The Race to Decipher the Indus Valley Civilization Script
WASHINGTON — Every week, Rajesh PN Rao, a computer scientist, gets bombarded with emails from individuals who believe they have cracked the code of an ancient script that has baffled scholars for centuries.
These self-proclaimed codebreakers, hailing from various backgrounds such as engineers, IT professionals, retirees, and tax officers, mostly originate from India or are of Indian descent living overseas. They are adamant that they have unlocked the secrets of the script used by the Indus Valley Civilization, consisting of a combination of signs and symbols.
“They are convinced they have deciphered it and declare that the mystery is solved,” says Rao, Hwang Endowed Professor at the University of Washington and renowned author of peer-reviewed studies on the Indus script.
Adding intensity to the competition, MK Stalin, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu in southern India, recently raised the stakes by announcing a $1 million reward for anyone who can successfully decode the script.
The Indus, or Harappan, civilization, recognized as one of the earliest urban societies globally, emerged 5,300 years ago in present-day northwest India and Pakistan. Flourishing for centuries, its inhabitants, comprising of farmers and traders residing in fortified, brick cities, left an enduring legacy. Over the past century, approximately 2,000 sites have been excavated across the region since its initial discovery.
Despite its remarkable achievements, the civilization’s abrupt decline remains shrouded in mystery, with no clear evidence of conflict, famine, or natural calamities. However, the greatest enigma lies in its undeciphered script, concealing the language, governance, and beliefs of the ancient society.
For more than a century, experts from various fields including linguists, scientists, and archaeologists have endeavored to crack the Indus script. Theories have linked it to early Brahmi scripts, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages, Sumerian, and even posited that it consists solely of political or religious symbols.
Yet, the secrets of the script remain tightly guarded. “The Indus script is arguably the most significant undeciphered writing system,” remarks Asko Parpola, a distinguished Indologist.
Presently, prevailing theories often associate the script with content from Hindu scriptures and attribute mystical and spiritual meanings to the inscriptions.
However, Rao notes that most of these interpretations overlook the fact that the script, primarily found on stone seals utilized for trade and commerce, is unlikely to contain religious or mythological content but rather practical information.
Deciphering the Indus script presents numerous challenges. Firstly, there is a limited number of scripts, approximately 4,000, predominantly on small objects like seals, pottery, and tablets.
Additionally, each script is relatively short, averaging about five signs or symbols, with no extensive texts on walls or tablets for reference. The commonly found square seals feature lines of signs along with a central animal motif, often a unicorn, alongside an unidentified object.
Unlike the Rosetta Stone that aided in deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs through bilingual inscriptions, no comparable artifact exists for the Indus script, hindering the decoding process.
Advancements in deciphering the script have leveraged computer science to tackle this ancient puzzle. Researchers have applied machine learning techniques to analyze the script, seeking patterns and structures that could unlock its meaning.
Nisha Yadav, a researcher at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai, collaborates with scientists like Rao to employ statistical and computational methods in studying the script.
Utilizing a digitized dataset of Indus signs, they have identified intriguing patterns, although the exact nature of these signs, whether complete words, parts of words, or sentences, remains unclear.
Yadav and her colleagues discovered that 67 signs constitute 80% of the script, with a sign resembling a jar with two handles being the most frequently used. The scripts exhibit a pattern of starting with numerous signs and concluding with fewer, with some sign sequences appearing more frequently than expected.
A machine-learning model was developed to restore illegible and damaged texts, paving the way for further research into the script’s structure and logic.
Amidst the quest to decode the Indus script, other ancient scripts like Proto-Elamite, Linear A, and Etruscan face similar challenges due to unknown underlying languages.
Back in India, Stalin’s reward announcement stemmed from a study linking Indus Valley signs to graffiti found in Tamil Nadu, suggesting cultural connections between the two regions.
While researchers remain optimistic about unraveling the script, the mystery of what the ancient Indus people inscribed continues to intrigue and elude modern scholars.
