Witzel’s Harappan hoax: the myth of expertise on literacy
Massimo Vidale provided an effective rebuttal of the claim made by Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat & Michael Witzel that Harappan civilization was illiterate. (Massimo Vidale, 2007, 'The collapse melts down: a reply to Farmer, Sproat and Witzel', East and West, vol. 57, no. 1-4, pp. 333 to 366).
Excerpts: “My purpose is to reply to ‘The collapse of the Indus script thesis: the myth of a literate Harappan civilization’, by Steve Farmer, Richard Sproat & Michael Witzel, in Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies (EJVS), 11, 2, 2004, pp. 19-57. I actually think that the Indus script was probably a protohistoric script, somehow conveying the sounds and words of one or more still unidentified languages. Although proofs are obviously lacking (the only demonstration would be a successful translation), this is the most reasonable assumption: and I must confess that I have lived so far rather content with such uncertainty…In order to decipher a lost writing system, you have to guess the language, guess the content, and you need relevant contexts on which independently and reasonably test your ideas…Farmer, Sproat & Witzel loudly stated that they have solved the mystery, that the Indus script is not writing, and that they can read or interpret part of the signs, I disagree with their arguments and, perhaps more, with the tone and language adopted by the authors…The authors would like to throw the ball to their opponents, asking them to refute their views by providing a sound decipherment in linguistic terms. But they have raised the problem, proposing a different interpretation and the first readings, and they have to provide a demonstration of their thesis by interpreting and explaining to us the symbolic sequences following the equivalent of their condition 4 (as stated at p. 48)…(but for the moment even Farmer & others will admit that their deities on vessels and seals and the solar cult advertised at Dholavira did not cost them such an impressive outburst of imagination).”
See also Witzel’s proclamation listed at http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm
I suggest that the claim led by Prof. Witzel et al is a Harappan hoax. People who claim expertise in exposing hoaxes have themselves succumbed to hoax-making.
I would like to add to Massimo Vidale’s riveting arguments.
The symbols used on Indus writing are comparable to the hieroglyphs deployed on Warka vase, Sit Shamshi bronze or Tukulti-Ninurta I altar and on hundreds of cylinder seals of Sumer, Elam, Persian Gulf (Magan, Dilmun), Mesopotamia despite the demonstrated competence of bronze-age artisans for syllabic writing on cuneiform texts. Was it an indication of illiteracy that hieroglyphs were deployed though cuneiform could have been used to convey text messages?
Some examples of the hieroglyphs may be cited.
Provenience: Khafaje Kh. VII 256 Jemdet Nasr (ca. 3000 - 2800 BCE) Frankfort, Henri: Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region. Oriental Institute Publications 72. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, no. 34. Mythological scene: tailless lion or bear standing erect behind tree; two goats feeding at other side of tree; another tree, with bird in branches, behind monster; three-lowered buildings with door at left side; watercourse along bottom of scene. Gray limestone. 4.1x3.5cm.[i]
Altar, Tukulti-Ninurta I, 1243-1208 BCE, in prayer before two deities carrying wooden standards, Assyria, Bronze. Note the spoked-wheel hieroglyph comparable to the glyph on Dholavira sign-board.
I challenge Prof. Witzel et al to prove that the artisans who deployed these hieroglyphs were illiterate. No prize money will be offered by Sarasvati Research Center.
Kalyanaraman
December 5, 2013