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WORLD'S
OLDEST WRITING IS VEDIC, SAYS CITY SCHOLAR
The Times of India
Thursday, May 13, 1999
Bangalore - A recently discovered sample of writing at Harappa, announced by Dr
Richard Meadows of Harvard
University and dated to about 3500, is Vedic writing, according to a Bangalore-based
scholar and scientist,
Dr N. S. Rajaram.
 It is the oldest sample of writing known, and more than a thousand years
older than the bulk of Harappan writing. Accessing the sample on the BBC website on which
the piece of pottery has been displayed, Dr Rajaram, who is also an expert on aritifical
intelligence and has been a consultant at NASA, has deciphered it to mean Ilavartate vara
which means Ila surrounds the blessed land.
Dr Rajaram, along with Dr Natwar Jha, a traditional Vedic scholar from Farrakka, West
Bengal, has deciphered more than 2000 seals for their forthcoming book The Deciphered
Indian Script.
Ila is another word for the Saraswathi river, which the Rig Veda refers to
repeatedly. It was long thought mythical, but recent scientific discoveries are confirming
that it did exist, and dried up a few thousand years ago.
The writing could also refer to the ancient country Ilavrita, ruled by a king of the same
name, who received it as a gift from his father Agnidru, he said.
 `If Rig Vedic concepts already
existed by 3500 BC, scholars would have to re-examine the theory of Mesopotamia as the
Cradle of Civilisation, and other theories like the Aryan Invasion theory of Indian
history, which has already been demolished,'' he said.
The writing is more primitive than the Harappan, which uses a single sign to indicate all
the vowels, but clearly related to it. This `pre-Harrappan' writing has no vowels in it,
he added.
Source - http://www.timesofindia.com/today/13mban41.htm
EARLIEST WRITING' FOUND
BBC -May 5, 1999
Exclusive by BBC News Online Science Editor Dr David
Whitehouse
The first known examples of writing may have been unearthed at an archaeological dig in
Pakistan.
 So-called 'plant-like' and 'trident-shaped' markings have been found on
fragments of pottery dating back 5500 years.
They were found at a site called Harappa in the region where the great Harappan or Indus
civilisation flourished four and a half thousand years ago. Harappa was originally a small
settlement in 3500 BC but by 2600 BC it had developed into a major urban centre.
Harappa was occupied until about 1900 BC. The earliest known writing was etched onto jars
before and after firing. Experts believe they may have indicated the contents of the jar
or be signs associated with a deity.
According to Dr Richard Meadow of Harvard University, the director of the Harappa
Archaeological Research Project, these primitive inscriptions found on pottery may
pre-date all other known writing. Last year it was suggested that the oldest writing
might have come from Egypt.
Clay tablets containing primitive words were uncovered in
southern Egypt at the tomb of a king named Scorpion.
They were carbon-dated to 3300-3200 BC. This is about the same time, or slightly earlier,
to the primitive
writing developed by the Sumerians of the Mesopotamian civilisation around 3100 BC.
"It's a big question as to if we can call what we have found true writing," he
told BBC News Online, "but we
have found symbols that have similarities to what became Indus script.
"One of our research aims is to find more examples of these ancient symbols and
follow them as they changed
and became a writing system," he added.
One major problem in determining what the symbols mean is that no one understands the
Indus language. It was
unique and is now dead.
Dr Meadow points out that nothing similar to the 'Rosetta Stone' exists for the Harappan
text.
The
Rosetta Stone, housed in the British museum since 1802, is a large slab of black basalt
uniquely inscribed with the same text in both Egyptian hieroglyphs and Greek.
Its discovery allowed researchers to decipher the ancient Egyptian script for the first
time.
The Harappan language died out and did not form the basis of other languages. "So
probably we will never know what the symbols mean," Dr Meadow told BBC News Online
from Harappa.
What historians know of the Harappan civilisation makes them unique. Their society did not
like great differences between social classes or the display of wealth by rulers. They did
not leave behind large monuments or rich graves.
They appear to be a peaceful people who displayed their art in smaller works of
stone. Their society seems to have petered out. Around 1900 BC Harappa and other urban
centres started to decline as people left them to move east to what is now India and the
Ganges.
This discovery will add to the debate about the origins of the written word.It
probably suggests that writing developed
independently in at least three places - Egypt, Mesopotamia and Harappa between 3500 BC
and 3100 BC.
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