The Indus civilisation had a volumetric system with
inscriptions on ceramic vessels (glazed pots from Harappa) indicating that the
sign ‘V’ stood for a measure, a long linear stroke equalled 10, two long
strokes stood for 20 and a short stroke represented one, according to Bryan
Wells, who has been researching the Indus script for more than 20 years.
These markings on the pots are identical to those found
on the incised tablets and bas-relief tablets also found in Harappa, said Dr
Wells, who earned his PhD from HarvardUniversity for his thesis
on “The Epigraphic Approaches to Indus Writing.” It is to be published as a
book in 2010.
Besides, a ceramic vessel from Mohenjo-Daro, which had fragments of
blue-coloured bangles inside, had one long stroke and seven short strokes
inscribed on it. When these broken pieces were reconstructed with a computer,
they turned out to be 17 bangles. This again established that one long stroke
equalled 10 and each short stroke one, Dr Wells said. He described the findings
as “an important discovery” and “very interesting.”
Dr Wells has proposed that “these sign sequences [sign
‘V’ plus numerals] are various values in the Indus
volumetric system. The bas-relief tablets might have been used as ration chits
or a form of pseudo-money with the repetitive use of ‘V’ paired with ||, |||,
|||| relating to various values in the Indus volumetric system. The larger the
ceramic vessel, the more strokes it has. This postulation can be tested by
detailed measurements of whole ceramic vessels with clear inscriptions.”
For instance, he recently measured the volume of the
three pots from Harappa, which are now with the Archaeological Survey of India
(ASI) at Purana Quila in New Delhi.
While the smallest of them had three long strokes and a ‘V’ sign, the bigger
one had six long strokes and a ‘V’ sign and the biggest seven long strokes and
a scale inscribed below it. When he measured their volumes, Dr. Wells found
that the pot with three long strokes had an estimated volume of 27.30 litres,
the vessel with six long strokes 55.56 litres and the one with seven 65.89
litres. Thus, the calculated value of one long stroke was 9.24 or approximately
10 litres.
Dr Wells (58), now a Senior Researcher in the Institute of Mathematical
Sciences, Taramani here, has also focused on creating an
adequate sign list and corpus for the Indus script and the structural analysis
of the Indus texts.
He said he first saw the pictures of these pots with
markings in the “Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions,” edited by Asko
Parpola and his colleagues. When he learnt that the pots were with the ASI at
Purana Quila, Dr Wells travelled there to measure their volumes.
No
coincidence
It was Michael Jansen, another researcher on Indus
civilisation, who discovered the pot with broken bangles at Mohenjo-Daro in 1987. What intrigued Dr Wells
was the text of one long stroke and seven short strokes inscribed on it. When
he reconstructed these broken pieces, using their internal circumferences, with
a computer, he found that 17 bangles must have remained intact inside. Besides,
the rake sign in the Indus script had a value
of hundred and the double rake sign, 200. “This is completely regular” and “not
a result of coincidence,” he said. When the ‘V’ sign with linear strokes that
occurred on the Harappan tablets were found repeated on a number of ceramic
vessels, “it gave me the idea that the ‘V’ sign is probably a measure,” Dr.
Wells explained.
It was possible that wages were paid in grain (from
these vessels) dispersed from a centralised storage facility, or in the case of
incised tablets, material for construction projects and other short-term
projects was distributed. He asserted that “there is archaeological evidence
bearing on this issue in the form of standardised ceramics with texts
describing their contents.”
“Fish” for
weights
Dr Wells agreed with another Indus scholar Steve
Bonta’s (PennsylvaniaStateUniversity)
theory that the “fish” sign in the script stood for weights. According to Dr
Bonta, the fish sign occurred frequently with numbers in the script and in
clusters too. He later found that the Akkadian Sargonic texts referred to the
weight systems of Dilmun (Bahrain)
as “minus.” The system of weights from Dilmun was exactly the same as that of
the Indus system. Dr Bonta, who speaks Tamil,
realised that “min” in Tamil meant fish. “So our theory is that the term
“minus” is derived from the Indus and that the
fish are weights,” Dr Wells said. There were fish signs with one long stroke,
two long strokes, a single rake or a double rake. “So the sign graph is
doubling and the value is doubling. I think this is too much of a coincidence.
But I am aware that a lot of people will disagree with me on the fish sign,” he
added.
The Hindu: Dr Bryan Well, an expert on Indus Valley
Civilisation, holding a tablet at The Institute of Mathematical Sciences,
Taramani, Chennai
Photo: M. Karunakaran
Combination of `V' signs and linear strokes were used
to indicate volumes
