Amelia Carolina Sparavigna - Personal interests
Apart from physics researches, my favourite
other subjects are arts and literature. In particular the Anglo-American
literature (classics, weird
fiction, detective
fiction). An old passion is archaeology.
Visit my page on geoglyphs near the Titicaca Lake.
Visit my page on neolithic
Chinese pottery.
I would like to introduce the reader to an
interesting problem concerning the development of writing systems.
Probably, writing systems developed independently in at least three places, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Harappa.
In places where an agricultural civilization flourished, the passage from the
use of symbols to a true writing system was early accomplished. It means that,
at certain period in some densely populated area, signs and symbols were
eventually used to create a writing system, the more complex society requiring
an increase in recording and communication media.
Harappa
culture (see http://www.mongabay.com/reference/country_studies/india/all.html
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization
)
The earliest imprints of human activities in India go back to the Palaeolithic Age, roughly
between 400,000 and 200,000 B.C. Stone implements and cave paintings from this
period have been discovered in many parts of the South
Asia. Evidence of domestication of animals, agriculture, permanent
village settlements, and wheel-turned pottery dating from the middle of the
sixth millennium B.C. has been found in Sindh and Baluchistan, both in
present-day Pakistan.
One of the first great civilizations--with a writing system, urban centers, and
a diversified social and economic system--appeared around 3,000 B.C. along the Indus River
valley in Punjab and Sindh.
This civilization covered a huge area from the
borders of Baluchistan to the Rajasthan, from the Himalayan foothills to the
southern tip of Gujarat. The remnants of two
major cities--Mohenjo-daro and Harappa--reveal
remarkable urban planning, water supply, and drainage. Excavations at
these sites and later archaeological digs at about seventy other locations in
India and Pakistan provide a composite picture of what is now generally known
as Harappan culture (2500-1600 B.C.).
The major cities contained a few large buildings
including a citadel, a large bath--perhaps for personal and communal
ablution--differentiated living quarters, flat-roofed brick houses, and
fortified administrative or religious centers enclosing meeting halls and
granaries. Essentially a city culture, Harappan life was supported by extensive
agricultural production and by commerce, which included trade with Sumer in southern Mesopotamia.
The people made tools and weapons from copper and bronze but not iron. Cotton
was woven and dyed for clothing; wheat, rice, and a variety of vegetables and
fruits were cultivated; and a number of animals, including the humped bull,
were domesticated. Harappan culture was conservative and remained relatively
unchanged for centuries; whenever cities were rebuilt after periodic flooding,
the new level of construction closely followed the previous pattern. Although
stability, regularity, and conservatism seem to have been the hallmarks of this
people, it is unclear who wielded authority, whether an aristocratic, priestly,
or commercial minority.
Interesting artifacts of Harappa
are steatite seals. These small, flat, and mostly square objects with human or
animal motifs provide the most accurate picture there is of Harappan life. They
also have inscriptions generally thought to be in the Harappan script, which
has eluded scholarly attempts at deciphering it. Debate abounds as to whether
the script represents numbers or an alphabet, and, if an alphabet, whether it
is proto-Dravidian or proto-Sanskrit.
The possible reasons for the decline of
civilization of Harappa have long troubled
scholars. Invaders from central and western Asia
are considered by some historians to have been the destroyers of Harappan
cities, but this view is open to reinterpretation. More plausible explanations
are recurrent floods caused by tectonic earth movement, soil salinity, and
desertification.
Let me compare in the following figures, a
small terracotta elephant head from Harappa and a representation of Ganesha (Museo Arti Orientali, Torino), and a
small statue form Mohenjo-Daro
with a statue of Parvati.
![](http://staff.polito.it/amelia.sparavigna/archaeology_file/image001.jpg)
![](http://staff.polito.it/amelia.sparavigna/archaeology_file/image002.jpg)
For more references on the problem of Harappa writing system, see
“Icons and signs for the ancient Harappa”, http://cogprints.org/6179/