Indus Script -- Meluhha metalwork hieroglyphs, an overview

Mirror: https://www.academia.edu/8743942/Indus_Script_--_Meluhha_metalwork_hieroglyphs_an_overview

An overview of Indus Script – Meluhha Metalwork hieroglyphs, a book which presents rebus readings for over 2000 inscriptions.

The rediscovery of Vedic River Sarasvati provides a new impetus to understand the roots of Indian civilization.

This rediscovery has been achieved thanks to multidisciplinary efforts of scientists and researchers of the civilization which was originally marked by the discovery of two major archaeological sites of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa.

A map of the civilization area prepared after the rediscovery of Vedic River Sarasvati shows that the civilization had over 2,000 archaeological sites along this river. Only 20% of the 2,600 sites were located on the banks of Sindhu (Indus) river. This preponderance of settlement clusters led researchers to rename the civilization as Sarasvati-Sindhu (Hindu) civilization.

A conclusive argument about the identity of the people who were the creators of this Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization can now be advanced because of the successful decipherment of over 3,200 inscriptions in a pictographic script found in over 45 of the 2,600 ancient settlements.

The people of the civilization spoke Mleccha (also called Meluhha in Mesopotamian variant pronunciation) language and used the script to record trade transactions which extended beyond the Sarasvati and Sindu river basins and across the Persian Gulf reaching into the neighbouring civilization areas of Mesopotamia, Ancient Near East and the Levant.

Principal trade transactions involved mineral resources of copper, tin, zinc and metal products made of brass, bronze and other copper alloys.

The script was used to create catalogs of the metalwork which resulted in the production of metal vessels, metal tools, metal weapons, which were in demand along what came to be named as the Tin Road from Meluhha.

The decipherment described in the book provides a list of over 500 mleccha words to describe metalwork in the inscriptions which were pictographic catalogues. These mleccha words of metalwork were written down using 500 pictographs such as a bull (barad), zebu (khunt), elephant (ibha), tiger (kol), boar (badhi), rim of jar (kand kanka), rimless pot (bata), tree (kuti), crocodile (kara), fish (aya). These pictographs were chosen because the words which signified the bull, zebu etc. had similar sounding words which indicated metal alloy of zinc, tin, copper (barado), unsmelted metal (kund), iron (ib), smelter (kol), worker in wood and metal (badhi), furnace account (kand kanka), furnace (bata), smelter-furnace (kuti), smith (khar), metal-alloy (aya).

The artisans of the civilization who have left behind these inscriptions of metalware catalogs also had perfected a metallurgical technique called lost-wax casting. An example of the lost-wax casting technique to create a bronze statue is that of the dancing-girl statue discovered in Mohenjo-daro.

This statue was made first in wax. The wax image was covered with fine clay taken from the river-bed and the clay covering layer was allowed to dry. This left an impression on the clay covering layer. When molten metal of bronze (copper plus tin alloy) was poured into the clay covering layer, the wax image melted and drained out leaving this metal statue, as the molten metal cooled down.

Such artisans specializing in the lost-wax method of metal casting were called dhokra (Mleccha language). There are inscriptions found in Mohenjo-daro and Dholavira cataloguing the name metalsmith’s name, dhokra (The name was indicated by depiction of a pictograph of an old, decrepit woman who was also called dhokra).

The contributions to Bronze Age metallurgy made by Mleccha artisans are found in archaeological artifacts not only of the Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization area but also in the neighbouring civilization areas.

That Mleccha engaged in trade is evidenced by the seal showing a Meluhha (Mleccha) merchant. This is identified because of a cuneiform inscription on the seal.

The Mleccha (Meluhha) merchant is carrying a goat. Mlekh denotes a goat. This sounded similar to the word Meluhha. Thus, the goat signified that the bearded person carrying the goat was a Meluhha (Mleccha).

The tradition of cataloguing metalwork continued into the historical periods in India in many ancient mints which made what are called punch-marked coins which continue to display the pictographs such as tree, bull, elephant used in the inscriptions dated to the 3^rd millennium BCE (Before Common Era). The descendants of these artisans continued the practice of wearing sindhur at the parting of the hair as evidenced by two terracotta toys of the civilization.

Another evidence of the continuity of Hindu civilization is the continued use of sankha (conch) from 6500 BCE.

The wide bangle found in a grave of a woman was dated to 6500 BCE. This bangle was made out of sankha. Such bangles continue to be used in India.

Many mleccha (Meluhha) words continue to be used even today, in almost all the languages of India attesting to the continuity of mleccha language. An evidence for the mleccha writing system evidenced by the Indus Script inscriptions comes from Vatsyayana’s reference to mlecchita vikalpa (meaning: mleccha or meluhha cipher) as a writing system which is taught in schools to youth in ancient times.

The decipherment of the Indus Script thus opens up avenues for further researches into history of Bronze Age metallurgical technology, and into the common source for the evolution of almost all Indian languages (some of which are called Munda or Dravidian or Indo-Aryan language categories). The fountain source of mleccha (Meluhha) mentioned in ancient Indian texts points to the essential unity of all Indian languages making all present-day Bharatiyas Sarasvati’s children.

One word which denotes the barad alloy metal of copper, tin, zinc is also called bharat in Marathi and Punjabi languages. It is possible that the name Bharat for the nation of India comes in remembrance of the heritage received from the ancestors of present-day Indians, the ancestral artisans who worked with bharat metal alloys. The word Bharata is also used in one of the oldest human documents, the Rigveda which also mentions the word aya, referring to alloy metal.

Vishwakarma of India continue the tradition of lost-wax metal casting technique of Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization for making bronze replicas (called utsava bera) of Hindu divinities, the same way dhokra kamar of Chattisgarh or Bastar make bronze artifacts using the same metalcasting technique. One mleccha word kole.l means both a smithy and a temple. This points to the possibility that the tradition of worship in a temple is a heritage which can be traced to the Mleccha (Meluhha) ancestral artisans who worked in the smithy or with furnaces or smelters for producing metal ingots from minerals.

Almost the entire Corpora of Indus inscriptions relate to technical specifications recorded as metalwork catalogs. The hieroglyphs deployed were not restricted to the Sarasvati-Sindhu (Hindu) civilization areas but extended into Ancient Near East and the Levant as evidenced by the Warka vase and Samarra bowl. Technologies outlined relate to lost-wax metal casting by dhokra kamar, the work of cImarakAra 'coppersmiths' and creation of new alloys such as baraDo, pewter alloying copper, tin, zinc minerals -- evidenced by the metallurgical continuum of punch-marked coins with the same Meluhha hieroglyphs read rebus in Sarasvati-Sindhu civilization days of the Bronze Age, along the Tin Road from Meluhha to Haifa.

Recent papers presenting an overview of the decipherment:

Indus Script on copper plate reported by Dr. Vasant Shinde & Dr. Rick Willis more

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