The writing of the civilization of the Valley of Indo is one of the greatest mysteries in the world of linguistics. Authorities are now offering a prize to encourage the population to decipher the Scriptures.
Every week, Rajesh Pn Rao, a computer scientist, receives e -mail messages from people who claim to have deciphered an old writing that has left the academics perplexed for generations.
These self -proclaimed code deciphering – ranging from engineers and information technology workers to reformed and finance officials – are mostly Indians or of Indian origin living abroad. They are all convinced that they have deciphered the writing of the Il Valley civilization, a mixture of signs and symbols.
“They claim that they solved the problem and that ‘if it is closed‘”Says Rao, professor at the University of Washington and author of studies on Indou’s writing.
Feeding the race, MK Stalin, the chief minister of the state of Tamil Nadu, southern India, recently increased the stop, announcing a prize of 1 million dollars for those who can decipher the code.
The civilization of Indus, or Harappan, one of the first urban societies in the world, Appeared 5300 years ago in the current northwest of India and Pakistan. His farmers and anger traders, who lived in walled and brick cities, thrived for centuries. Since its discovery a century ago, about 2000 sites have been discovered throughout the region.
The reasons behind the sudden decline of society remain unclear, with no apparent evidence of war, hunger or natural catastrophe. But his greatest mystery is his uncommitted writing, leaving his language, governance and beliefs secret.
During More than a centuryexperts – linguists, scientists and archaeologists – tried to decipher Indou’s writing. Theories relate it to the first Brahmi writings, the Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages, the Sumerian and even with political or religious symbols.
However, their secrets remain closed. “The writing of Indu is perhaps the most important writing system that has not yet been deciphered”Says Asko Parpola, an important Indoologist.
Nowadays, the most popular spectacular theories equate writing to Hindu scriptures content and attribute spiritual and magical meanings to inscriptions.
Most of these attempts ignore that writing, composed of signs and symbols, appears mostly in stone seals used for tradewhich makes it unlikely to contain religious or mythological content, according to Rao.
There are many challenges to decipher Indian writing.
First, the relatively small number of Scriptures – about 4000almost all of small objects such as stamps, ceramic and tabulets.
Then there is a brevity of each writing – an average length of about five signs or symbols – Long texts on walls, tablets or vertical stone slabs.
Consider the square stamps, often found: signal lines along the top, with a central animal reason – often a unicorn – and an object beside it, whose meaning remains unknown.
There is no bilingual artifact like Roseta Stone, which helped scholars decode the Egyptian hieroglyphics. These artifacts contain text in two languages, allowing a direct comparison between known writing and one unknown.
The recent advances in the decipher of the writing industry resorted to computer science to solve this old riddle. Researchers used automatic learning techniques to analyze writing, trying to identify patterns and structures that could lead to their understanding.
Nisha Yadav, researcher at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (Tifr), based in Mumbai, is one of them. In collaboration with scientists such as Mr. Rao, his work has centered on Application of statistical methods and computational to analyze the not deciphered writing.
Using an industry set of writing signals, they discovered Interesting standards. One caveat: “We still don’t know if the signs are complete words, or part of words or part of sentences,” says Yadav.
Yadav and his fellow investigators found 67 Signs representing 80% of writing in Scripture. A sign that resembles a bottle with two handles was revealed the most commonly used signal. In addition, the Scriptures began with a large number of signs and ended with fewer signs. Some signal patterns appear more often than expected.
In addition, a Automatic Learning Model From Scripture to restore the illegible and damaged texts, paving the way for new investigations.
“Our understanding is that Scripture is structured and that there is an underlying logic in writing,” says Yadav.
It is not entirely clear because Tamil Nadu’s Stalin announced a reward for the deciphering of writing. Your announcement was made following a new study that relates the signals of the Ill Valley to Graffiti found in your state.
K Rajan e r sivananthan analisaram mais de 14 thousand ceramic fragments With 140 graffiti excavated in Tamil Nadu, which included more than 2000 signals. Many of these signs are very similar to those in India’s writing, and 60% of the signs coincide and over 90% of Southern India Graffiti brands have “parallels” with those of India civilization, the researchers say.
This “suggests a Cultural Contact SpeciesBetween the Valley of India and southern India, says Rajan and Sivananthan.
Many believe that Stalin’s initiative to announce a prize positions him as a firm defender of the inheritance and Tamil culture, contrary to the Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party of Narendra Modi, who rules in Delhi.
But investigators are confident that there will soon be no candidates for the Stalin Award. Researchers compiled complete and updated databases of all artifacts with known registrations – crucial to deciphering. “But what did the people write? I would like to know, ”says Yadav.
