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For more than a century, experts – linguists, scientists and archaeologists – have tried to crack the Indus Script. The theory has been linked to the early Brahmi script, In additionDravidian language and Indo-Aryan, Sumerian, even admit that it only consists of political or religious symbols.
However, the secret remains locked. “The Indus script is probably the most important writing system yet to be understood,” said Asko Parpola, a leading Indologist.
Today, the more popular spectacular theory equates the text with the content of Hindu scriptures and attributes spiritual and magical meanings to the inscriptions.
Most of these efforts ignore the fact that the script, consisting of signs and symbols, mostly appears on stone seals used for trade and commerce, so it is unlikely that they contain religious or mythological content, according to Mr. Rao.
There are many challenges to deciphering the Indus script.
First, the relatively small number of manuscripts – about 4,000 of them, almost all on small objects such as seals, pottery and tablets.
Then there is the brevity of each script – an average length of about five signs or symbols – with no long inscriptions on walls, tablets or standing stone slabs.
Consider the square seals commonly found: a line of marks running along their top, with a central animal motif – often a unicorn – and an object next to it, whose meaning remains unknown.
