Dear friends of Science and archaeology

From: HinduKrantivir@...
Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 16:21:58 EDT
Subject: Ancient Stone Ax Found in Tamil Nadu with Indus Script
To: drbhudia@...

2. Ancient Stone Ax Found in Tamil Nadu with Indus Script
www.hindu.com

CHENNAI, INDIA, May 2, 2006: (HPI note: The significance of this discovery is
unclear. Additional links are given at the end for more technical information.)

A Neolithic stone celt with the Indus Valley script has been discovered by a
school teacher, V. Shanmuganathan, in a village called Sembian-Kandiyur near
Mayiladuthurai in Nagapattinam district, Tamil Nadu. The celt, a polished
hand-held stone axe, has four Indus Valley signs on it. The artefact with the
script can be as old as 1,500 BCE, that is, 3,500 years old. The four signs were
identified by epigraphists of the Tamil Nadu Department of Archaeology,
according to its Special Commissioner, T. S. Sridhar.

Iravatham Mahadevan, one of the world's foremost experts on the Indus script,
called the find "the greatest archaeological discovery of a century in Tamil
Nadu." The discovery proved that the Indus script had reached Tamil Nadu. He
estimated the date of the artefact with the sc ript to be around 1500 BCE. "I
have cautiously and conservatively put it between 2000 BCE. and 1500 BCE.," Mr.
Mahadevan said. It was in the classical Indus script. He ruled out the
possibility of the celt coming from North India because "the material of this
stone is clearly of peninsular origin."

Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, where hundreds of seals with the Indus script were
discovered, are in present-day Pakistan. Neolithic means New Stone Age and it is
datable in India between 2000 BCE. and 1000 BCE.

According to Mr. Mahadevan, the first sign on the celt depicted a skeletal body
with ribs. The figure is seated on his haunches, body bent and contracted, with
lower limbs folded and knees drawn up. The second sign showed a jar. Hundreds of
this pair have been found on seals and sealings at Harappa. Mr. Mahadevan read
the first sign as "muruku" and the second sign as "an." (HPI note: There is no
accepted translation of the Indus script. ) In other words, it is "Murukan." The
earliest references in Old Tamil poetry portrayed him as a "wrathful killer,"
indicating his prowess as a war god and hunter. The third sign looked like a
trident and the fourth like a crescent with a loop in the middle.

Mr. Mahadevan commented that the latest discovery was very strong evidence that
the Neolithic people of Tamil Nadu and the Indus Valley people "shared the same
language, which can only be Dravidian and not Indo-Aryan." He added that before
this discovery, the southernmost occurrence of the Indus script was at Daimabad,
Maharashtra on the Pravara River in the Godavari Valley.


Forwarded By yours Dr.BHUDIA-Science Group Of INDIA.
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