Porunthal: dating of paddy in the 5th century B.C. and possible consequences on the evaluation of the history of writing in India

[Jean-Luc CHEVILLARD]

Dear Corinna,

are you perhaps referring to the kind of "signs"
which are discussed by K.Rajan in a 2001 article
(in a volume edited by ye.cupparAyalu and Ce. irAvu)

The title of the article is
"paNTai kuRiyITukaLum eZuttukkaLum"
(ancient signs/symbols and letters)

I attach it as a scanned PDF
(it seems to fall within fair use,
because the volume is difficult to find)

Since, obviously,
K.Rajan knows the difference
between symbols and letters,
I wonder why he decided in this case (in Porunthal)
that we have "letters" and not "symbols" (or potters' marks).

Best wishes

-- Jean-Luc Chevillard (Pondicherry)



On 16/10/2011 00:30, Corinna Wessels-Mevissen wrote:
> Dear Colleagues,
> What I have seen in the circulated picture is just typical "graffiti" we 
> are getting on Iron Age to Early Historical Period pottery in graves 
> (urn burial and/or "Megalithic"). It has been known since the 19th 
> century. Sometimes it comes like a "code" or intentional sequence. One 
> should, of course, analyse it further, but I fail to see a breakthrough 
> in this one. (I had studied such ceramics for my M.A. thesis back in the 
> 80ies and have seen scores of the typical pottery items, all without 
> Brahmi writing.)
[.....]
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