Talk:Indus script

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Indus script article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Add new text under old text. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Start a new topic Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives (index): 1, 2Auto-archiving period: 3 months

This  level-5 vital article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Archaeology Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Archaeology, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Archaeology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchaeologyWikipedia:WikiProject ArchaeologyTemplate:WikiProject ArchaeologyArchaeology Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. History Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the subject of History on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Historyhistory Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. Writing systems High‑importance This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Writing systems, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to writing systems on Wikipedia. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project’s talk page.Writing systemsWikipedia:WikiProject Writing systemsTemplate:WikiProject Writing systemsWriting system High This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale. India: History Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject India, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of India-related topics. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page.IndiaWikipedia:WikiProject IndiaTemplate:WikiProject IndiaIndia Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Indian history (assessed as Mid-importance). Pakistan: Sindh / History Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pakistan, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pakistan on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PakistanWikipedia:WikiProject PakistanTemplate:WikiProject PakistanPakistan Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Sindh. This article is supported by WikiProject Pakistani history.

The following reference(s) may be useful when improving this article in the future: A million-dollar challenge to crack the script of early Indians

It there nothing more recent than 2006? Doug Weller talk 16:14, 1 August 2022 (UTC)Reply

The link referenced under https://www.harappa.com/blog/free-complete-indus-font-package-available "Go to font packages at the National Fund for Mohenjodaro" http://www.mohenjodaroonline.net/index.php/indus-script/corpus-by-asko-parpola is broken, trying to make visitors install malware. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 149.224.214.87 (talk) 14:41, 24 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

Malware? Doesn't seem to be trying to install anything on my end at all, it's just a dead end that goes to a blank page. You can access the original page at the archive referenced in the section, and the download button there just gives you a zip folder with the font.

Regardless, I've added an archive link to the Harappa.com link, so that clicking through any links there should automatically take you to an archived copy of the Mohenjodaroonline.net link. – Scyrme (talk) 16:56, 24 September 2022 (UTC)Reply

It's an intial decipherment of the Indus valley civilization Mahaveer H Muhammad (talk) 05:58, 23 October 2022 (UTC)Reply

There are at least two dozen papers deciphering the script as Sanskrit. You can't add just one paper just because it is popular on social media. Papers uploaded on Academia.edu is not WP:RS ChandlerMinh (talk) 15:48, 5 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

The paper is published on academia.edu and it is well written with all references included, not sure what is the objection of user to include all 12 papers and let reader make decision about their content. After all it is only linking in relavant information to article, no need of unnecessary censorahip. 59.102.43.48 (talk) 04:19, 27 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

Someone edited the article recently to add a link to the same paper. It's still just a PDF uploaded to a website. Not peer reviewed, not reliable. AnAbandonedMall (talk) 02:54, 27 October 2024 (UTC)Reply

of Indus inscriptions comprising taxation, trade and craft licensing, commodity control and access control: archaeological and script-internal evidence

• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-02320-7

This new paper adds some information.- Nizil (talk) 17:51, 9 January 2024 (UTC)Reply

World’s oldest writing system may have its origins in mysterious, undeciphered symbols. Joshua Jonathan - Let's talk! 16:20, 9 November 2024 (UTC)Reply

@Metta79: Do you have more information about those copper plates being forgeries? Their not appearing in books describing the corpus of inscriptions doesn't necessarily mean they are fake, as the major books by Parpola and Mahadevan are now fairly old and predate the publication of these plates. I'm not saying you're wrong; just asking for more information. – Scyrme (talk) 22:17, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

https://groups.io/g/Indo-Eurasian-Research/topic/new_blatantly_fake_indus/37579064

The Indian journal cited has poor peer review and is not reliable. Indian nationalists who cannot accept the possibility of the script being non-linguistic created this fake artifact. You can see the style is almost modern cartoony and completely at odds with the actual genuine seals from the Indus Valley Civilisation (compare the seated deity for example). Particular the copper plate with 34 characters was created because of the critiques that the Indus script was non-linguistic and could not encode natural language (as it highly unlikely a script with only 5-6 symbols on average in each text could represent normal human language). Metta79 (talk) 22:26, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

If they were authentic, the difference in style could be attributed to a difference in medium (clay impression vs copper inscription). However, one of the two co-authors (Rick Willis) on the paper writing far outside of his field is a red flag, especially if the journal has poor peer review, so I'm content to leave them out of the article. Especially so, as Steve Farmer (who is cited in this article here on Wikipedia) is very clear that he dismisses them as forgeries.

However, I was hoping for a formal publication that either appraises the plates and states that they're forgeries or formally criticises the paper in which they were published. It would be helpful to provide a reference on Wikimedia Commons to discourage their use on other Wikipedias/Wikimedia projects. – Scyrme (talk) 22:53, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

These plates are currently linked to on 11 other language Wikipedias, and also here on the English Wikipedia at Indian copper plate inscriptions. – Scyrme (talk) 22:57, 4 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

@Metta79: I'd appreciate a reply to the above, particularly regarding the Commons file. – Scyrme (talk) 19:36, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

ah yes, I don't think there is a formal reference. The established aforementioned authorities have just disregarded them with silence. There are new materials still being published in the standard Parpola corpus, the latest being 3.3 Indo-Iranian borderlands.Metta79 (talk) 19:54, 6 April 2026 (UTC)Reply

i gotta clean it up ~2026-23323-49 (talk) 09:27, 15 April 2026 (UTC)Reply