Vis'vakarma artisan guilds and merchants from Meluhha

[Guest guest]

Vis'vakarma artisan guilds and merchants from Meluhha

http://www.hindunet.org/saraswati/tagaraka1.pdf

 

Sprout (kolom) with three petals and taberna montana (t.agara) with

five petals; rebus: kolimi, 'furnace'; t.agromi 'tin metal alloy':

 

Signs 162 and 169 occur on epigraphs in almost identical sequences

suggesting that the signs may be treated as glyptic synonyms. Sign

104 (70) gan.d.a `a set of four'; gan.d.a gut.i to divide, to

make up an account (Santali) Rebus: kan.d. = altar, furnace

(Santali) The glyphs (Signs 162 and 169) frequency is 800 (according

to Mahadevan corpus).

 

There could, however, be fine differences which are orthographically

significant: Sign 162 shows three petals of a sprout while Sign 169

shows five petals. The depiction of five petals may be a way of

representing a unique wild shrub, taberna montana.

 

"The origins of Indus writing can now be traced to the Ravi Phase

(c. 3300-2800 BC) at Harappa. Some inscriptions were made on the

bottom of the pottery before firing. Other inscriptions such as this

one were made after firing. This inscription (c. 3300 BC) appears to

be three plant symbols arranged to appear almost

anthropomorphic... " (Kenoyer and Meadow)

http://www.harappa.com/indus2/index.html Slide No. 124 "Earliest

writing found", BBC news:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/334517.stm