quote me, Subrahmanya, please don't misspell
words or garble my syntax: It looks as if I'm responsible for the
errors and not you. E.g.:

> "Jha Rajaram make much of a supposedly anamalous genital placement...."

To make or repeat a few obvious points about the photos:

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

The original photo in Mackay, which is tiny and of poor quality,
is very badly lighted and heavily shadowed right where it is
cracked. The crack in the impression and a *very* heavy shadow
come together exactly where we expect the genitals to be on
unicorn bull seals. The genitals are either there in the shadow
or are broken off, just like the missing head and neck and front
part of the torso. I could create a huge lineup of
genital-depleted unicorn bulls that look almost *exactly* like
this one by taking photos of seal impressions into PhotoShop and
lopping off the genitals in the same spot as the crack found
here, or by adding shadows to the images -- wasting a lot more
time with this idiocy -- but what's the point? To whit:

- The inscription on the broken seal impression is EXACTLY the
same as the inscription on the unicorn bull impression in Parpola
(identified by Witzel), where we *can* see the genitals. I
challenge anyone to find even ONE Harappan seal impression
displaying the same inscription but different animals.

- The tail of the bull unicorn shown on this inscription doesn't
look even *faintly* like the tails found on any known species of
horse. But it does look *exactly* like the tails seen on many
dozens of unicorn bull seal impressions found scattered widely at
Mohenjo-daro -- including the seal impression pointed out by M.
Witzel that carries *exactly* the same Harappan inscription.

Claims that this broken seal impression -- carrying the same
inscription as another unicorn bull impression -- provides
evidence of a "horse seal" (in which the only exemplum
conveniently has the head and neck missing) demonstrate the
ridiculous lengths to which OIT proponents are willing to go to
manufacture evidence where none exists. (Rajaram's easily
debunked "decipherments" of Harappan provide a further
demonstration; note that NOT ONE of Rajaram's supporters has
attempted to defend him against Witzel's technical analysis of
those decipherments.)

I'll make you a deal, Subrahmanya, since I want to move on to
genuine research questions: Find just ONE expert on IVC
recognized in the West who is willing to call this the impression
of a horse seal and I'll pay you $1,000. I pledge this -- in
total seriousness -- in front of the whole List. The image is
bogus, and the data presented in Rajaram's book on it --
including the suspiciously poor reproduction (which doesn't even
reveal that the impression is broken!), the curiously miscited
source, and so on -- is sloppy at best, and maybe something worse.

I'm at my quota at this point for Indology posts, and can say no more!

Regards,
Steve Farmer