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The million-dollar challenge to decipher the writing of one of the world's earliest urban communities

The million-dollar challenge to decipher the writing of one of the world's earliest urban communities

Computer engineer Rajesh Rao receives emails every week from people claiming to have deciphered an ancient script that has puzzled scientists for a long time.

These people come from a variety of backgrounds, from engineers to retirees, and mostly live in India or are of Indian descent abroad. They believe they have discovered the secrets of the Indus Valley Civilization's writing, a system of symbols and signs.

"They claim they've cracked it and that 'case is closed,'" said Rao, a professor at the University of Washington and author of several peer-reviewed studies for this article, writes. bbc.


Recently, Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin, the chief minister of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, announced a reward of one million dollars for anyone who can decipher this mysterious script.

The Indus Valley Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, was one of the world's earliest urban communities, emerging 5300 years ago in the area that now includes India and Pakistan. The farmers and traders of this civilization lived in walled cities made of baked bricks and thrived for centuries.

Since its discovery a century ago, over 2000 settlements of this civilization have been found. However, the reasons for its disappearance remain unclear, as there is no evidence of war, famine or natural disasters. The greatest mystery of this civilization remains its still undeciphered script, leaving its language, system of government and beliefs unclear.

For more than a century, linguists, archaeologists and other scholars have attempted to decipher this script, which is related to the Brahmi alphabet, Dravidian, Indo-Aryan and Sumerian languages. Some claim that it consists only of political or religious symbols. However, it remains an unsolved mystery. According to renowned Indology expert Asko Parpola, the Indus script is perhaps the most important undeciphered writing system in the world.

Today, this script is often associated with content from Hindu scriptures and sacred epigraphy, giving it a spiritual and magical significance. But, as Rao points out, most of these signs are found on stone seals used for trade, which makes it unlikely that they are primarily religious or mythological.

One of the biggest challenges to deciphering the Indus script is the fact that the remains are relatively sparse. About 4000 objects, including seals, pottery, and tablets, contain these signs. Furthermore, these messages are extremely short, with an average of five signs per object. There is no bilingual artifact, such as the Rosetta Stone, for deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Modern technology, including machine learning, has been used to identify patterns and structures in this writing. Nisha Yadav, a researcher at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, said it is still unclear whether these marks constitute complete sentences, parts of words or phrases.

She and her colleagues have identified 67 signs that are present in 80% of the inscriptions. In addition, machine learning has been used to reconstruct damaged texts, making it easier to study. According to Yadav, the content is structured and there is a logic to the writing.

Although there are several other ancient scripts still undeciphered, such as the Elamite Linear A from Iran, Linear A from Crete and Etruscan from Italy, scientists believe that deciphering the Indus script remains an extraordinary challenge and it is not expected that anyone will win the million-dollar prize anytime soon. /Telegraph/