Hieroglyphs of Ancient Near East as Indus Meluhha Writing (with possible links to Proto-Elamite)

Noting that Proto-Elamite script was used in southwestern Iran between c. 3400-2800 BCE, Potts considered (1981) that Harappan script (referred to in this note as Indus Writing) and Proto-Elamite Script were NOT contemporary. This consideration may have to be revised in the context of a discovery by HARP of a potsherd with Indus Writing in Harappa dated to c. 3500 BCE.

There is considerable force in the argument that signs incised on pottery in the Pre-Harappan period did develop as glyphs used on Indus writing. Lal has shown that the signs continued in use after the Indus writing ceased to be used. It is not unreasonable to built on the assumption that the potter's marks provided sign-substratum  for Indus writing and also for Proto-Elamite writing. Thus, Potts makes a reasoned statement: "If there is any connection between the corpus of Proto-Elamite signs used at the beginning of the third millennium and the later Harappan signary, I suggest it is via the medium of the potter's marks in use throughout the Indo-Iranian borderlands which absorbed certain signs of ultimate Proto-Elamite origin, some of which were in time incorporated into the Harappan script." (p.116)

Proto-Elamite occupation at Tepe Yahya c. 3000 BCE is evidenced by Proto-Elamite account tablets, cylinder seals, cylinder sealings and certain classes of ceramics with parallels at Susa. (Lamberg-Karlovsky 1971: 87 ff; 1978: 114; Potts 1980: 425ff.) At Shahr-i Sokhta also Proto-Elamite cylinder sealings and a single tablet have been found. (Tusa 1978: 255; Amiet and Tosi 1978).

Lal notes: ...Potter's marks tradition ''form(s) part and parcel of the signary available on the Harappan seals. " (Lal 1975: 173).

cf. Sources:
Lal, B.B., 1962, From the megalithic to the Harappan: tracing back the graffiti on the pottery, Ancient India 16: 4-24.
Lal, B.B., 1975, The Indus Script: Some observations based on archaeology, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society: 173-177.

Potts raises this question, noting some of the parallels between potter's marks and both Proto-Elamite and Harappan scripts: "...does this represent the conscious selection of certain signs from Proto-Elamite by the peoples of the Indo-Iranian borderlands, and in turn the intentional incorporation of some of the same signs in Harappan because of the symbolic and/or syllabic values of these signs?" (p.119)

There are enough parallels between the potter's marks and Proto-Elamite and Indus Writing systems to hypothesise that the continued use of the marks by people who knew nothing of the earlier systems of writing cannot be attributed merely to chance.

I suggest that some of the potter's marks were inscribed speech, denoting underlying sounds of speech of Meluhha associated with metal-work and were used as hieroglyphs to denote substantive metalware processes and artefacts. It is possible that Proto-Elamite developed to keep administrative records while Indus Writing developed to document metalware catalogs for use by an extended trade network of Meluhha sea-faring merchants and Meluhha mineral prospectors to meet the demand for alloys such as tin- and zinc-alloys (that is tin-bronze and brass) in the form of ingots and tools, weapons, pots and pans made with such alloys.

The possibility of decoding Proto-Elamite is an encouraging development and reading of the Proto-Elamite tablets will certainly help further substantiate the Meluhha rebus readings of hieroglyphs used on Indus writing which has now grown to about 7000 inscriptions in various corpora.

Some abiding glyphs of Indus writing which are a continuum from some of the potter's marks identified by Potts can be read as Meluhha words:


 Tin ingots of Haifa shipwreck with Indus writing.





tagaraka 'tabernae montana' Rebus: tagara 'tin'. The glyph appears on a bronze axe.





aḍi (as in paṭṭaḍi): 'feet' Rebus: anvil





khareḍo = a currycomb Rebus: kharādī‘ turner’ 




ranku 'liquid measure' Rebus: ranku 'tin' (casseterite)  The glyph occurs on Haifa tin ingots.



kolom’sprout’; kolom = cutting, graft; to graft, engraft, prune; kolma hoṛo = a variety of the paddy plant; kolmo ‘rice  plant’ Rebus: kolami ‘furnace,smithy’ 




ranku 'antelope' Rebus: ranku 'tin' (cassiterite) The glyph occurs on Haifa tin ingots.