A million dollar challenge to ignite the script of the first Indian

Every week, computer scientist Rajesh PN Rao receives emails from people claiming to have cracked an ancient script that has baffled scholars for generations.

These self-proclaimed code breakers – from engineers and IT workers to retirees and tax officials – are mostly from India or of Indian origin living abroad. All are convinced that they have deciphered the script of the Indus Valley Civilization, a jumble of signs and symbols.

“They say it’s fixed and ‘case closed,'” says Mr. Rao, Hwang Endowed Professor at the University of Washington and author of peer-reviewed research on the Indus script.

Adding fuel to the race, MK Stalin, chief minister of the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, recently raised the stakes, announcing a $1 million reward for anyone who can crack the code.

The Indus or Harappan civilization – one of the world’s oldest urban societies – emerged 5,300 years ago in what is now northwestern India and Pakistan. Its astute farmers and traders, living in walled, kiln-brick cities, thrived for centuries. Since its discovery a century ago, around 2,000 sites have been discovered in the region.

The reasons behind the sudden decline of society are unclear, with no obvious evidence of war, famine or natural disaster. But its greatest mystery is its undeciphered script, leaving its language, governance and beliefs shrouded in secrecy.

For more than a century, experts – linguists, scientists and archaeologists – have tried to decipher the Indus script. Theories have linked it to the beginning Brahmi scriptsDravidian and Indo-Aryan languages, sumerianand he also claimed that it consists of political or religious symbols.

However, its secrets remain locked away. “The Indus script is perhaps the most important writing system that has not been deciphered,” says Asko Parpola, a leading Indologist.

Today, the most popular visionary theories equate the script with the content of Hindu scriptures and attribute spiritual and magical meanings to the inscriptions.

Most of these attempts ignore the fact that the script, consisting of signs and symbols, appears mostly on stone seals used for trade and commerce, and is therefore unlikely to have any religious or mythological content, according to Mr. Rao.

There are many challenges in deciphering the Indus script.

First, the relatively small number of scripts – 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 symbols or signs – without the lengthy text on walls, tablets or standing stone slabs.

Consider the commonly found square stamps: lines of signs run across the top, a central animal motif – often a unicorn – and next to it an object, the meaning of which is unknown.

There are no such bilingual artifacts either Rosetta Stonewho helped scholars decode Egyptian hieroglyphics. Such artifacts have text in both languages, providing a direct comparison between a familiar and an unfamiliar script.

Recent advances in deciphering the Indus script have used computing to tackle this ancient enigma. Researchers have used machine learning techniques to analyze the script, trying to identify patterns and structures that can lead to understanding.

Nisha Yadav, a researcher at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai is one of them. In collaboration with scientists like Mr Rao, his work has focused on applying statistical and computational methods to analyze the undeciphered script.

Using a digitized dataset of Indus signs extracted from the script, they found interesting patterns. One caveat: “We still don’t know if the signs are whole words, or parts of words or parts of sentences,” says Ms. Yadav.

Ms Yadav and the researchers found 67 signs that make up 80% of the script’s writing. The sign in the shape of a jar with two handles was the most used sign. Also, the scripts started with many signs and ended with less. Certain signal patterns appear more frequently than expected.

Also, a script machine learning model was created to recover unreadable and damaged texts, paving the way for further research.

“Our understanding is that the script is structured and there is an underlying logic to the writing,” says Ms. Yadav.

To be sure, several ancient scripts remain undeciphered, facing similar challenges to the Indus script.

He refers to scripts like Mr. Rao Proto-Elamite (Iran), A linear (Crete), and Etruscan (Italy), whose underlying language is unknown.

Others, for example the news (Easter Island) and zapotek (Mexico), they know the languages, “but their symbols are not clear”. The Phaistos Disc of Crete – a mysterious clay disc from the Minoan civilization – “closely reflects the challenges of the Indus script – its language is unknown, and there is only one known example”.

Back in India, it is not entirely clear why Stalin in Tamil Nadu announced a reward for deciphering the script. His announcement followed a new study linking signs from the Indus Valley to graffiti found in his state.

K Rajan and R Sivananthan analyzed more than 14,000 ceramic fragments with graffiti from 140 excavation sites in Tamil Nadu, including more than 2,000 signs. Many of these signs closely resemble those found in the Indus script, 60% of the signs match, and more than 90% of South Indian graffiti marks have “parallels” to those of the Indus civilization, the researchers say.

This “suggests a cultural contact” between the Indus Valley and southern India, Rajan and Sivananthan say.

Many believe that Stalin’s move to announce an award positions him as a staunch champion of Tamil heritage and culture, against Narendra Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Delhi.

But researchers are confident there will soon be no claimants to Mr. Stalin’s prize. Scholars have compiled complete and up-to-date databases of all inscribed artefacts to decipher the essentials. “But what did the Indus people write? I would like to know,” says Ms. Yadav.