Indus Script

(noun)

Symbols produced by the ancient Indus Valley Civilization.

Related Terms

Examples of Indus Script in the following topics:

  • Harappan Culture

    • Harappans are believed to have used Indus Script, a language consisting of symbols.
    • This Indus Script suggests that writing developed independently in the Indus River Valley Civilization from the script employed in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.
    • These ten Indus Script symbols were found on a "sign board" in the ancient city of Dholavira.
    • A Rosetta Stone for the Indus script, lecture by Rajesh Rao
    • View full lesson: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/a-rosetta-stone-for-the-indus-script-rajesh-rao

  • The Indus River Valley Civilization

    • Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were thought to be the two great cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, emerging around 2600 BCE along the Indus River Valley in the Sindh and Punjab provinces of Pakistan.
    • At its peak, the Indus Valley Civilization may had a population of over five million people.
    • Mohenjo-daro was abandoned around 1900 BCE when the Indus Civilization went into sudden decline.
    • The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro, a city in the Indus River Valley Civilization.
    • Identify the importance of the discovery of the Indus River Valley Civilization

  • Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization

    • In total, more than 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Indus River and its tributaries.
    • The population of the Indus Valley Civilization may have once been as large as five million.
    • The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage developed and used in cities throughout the Indus region were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban sites in the Middle East, and even more efficient than those in many areas of Pakistan and India today.
    • Unlike Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, the inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization did not build large, monumental structures.
    • This map shows a cluster of Indus Valley Civilization cities and excavation sites along the course of the Indus River in Pakistan.

  • Government and Trade in the Achaemenid Empire

    • Called Cyrus the Elder by the Greeks, he founded an empire initially comprising all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East and eventually most of Southwest and Central Asia and the Caucus region, stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River.
    • In addition to describing the genealogy of Cyrus, the declaration in Akkadian cuneiform script on the cylinder is considered by many Biblical scholars as evidence of Cyrus’s policy of repatriation of the Jewish people following their captivity in Babylon.
    • The Behistun Inscription, the text of which Darius wrote, came to have great linguistic significance as a crucial clue in deciphering cuneiform script.
    • Researchers were able to compare the scripts and use it to help decipher ancient languages, in this way making the Behistun Inscription as valuable to cuneiform as the Rosetta Stone is to Egyptian hieroglyphs.
    • A section of the Behistun Inscription on a limestone cliff of Mount Behistun in western Iran, which became a key in deciphering cuneiform script.

  • Disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization

    • The Indus Valley Civilization declined around 1800 BCE due to climate change and migration.
    • The great Indus Valley Civilization, located in modern-day India and Pakistan, began to decline around 1800 BCE.
    • The Indus Valley Civilization may have met its demise due to invasion.
    • By around 1700 BCE, most of the Indus Valley Civilization cities had been abandoned.
    • Discuss the causes for the disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization

  • The Indo-Aryan Migration and the Vedic Period

    • Foreigners from the north are believed to have migrated to India and settled in the Indus Valley and Ganges Plain from 1800-1500 BCE.
    • Wheeler, who was Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1944 to 1948, suggested that a nomadic, Indo-European tribe, called the Aryans, suddenly overwhelmed and conquered the Indus River Valley.
    • Many scholars believe Vedic Civilization was a composite of the Indo-Aryan and Harappan, or Indus Valley, cultures.
    • The invasion of Darius I (a Persian ruler of the vast Achaemenid Empire that stretched into the Indus Valley) in the early 6th century BCE marked the beginning of outside influence in Vedic society.
    • The Ganges Plain is supported by the Indus and Ganges river systems.

  • The Mythical Period

    • As in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus River valley, civilization in China developed around a great river.
    • These phenomena took place in China about 1000 years later than in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus River valley.

  • Jainism

    • Jainism, one of the world’s major religions, is believed to have roots in the Indus Valley Civilization, and follows aspects of the Sramana traditions of asceticism—self-denial and control in order to achieve a higher level of spirituality.
    • Some scholars claim Jainism has its roots in the Indus Valley Civilization, reflecting native spirituality prior to the Indo-Aryan migration into India.
    • Various seals from Indus Valley Civilizations bear resemblance to Rishabha, the first Jain as the visual representation of Vishnu.

  • The Mandate of Heaven

    • The Chinese character for "Tian," meaning "heaven," in (from left to right) Bronze script, Seal script, Oracle script, and modern simplified.

  • The Achaemenid Empire

    • This expansion continued even further afield with Anatolia and the Armenian Plateau, much of the Southern Caucasus, Macedonia, parts of Greece and Thrace, Central Asia as far as the Aral Sea, the Oxus and Jaxartes areas, the Hindu Kush and the western Indus basin, and parts of northern Arabia and northern Libya.
    • This unprecedented area of control under a single ruler stretched from the Indus Valley in the east to Thrace and Macedon on the northeastern border of Greece.