Ligatures in the Indus Script: Part I

Seal M-1921 with FORK & EF TOPPED DUBYA (center), a ligature.

In the hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt, on occasion two independent glyphs are written together, i.e., as a ligature.  In Gardiner’s list of Middle Egyptian glyphs, for example, D59 is a combination of the lower leg with foot (D58) and the forearm with hand (D36).  Separately, these represent the sounds transliterated b (D58) and ‘ (D36).  Together, the ligature represents these two sounds, ‘b, as in the word for “horn” (Gardiner 1976: 458).   

Egyptian glyph D59, a ligature of D36 (forearm) and D58 (leg).

 Following this example from a known script, we could hypothesize that Indus symbols form ligatures in the same way.  We may designate this type of ligature as “simple addition,” in which symbol A, with meaning x, combines with symbol B, with meaning y, to give the ligatured symbol AB, with meaning x + y.  The ligature AB would then serve the same function in the script as the sequence A + B.  More succinctly, the hypothesis is that ligature AB = sign A + sign B.  Korvink’s note on FORK & EF TOPPED DUBYA (M-1921) implies just such a hypothesis: “As a side note, POT and FORK-TOPPED POT, may be expressed in the abbreviated sign FORK & EF TOPPED DUBYA” (2008: 30).

Seal M-1908 with inscription: SINGLE POST (?) / FORK TOPPED POT / POT (over rhino).

To test whether this is the case, we will examine the inscriptions, seeking to compare sequences of A + B with occurrences of the ligature AB.  For the POT-HATTED BEARER (designated more briefly as POT BEARER), this means that this ligatured symbol should appear in the same contexts as sequences of POT + BEARER.  As it happens, the sequence POT + BEARER appears in eight inscriptions in the concordance of Koskenniemi and Parpola (henceforth referred to as KP; 1982: 23-24).  In five of these, the combination occurs at the end of the inscription (KP 5061, K-8, M-209, M-733, L-140).  In one case, this sign pair forms the whole inscription (L-184).  In the other two instances, the combination is followed by one to four additional signs (KP 5035 and the duplicates M-494 and M-495A).  This evidence tends to support the hypothesis.

Tablet M-495A with inscription (right to left): CIRCLED FORK / CRAB / HAIRY HUNCHBACK / POT / BEARER / TRIPLE CUPS / FORK (?).

Note further that there are no occurrences of either *DOUBLE POT or *DOUBLE BEARER (the asterisk indicates that it is not attested).  Thus, if POT BEARER = POT + BEARER, there should be no occurrences of *POT + POT BEARER or *BEARER + POT BEARER.  In fact, POT BEARER appears at the end of 51 inscriptions.  In the other 35 inscriptions, this sign is followed by one to four additional signs (KP 1982: 24-25).  Among the inscriptions that include POT BEARER, there are, as expected, no sequences of *POT + POT BEARER or *BEARER + POT BEARER.  This evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that ligature AB (here, POT BEARER) is equivalent to the sequence A + B (POT + BEARER). (Gulf seals bearing Indus signs may show DOUBLE POT: BM1883_1116_1 ends with this doubling; cf. M-1792 with three non-contiguous POTS along with the singleton DUCK IN POND.)

Gulf seal BM 1883.1116.1 with inscription: PLOW / CRAB / SINGLE QUOTE / DOUBLE POTS.

But other apparent ligatures do not provide the same evidence.  MAN HOLDING QUOTE appears to be a ligature of MAN + SINGLE QUOTE.  MAN appears most often at the end of an inscription (60 times out of 102 inscriptions or 59% in KP 1982: 29-30).  This fact leads Korvink to analyze MAN as a terminal sign (2008: 28-29).  In contrast, SINGLE QUOTE functions as the “constant” and final part of a prefix (2008: 22).  As such, it seldom occurs in final position in inscriptions (11 instances in KP 1982: 84; about 6% of the total of 191 occurrences 2011:166).  Since the medial section of an inscription usually separates prefix and terminal, sequences of MAN + SINGLE QUOTE are not expected.

Detail from seal L-2 with inscription: MAN HOLDING QUOTE / TRI-FORK / PINCH / MARKED FISH / CRAB (FOOTED STOOL?) / PINWHEEL / SINGLE QUOTE / CORN HOLDER.

When these two signs are ligatured, forming MAN HOLDING QUOTE, the result is neither a prefix constant nor a terminal.  Of 16 inscriptions featuring this ligature, the sign appears in final position only once (KP 2751; although Kd-9 includes it as one of only two signs, so that it might be in final position, depending on the direction of reading).  It appears as part of the variable portion of the prefix in 7 instances (M-71, L-2, KP 9551, Laursen 26/KP 9907, M-1052, L-1, and duplicates M-519 through M-521 and M-1470 through M-1472).  In the other 8 inscriptions, it appears as part of the medial segment (C-40; Kd-9; H-660; duplicates M-547-549 and -1555-1560; duplicates M-2053 and -599; M-425; M-403; and M-428).  

Seal M-1918 with partial inscription: FORK / MAN / SINGLE QUOTE / ... / TRIPLE BRICK.

Prefixes, medial elements, and terminals appear in distinct contexts, so it is not surprising that the same kind of evidence as in the first example is lacking (POT BEARER as POT + BEARER, all three terminals).  Indeed, MAN and SINGLE QUOTE rarely occur in sequence: in M-1918, MAN immediately precedes SINGLE QUOTE, while in KP 9701 SINGLE QUOTE immediately precedes MAN (inscriptions in the KP 9000 series are Gulf seals with Indus symbols, a group that shows a number of differences from true Indus inscriptions, as noted in Laursen 2010: 96-134).  This is insufficient evidence to support the hypothesis of “simple addition” for MAN HOLDING QUOTE.

Similarly, MAN HOLDING POST (37 occurrences; e.g. H-72 and M-282) is medial, occurring 6 times in initial position, twice as the variable portion of the prefix (H-241 and M-1686), never in final position.  MAN does not appear alongside SINGLE POST, so there is no data for comparison.  It may be significant that all the modifications of the basic MAN are medial signs except for the BEARER types (BEARER, CHEVRON-HATTED BEARER, POT-HATTED BEARER).  This complicates the test of the “simple addition” hypothesis.  

Seal H-72 with inscription: MAN HOLDING POST / DOUBLE GRIDS.

But the change from terminal to medial sign suggests that modification itself may have a significance other than simply the addition of the meaning of the ligatured elements.  In other words, virtually any modification of MAN being modified changes it from a terminal to a medial sign.  Does this happen to other terminal signs?  This does not seem to be the case for the BEARER.  The changes in the top of this sign from a straight vertical line to a chevron (CHEVRON HATTED BEARER) or to POT (POT HATTED BEARER) do not change these signs’ “syntactic” function.  They remain terminals.  So it is not a general rule that ligatures must be medial signs.  

 

Tablet H-967 with inscription (right to left): ODD STACKED / 2 POSTS / POT / COMB.

But modifications to POT do change its function.  The addition of a SINGLE QUOTE, BI-QUOTES, THREE QUOTES, or FOUR QUOTES changes the terminal POT to a medial sign (POTTED ONE, POTTED TWO, etc.).  Korvink is somewhat vague on this point.  He notes that inscriptions may contain more than one terminal sign, in the following sequence: (1) FORK-TOPPED POT, (2) COMB, (3) SPEAR, (4) POT, (5) MAN, (6) CHEVRON-HATTED BEARER, (7) POT-HATTED BEARER, (8) BEARER, (9) COMB (and this final COMB may be duplicated) (2008: 29).  (Note that every sign in this sequence is optional and no inscription contains all of these.)  To determine the relative placement of MAN and the various types of BEARER in this sequence, Korvink uses what he calls “variants” of MAN, including MAN BETWEEN POSTS, MAN WITH EAR, and MAN HOLDING POST (2008: 31).  He explains that he uses the term “variant” here not to suggest that these signs all mean the same thing but “to infer a similar syntactical function of the sign” (2008: 30).   

Tablet H-1934 with inscription (right to left): QUADRUPED / POTTED 1 / HAIRY HUNCHBACK / POT / MAN.

While it is clear why MAN should be considered a terminal sign, it is not so clear with these proposed “variants.”  MAN BETWEEN POSTS always immediately precedes a terminal sign, either one of the BEARERS or the COMB (although in KP 1141 the sign or signs following MAN BETWEEN POSTS are illegible).  Thus, it might be analyzed as a terminal itself.  But such an analysis would make a fair number of inscriptions anomalous in containing nothing but a terminal of two signs (M-716, M-915, M-1816, M-1839; M-197; M-830, and the duplicates H-543 and 544).  MAN WITH EAR occurs three times (out of a total of 6 inscriptions) in the prefix, which would be unusual for a terminal sign (though not without parallel).  Further, while MAN HOLDING POST often immediately precedes a terminal (17 times), it also occurs immediately after the prefix (8 times), as part of the prefix (3 times), and often in combination with DOUBLE GRIDS (14 times), which is not a terminal.  Thus, it appears to be a medial element rather than a terminal.

In contrast to this subsuming of MAN’s “variants” in his discussion of terminal signs, Korvink clearly differentiates POT, as terminal, from its apparent variants, POTTED ONE, POTTED TWO, POTTED THREE (2008: 35, fig. 18).  

Sign	Solo	Initial	Medial	Final	Total
POT (terminal)	3	1	420	971	1395
POTTED 1	0	20	152	5	177
POTTED 2	3	4	26	2	35
POTTED 3	0	25	24	2	52

Positional Distribution of POT, POTTED-ONE, -TWO, and -THREE (Korvink 2008: 35).

Here, it is clear that POT most often occurs in final position.  When it appears in medial position, it is usually because another terminal follows it (e.g., H-967: ODD STACKED EIGHT / TWO POSTS / POT / COMB).  In other cases, POT occurs medially as the end of the first unit of information in a long inscription, followed by another unit of information (e.g., H-58: FISH UNDER CHEVRON / DOT IN FISH / FLANGE-TOPPED POT / POT / PLOW / CIRCLED FORK / POT BEARER).  The insertion of one or more “quotes” changes the POT to a medial sign.  As such, the ligatured sign may occur in initial position as part of the prefix or as a medial sign where there is no prefix.  In rare cases, it ends an inscription when there is no terminal.  Inscriptions containing both POT and POTTED ONE/POTTED TWO reveal the difference in these signs most clearly (e.g., H-1934 with POTTED 1; M-304 with POTTED 2; for the latter, compare M-258 with the sequence POT / TWO POSTS).  Thus, Korvink concludes: “Using pictographic similarity to infer a similarity in meaning is a highly speculative approach” (2008: 36).

Seal M-304 with inscription: MAN HOLDING STOOL (?) / FAT STOOL / POTTED 2 / FISH / POT // MAN.

In other words, the hypothesis that ligature AB = sign A + sign B is not confirmed as far as modifications of MAN and POT are concerned.  Now, although I began this post by referring to an Egyptian ligature, this type of “simple addition” does not apply to all Egyptian ligatures either.  In Egyptian, some glyphs are phonetic symbols.  They represent one, two, three, or occasionally more consonants.  The ligature of two phonetic glyphs does follow the “simple addition” pattern.  In addition to the example cited at the beginning of this post, there is S 30, a combination of S 29, a folded cloth, and I 9, a horned viper.  Phonetically, s + f = sf.  But not all glyphs are phonetic.  A great many serve as ideographs or determinatives, or both.  For example, the most common anthropomorph is A1, a man seated with his left leg under him and the right knee up, both arms bent at the elbow.  As an ideograph, it may occur alone or with the vertical stroke (which indicates that a glyph is an ideograph), meaning “man” (Gardiner 1976: 442).  Also ideographically, it may represent the first person pronoun, “I, me.”  In either case, it may be accompanied by phonetic glyphs, s for “man,” and i, wi, ink, or kwi as “I, me.”  When the seated man holds a basket steady on his head, this is A9, determinative in 3tp “load,” f3i “carry,” or k3t “work” (1976: 443).  When the seated man holds an oar in his right hand, this is the determinative in sķdw “sail.”  So it goes.  Modifications of the basic man are almost always determinatives and/or ideographs.  An exception, an upright man with legs spread, is A27, phonetic in “by” (1976: 445).

Chinese characters from oracle bones: bao yi (upper left); bao (upper right); bao bing (lower left); bao ding (lower right) (after Keightley 1985: 185).

Chinese characters from oracle bones: two variants of wang "king" (after Keightley 1985: 216).

 In Egyptian writing, the determinative comes at the end of a noun or verb.  In this way determinatives are similar to the Indus terminals.  However, virtually all phonetic glyphs in Egyptian can also act as determinatives or ideographs (or both).  So the two classes of glyph are not mutually exclusive.  In fact, all originally were ideographs and their phonetic function was due to the rebus principle (the same principle by which English speakers use the numeral 2 as an abbreviation for “to” in texting). 

Egyptian glyph A1, the basic seated man (after Gardiner 1976: 544).

Glyphs A9 (left) and A10 (right), which resemble ligatures of A1 with a basket (W10) and oar (P10).

Similarly, in the earliest Chinese writing on oracle bones, there are ligatures, combinations of two or more elements in a single character.  For example, there is a squared off “C” shape similar to the square bracket “]” with longer horizontals, bao.  The insertion of the character yi, similar to the Indus ESS, inside the bracket bao creates the name Bao Yi (Keightley 1985: 185).  If, instead, a small square is inserted in the bracket, this is the name Bao Ding.  One estimate is that 27% of the oracle bone characters are made up of two components, a radical and a phonetic (1985: 68, f. 49).  

In some cases, modifications of these early Chinese characters are not meaningful, representing simply variant writings.  For example, the character wang “king” appears sometimes as a stick figure upon a horizontal base, at other times as the same stick figure on the same base but with an additional horizontal across the top, and in still other cases as three stacked horizontals joined by a single vertical (1985: 216).  Other modifications are indeed meaningful.  The variants of wang appear to be modifications of the simple stick figure, which represents da “big, great” (1985: 119).  The first variant of wang resembles da “big” plus yi “one” as the base.  However, in this case the meanings of the two characters apparently ligatured in wang (“big” + “one”) do not provide its true meaning (“king”).  The addition of a horizontal across the top – which seems to place the stick figure between the strokes of erh “two” – does not derive the ligature’s meaning from its apparent components (“big” + “two”) either.  Thus, as Korvink noted concerning Indus symbols such as POT and POTTED ONE, etc., assuming a semantic relationship between symbols based only on graphic similarity is speculative and may be misleading.  

Thus far, it seems that one cannot automatically assume that a complex symbol is a ligature simply because it looks like a combination of two (or more) simpler symbols.  Nor can one assume that an apparent ligature serves as an abbreviation for its component parts.  In other words, it is only sometimes true that ligature AB = sign A + sign B in a sequence.  I will return to this theme in my next post.

REFERENCES

Gardiner, Sir A. 1976 (1927). Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. Oxford: Ashmolean Museum and Griffith Institute.

Joshi, J.P. and A. Parpola. 1987. Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. 1. Collections in India. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.

Keightley, D.N. 1985 (1978). Sources of Shang History: The Oracle-Bone Inscriptions of Bronze Age China. Berkeley: University of California.

Korvink, M.P. 2008. The Indus Script: A Positional Statistical Approach. Gilund Press (Amazon).

Koskenniemi, K. and Parpola, A. 1982. A Concordance to the Texts in the Indus Script. Helsinki: Department of Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki.

Parpola, A., B.M. Pande, and P. Koskikallio. 2010. Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. 3. New Material, Untraced Objects, and Collections Outside India and Pakistan. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.

Shah, S.G.M. and A. Parpola. 1991. Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. 2. Collections in Pakistan. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.

Wells, B.K. 2011. Epigraphic Approaches to Indus Writing. Oxford & Oakville: Oxbow Books.

BOXY INDUS SYMBOLS

Indus seal H-1708 with inscription: BLANKET WITH TICKS & FANCY STOOL / STRIPED MALLET.

In my previous discussion of Indus symbols, I mentioned some square or rectangular signs.  Sign IV 4 is a small square and IV 5 a taller rectangle, which may be variants of a single actual sign.  As noted, some researchers consider these relatively rare signs to be variants of a symbol that can also appear as a diamond (my IV 9) and even as a circle or oval (II 9).  It seems to me that if round shapes and angular shapes were truly equivalent (i.e., variants of one another), there should also be both round and angular variants of other signs that are more common.  For example, CIRCLED FORK (which includes my original circled post or PACMAN III 28, CIRCLED TRI-FORK V 41, CIRCLED SKEWERED CHEVRON V 44, CIRCLED BI-FORK V 45) should have such variants as *FORK IN DIAMOND and *FORK IN RECTANGLE (or *BOXED FORK) (following the practice of historical linguists, I use the asterisk here to indicate a hypothetical form that is not evidenced).  

The table below presents comparisons of rounded and angular forms, noting presence of absence of parallels.  The first inclusion noted (1A) is the QUOTE or DOT; this is found inside circular or oval signs but not in either quadrangular type.  As the reader can see, most signs comprising a round or angular shape with an inclusion or attachment do not have possible variants in all forms.  Highlighted in yellow below is the only series that does appear to have variants across the three possible types: CIRCLED VEE, VEE IN SQUARE, and VEE IN DIAMOND.  The first and last are among the most common Indus signs, while the second is extremely rare.  Highlighted in green is the only other possible example.  Here, though, the round form contains only a FORK, the rectangular “variant” contains a VEE and a very different element (ODD STACKED NINE), and the rhomboid or diamond-shaped version contains a VEE and FORK.  Thus, these three have some similarities but also differences, making for very weak evidence that round and angular shapes are true variants.  This is not conclusive evidence since there is always the possibility that new finds will be made in the future that contain the predicted forms not found in the three volumes of the Corpus.

Insert / Shape	CIRCLE/OVAL	SQUARE/RECTANGLE	DIAMOND
--	II 9	IV 4, IV 5	IV 9
1A inner QUOTE	CIRCLED DOT (III 26), DOUBLE CIRCLED DOTS (VI 59)	--	--
1B inner POST	PACMAN (III 28)	BISECTED RECTANGLE (V 5)	--
1C crossing TICK	--	--	DIAMOND WITH TICK (V 59)
2A inner VEE	CIRCLED VEE (IV 40)	VEE IN SQUARE (VI 13)	VEE IN DIAMOND (VI 14)
2B inner FORK	CIRCLED FORK (V 41, V 44?, V 45, VIII 34)	(VEE & ODD STACKED 9 IN RECTANGLE XV 20)?	VEE & TRI-FORK IN DIAMOND (IX 16)?, TRI-FORK ON VEE IN DIAMOND (X 9)?
2C inner CIRCLE/SQUARE/ DIAMOND	DONUT (IV 38)	RECTANGLE IN RECTANGLE (VII 40)?	--
2D inner CROSS	CIRCLED CROSS (IV 42)	WINDOW (VI 4); ENVELOPE (VI 6)	--
2E inner DOUBLE QUOTES	CIRCLED TWO (IV 41)	DOUBLE BELTED RECTANGLE (VI 7)	--
2F inner POST + DASH	--	TRIPLE BRICK	--
2G attached POST	--	RECTANGLE WITH ATTACHED POST (VI 24)	--
3A inner TRIPLE QUOTES	CIRCLED THREE (V 42)	--	--
3B inner ASTERISK	CARTWHEEL (V 43)	--	--
3C attached FORK	CIRCLE WITH TRI-FORK (V 47)	--	TRI-FORK ON DIAMOND (VII 17)
3D inner LAMBDA (?)	--	--	PENNANT IN DIAMOND (VII 18)
3E inner VEE & SLASH	--	--	VEE & SLASH IN DIAMOND (VII 63)
4A inner TICKS (& DASHES)	--	BLANKET (VIII 4, IX 26, X 2-4, XI 15-17, XII 4, XIV 20)	--
4B protruding RAYS	QUADRUPLE RAYED CIRCLE (VI 66)	--	OCTUPLE RAYED DIAMOND (XII 8)
4C protruding LASHES	CEE WITH LASHES (VI 77)?, DEE WITH LASHES (VI 78)?	--	--
4D inner NET	CROSS HATCHED CIRCLE (VIII 59)	GRID (VII 7, VIII 6-7, IX 25, XII 5)	--
5A inner BISECTED SQUARE	SLASH IN DONUT (V 51); CIRCLED TRIPLE BRICK (VIII 61)?, CIRCLED GRID (IX 50)?, SLASH IN DONUT WITH COMB (X 43)?, CIRCLED COMB & BISECTED RECTANGLE (XII 34)?	RABBIT TEETH IN RECTANGLE (VIII 13)	--
5B inner HAMMER	--	--	HAMMER IN DIAMOND (IX 17)
6A inner CROSS/EX + 4 DOTS	--	DOTTED WINDOW (X 6)	DOTTED EX IN DIAMOND (X 7)
8A inner FAT EX (4 VEES)	CIRCLED FAT EX (X 42)	--	FAT EX IN DIAMOND (XII 7)
8B POT HAT + VEE	LOOP WITH EF PRONGED TAIL (VI  68)?, POT TOPPED CIRCLE (VIII 56)?, CIRCLE WITH TRI-FORK & ? (VIII 57)	--	POT HATTED VEE IN DIAMOND (XII 37, XIV 24)
10A inner RAYED CIRCLE	CIRCLED DIAMOND WITH RAYS (XVI 11)?	--	CARTWHEEL IN FAT EX IN DIAMOND (XVII 4)?

Casting further doubt on the hypothesis that CIRCLE = SQUARE = DIAMOND, the most common rectangular signs are the various types of BLANKET and GRID.  While there is a very rare CROSS HATCHED CIRCLE that might be viewed as a round version of the GRID, there is little or no evidence that either BLANKET or GRID has a rounded or rhomboid variation.  Similarly, while CARTWHEEL is one of the most common round signs, it has no counterpart in either rectangular or rhomboid shape.

Tablet H-1930B with inscription (from right): BOXED QUOTE & DASH / CUP / TWO POSTS.

 Turning now to rectangular signs in the third volume of the Corpus, I find three not previously described.  The simplest is a rectangle containing a single “tick” at the base and a single “dash” attached to one side.  I designate this VI 83, BOXED QUOTE & DASH (it occurs elsewhere only in Wells 2011 as sign number 601).  It is a singleton from Harappa, appearing on H-1930B, a faience tablet with inscription in bas-relief.  The rest of the inscription on this side is CUP / TWO POSTS, a common combination of signs especially on tablets.  Since this reverse of a great many tablets contains the CUP in combination of 2-6 POSTS, it is possible that sign VI 83 is not really a sign at all.  Instead, it may be a very simple icon, i.e., a representation of something, a picture, rather than part of the inscription.  There are certainly a few other tablets that bear an inscription alongside a pictorial element.  On the other hand, this may simply be an unusual variant of the BLANKET, a sign that typically contains variable numbers of “ticks” (short vertical strokes attached to the base and top, and may also contain one or more “dashes” (short horizontals). 

Broken tablet H-1900A (DOTTED BOXED BOXES) & B (2 POSTS).

Another rectangular sign recalls VEE IN SQUARE but contains three subsections rather than just one: XIV 25 DOTTED BOXED BOXES.  It too is a singleton from Harappa, occurring on H-1900B, another faience tablet in bas-relief.  This tablet is broken so the full inscription is not legible.  But a very small remnant of an adjacent element remains next to the break.  Again, it is possible that this is a pictorial element rather than a true sign.  Alternatively, it may be a variant of the RECTANGLE IN RECTANGLE.  For comparison, I show below the broken bar seal M-1367 with a two-sign inscription.  To the right of these two signs is the back end of a short-horned bull fighting another.

Broken bar seal M-1367 with inscription: VEE IN DIAMOND / RECTANGLE IN RECTANGLE

.

 The final angular sign is XIX 4 BLANKET WITH TICKS & FANCY STOOL (shown at the beginning of this post).  It is yet another singleton from Harappa, appearing on H-1708, a bar seal, alongside a STRIPED MALLET.  Both elements comprising this sign are found separately, BLANKET WITH TICKS (8) occurring as XII4 in my list, and the FOOTED STOOL WITH MID EARS/OVAL as IX 21.  Now, XIX 4 does not appear in Fairservis’ list of 230 symbols, but he does not claim to be comprehensive (1992: 149): “Signs not found in this list are either too obscure or are combinations of the list signs and the reader can accordingly arrange them.”  That is, he interprets ligatures (combinations of signs) as conveying the same meaning as a sequence of the same elements.  In this case, XIX 4 BLANKET WITH TICKS & FANCY STOOL = XII 4 BLANKET + IX 21 STOOL. 

An illustration from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, showing the Eye of Horus over glyph O21 (a shrine).

In other writing and symbol systems, rectangular elements frequently appear with varying content.  In Egyptian hieroglyphs, Gardiner’s glyphs O6, O7, O10, O21, and perhaps O36 are such rectangles.  These all represent buildings or parts of buildings.  The first, O6, is a tall rectangle with a “vee” or smaller rectangle in one of the lower corners, representing a rectangular enclosure as seen from above.  It serves as an ideograph in ḥwt, “castle, mansion, temple, tomb.”  A similar rectangle with inner “vee” as well as the small semi-circle (as an independent sign representing bread and/or the sound t), O7 is a variant of O6.  The internal semi-circle represents the sound of the final consonant in ḥwt.  The name of the goddess Nephthys may be written with the latter symbol, O7, with the addition of the larger, reversed semi-circle that represents the bi-consonantal nb (V 30).  As Fairservis would expect for Indus signs, the combined Egyptian glyphs thus convey the same meaning as the sequence nb + t + ḥwt (+ t + snake or seated goddess determinative), that is, Nbt-ḥyt.  The glyph O10 is a similar “ligature,” with an unusually wide ḥwt containing not only the usual “vee” but also a standing hawk (G5, Horus).  Together, these elements convey the name of the goddess Hathor, which may also be written with the simple O6 plus phonetic symbols for the second half of her name (and the snake-on-nb-basket determinative).  The glyph O21 represents the façade of a shrine, serving as ideograph or determinative in sḥ-ntr, “the divine booth.”  As a depiction of a building, this glyph contains a small rectangle for the door and often another stroke or two to delineate other features.  The last of the suggested parallels is O36, a rectangle with six markings around the outside, representing a wall, an ideograph or determinative in inb “wall” and synonyms.  Thus, if Indus ligatures follow the pattern found in Egyptian, Fairservis’ notion is correct and knowledge of the basic signs yields the meaning of complex ones.

Old Chinese versions of qun1 "granary" and kun4 "difficult," characters which in modern script have become rectangles containing very angular versions of the signs shown here.

Chinese writing provides a different model for the interpretation of ligatures.  There is rectangular character, one of the radicals (or basic symbols), which commonly contains another element.  This is the 31^st radical, wei², an enclosure.  Depending on the dictionary, there are 29 (The 5000 Dictionary 1940), 34 (Wieger 1965), or 23 (Far East Chinese-English Dictionary 2000) characters made in this way.  The character ren² “person” in the box becomes, not ren² + wei², but qiu² “prisoner.”  The character representing a tree, mu⁴, inside the square is kun⁴ “difficult.”  And the small square, representing a mouth, kou³, inside the larger one represents hui² “to return.”  Thus, in Chinese, knowing the basic characters from which a complex character is made does not necessarily help in understanding the meaning of the complex symbol.  If Indus signs follow this pattern, knowing the constituent elements of a ligature may not shed much light on the meaning of the combination.

Blanket designs from Texas rock art (after Newcomb and Kirkland 1967: 187, Pl. 137, 17-C).  The central motif may represent the local version of Tlaloc, the rain god.

In the American Southwest, so-called blanket designs are often found in rock art.  These are quadrangular elements that contain various shapes, including both simple and complex patterns.  These may or may not actually represent blankets and it may be that the different patterns within the borders convey different meanings.  Some “blankets” have extensions from the four corners, perhaps representing tassels.  Some have a head with large eyes protruding from one end, thought by some to represent a rain god (Patterson 1992: 51, citing Schaafsma 1980).  Where there are two heads protruding, the whole may depict “modest scenes of copulation” (Patterson citing Warner 1983).  Interpretation is difficult in this realm since the societies that produced the petroglyphs are often extinct.  But it is likely that there are several meanings conveyed by superficially similar elements.

Depiction of a bag used in ritual at Sanga in Mali (after LeQuellec 2004: 19).

In rock art elsewhere, we may note a few rectangular elements at Valcamonica in the European Alps.  There is a square with a central dot and a rectangle with two horizontally crossing lines resembling the Indus DOUBLE BELTED RECTANGLE VI 7 (Süss 1985: 9, fig. 12).  In a depiction of warriors, one figure is armed with a “post” and carries a BOXED EX that appears to be his shield (1985: 29, fig. 37).  A boulder at Borno bears a “checkerboard” pattern with “fringe” on the right side (1985: 43, fig. 62).  Surrounding petroglyphs include swords, horned quadrupeds, spirals, and other more enigmatic elements.  A more complex representation includes a rectangle topped by a triangle, with varying types of internal and external markings.  These depict buildings, perhaps two-story houses.

Depiction of a ginyu or genie as seen at Sanga, Mali (after LeQuellec 2004: 18-19).

In Africa, rock art also includes rectangular elements at times.  In the Tassili n’Ajjer of the Sahara, a finger-like motif includes rectangular elements inside a larger motif (LeQuellec 2004: 18-19).  The rectangles may be painted different colors or contain various patterns including grids or pictorial elements.  One explanation is that the “fingers” represent clans of the local Fulani people.  Farther south, in the great overhang at Sanga, in Mali, there are a number of more or less rectangular motifs, some resembling the Indus GRID, others bearing more complex motifs (2004: 60-67).  At least some of these depict bags that are worn by participants in a local festival (see esp. fig. 14).  Another element, a “boxed cross” with an angular, bent appendage, represents a ginyu, a supernatural being (2004: 68).  Painted or engraved geometric motifs appear as well, in rock paintings of Nigeria (including one matching the Indus WINDOW p. 76-77) and at Nachifuku in Zambia (an elaborately decorated quadrangular form p. 101).  No attempt is made to interpret these.

REFERENCES

Fairservis, W.A. 1992. The Harappan Civilization and Its Writing: A Model for the Decipherment of the Indus Script. Leiden: E.J. Brill.

Far East Chinese-English Dictionary. 2000. New York: U.S. International Publishing.

Five Thousand Dictionary, The: A Chinese-English Pocket Dictionary and Index to the Character Cards of the College of Chinese Studies. 1940. C.H. Fenn, compiler. Peking: Cambridge University Press.

LeQuellec, J.-L. 2004. Rock Art in Africa: Mythology & Legend. Paris: Flammarion.

Parpola, A., B.M. Pande and P. Koskikallio. 2010. Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. Volume 3: New material, untraced objects, and collections outside India and Pakistan. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.

Patterson, A. 1992. A Field Guide to Rock Art Symbols of the Greater Southwest. Boulder: Johnson Books.

Süss, E. 1985. Le Incisioni Rupestri della Valcamonica. (orig. published 1958) Milan: Edizioni del Milione.

Wells, B.K. 2011. Epigraphic Approaches to Indus Writing. Oxford & Oakville: Oxbow Books.

Wieger, L. 1965. Chinese Characters: Their Origin, Etymology, History, Classification and Signification. New York: Paragon & Dover (reprint of original published in 1915 & 1927 by Catholic Mission Press).