Five Unusual Indus Signs: Two Aitches, Two Stools, and a Pot Lid

The first Indus sign in this post is TRIPLE BELTED AITCH, V13, a clumsy name given due to its similarity to our letter “H.”  Alternatively, it might be termed a three-rung LADDER.  It has two vertical strokes, as does the letter aitch, with three crossing horizontals (whereas one instance has five, the one I originally considered a LADDER).  It is also KP296, W176, and Fs G-6.  Fairservis states that it represents a space between two poles, perhaps meaning “bazaar, courtyard.”  Wells notes six occurrences, two at Mohenjo daro, two at Chanhujo daro, and one apiece at Harappa and Lothal.

Seal M-308, showing the TRIPLE BELTED AITCH, over an icon resembling the Near Eastern Master of Animals (Photoshop enhanced for clarity from Joshi and Parpola 1987: 76). 

If we choose to be quite precise, the variant with straight vertical sides is designated “a” (M-308, L-218, and an additional instance from Harappa not noted by Wells, H-6).  One Harappan instance and one at Chanhujo daro have curved uprights, designated “b” (H-682 and C-3).  One occurrence at Mohenjo daro has a single straight side, with the other side curved, designated “c” (M-44).  The second instance from Chanhujo-daro has five crossing strokes and should be included in the seven-stroke signs rather than in this set.  One final occurrence from Lothal may be added (L-245).  It appears on a pot shard where it is unusually wide.  It might be better classified as a simple grid.  But if we include it here, given its unusual shape, it can be designated “d.”

Egyptian hieroglyphs do not include an identical glyph, although one version of the coffin is similar to the wide “d” variant (Q6).  This glyph is usually quite wide, and in the form that Gardiner illustrates, has only two straight horizontals plus an additional curved crossing line above them.  The Indus sign, in contrast, is almost always tall and slender.  In each version, the horizontals are all straight.  Thus, if the Indus sign represents a piece of furniture, it more likely has shelves rather than a curved lid like the Egyptian coffin.

Seal M-162, showing FOOTED STOOL and REVERSED FOOTED STOOL (hand-drawn by author).

Proto-cuneiform includes a sign similar to Indus V13 in U2~b, which came to mean “plant; herbs, grass; firewood.”  This has three vertical strokes instead of two, as well as three horizontals close to the top rather than centered as in the Indus sign.  It is not a particularly close parallel, then.  It does strongly resemble the Old Chinese character yong4, which “represented the bronze ex-voto offered to the Ancestors, placed in the temple as a memorial for their offspring....The offerings brought blessing, hence aptitude, efficacy, utility” (Wieger 1965: 260).  This character, now the 101^st radical, once had inwardly curving lines on the outsides, which recalls the “b” variant of the Indus sign.

Proto-Elamite has an exact duplicate of the straight-sided “a” variant of the Indus sign (M026~aa).  It is horizontally oriented, however, as is typical of this type of proto-writing.  Among the motifs of Old Europe, there is an almost exact duplicate of the Indus sign again (OE 201).  In this case, the only difference is that the verticals only protrude slightly beyond the horizontals.  In Linear B, one of the logographs is an asymmetrical “H”-like form with just two horizontals.  This glyph has a long leg on the left and a short vertical on the right, representing bronze.

The rock art of Nevada and eastern California presents an instance of the same motif as well (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 175, fig. 112d).  This time, it is tilted but not quite horizontal.  The authors term the motif a two-pole ladder, noting 26 occurrences in this cultural area (1984: 83).  The motif does not occur among those painted or engraved in Texas, although similar forms appear there, apparently representing horned anthropomorphic figures, perhaps kachinas (Newcomb 1996: 88, Pl. 49, no. 9 and no. 12).  Finally, among the Adinkra symbols of West Africa, there is ladder with varying numbers of rungs, often four, representing the “ladder of death” or owuo atwede.  This is said to indicate immortality.

The next sign is problematic, appearing only in Wells’ list: DOUBLE QUOTES ON SLASH BELTED AITCH, V14.  It is also W182, where it is listed as a singleton (M-840).  In this crowded inscription from Mohenjo daro, the sign boundaries are not entirely clear.  Reading the seal from the left, we see over the horn of the unicorn bull a BUD and HAT, followed by SINGLE QUOTE.  This much is classed as a prefix by Korvink.  The next two signs are also reasonably clear, being a SLASH IN FISH and CUPPED POST.  What follows is the tricky part. 

There are three or four posts, an angled line with two short slashes attached, and three more posts.  Since the angled line touches the posts on either side, Wells has apparently read this segment as three signs: THREE POSTS / DOUBLE QUOTES ON SLASH BELTED AITCH / TWO POSTS (without using my terms, of course).  Koskenniemi and Parpola have apparently read this same portion as two signs: FOUR POSTS / THREE POSTS WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK.  Who is right?  Actually, the attachment does not have three prongs, but this may only be because there was insufficient room here, at the cramped end of the inscription.  The last “post” is nearly falling off the edge of the seal as it is.

There are other signs with attached TRI-FORKS, adding to the likelihood that this is what the sign here represents (i.e., THREE POSTS WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK, as shown in the KP list).  But then, there is also a similar sign to Wells’ interpretation, an AITCH with a slanting mid-section, on a broken bangle (H-994).  In this instance, are two lines in the mid-section and between them not just two but three or four short uprights (making this TRIPLE QUOTES ON SLASH DOUBLE BELTED AITCH, truly dreadful descriptive term).  But again, the seal carver may not have had sufficient room on the crowded seal to put in all that detail, even if that were the symbol he intended to carve.

Signs combining vertical and diagonal lines in a manner similar to the Indus sign are uncommon around the world.  A remote parallel occurs in Luwian hieroglyphs with one variant of the syllable pi, representing a hand gesture.  This has a vertical line on the left, a horizontal across the center, and an inwardly curving line on the right with a bit of a squiggle near the top, apparently representing the thumb.  Other variants are more complex, delineating the thumb on the left and the knuckle before the index finger on the right.  These also have two crossing horizontals at the wrist.  Since the fingers are not delineated, it is unclear whether the hand is pointing with the index finger or making what we would consider the “okay” gesture.

Proto-cuneiform does not have a close match either, although ZATU754 is vaguely similar.  It is comprised of three vertical lines in a row, a single central horizontal joining them, and a backslash attached on the upper right.  The meaning is unknown.  Old Chinese also has only the most distant of parallels, with a character adding details to a basic “H” shape.  There are a slash and backslash inside this shape, both above and below the crossing horizontal, making yuan1, “a whirlpool, a gulf, an abyss....[It] represents the water bouncing between two banks” (Wieger 1965: 288).

In the repertoire of symbols found in Old Europe, there is one motif with two tall verticals and triple slanting lines between them, as well as a few additional serif-like additions (DS242).  This recalls the Runic “h,” a symbol much like our letter “N” but with two slanting internal lines rather than just one (FUTHORC).  None of these is a particularly close parallel.

The third Indus sign discussed today is very similar to one mentioned previously, the STOOL.  The simpler sign is based on an “X” shape with an additional vertical line joining the arms on one side.  In the sign I enumerate V15, the FOOTED STOOL, besides this additional line, there is a broken line not quite closing the other side.  There are, in fact two of these.  V15 has the closed side on the right and the “feet” or broken line on the left.  V16 is the reverse, with the closed side on the left and the “feet” on the right.

These two signs previously appeared as KP230(a) and KP234; W447 and W462; and Fs I-11.  Fairservis shows only one version, which he thinks represent tongs and defines as “shepherd, herder, sheep.”  When it appears with his A-12 (MAN HOLDING QUOTE, which he says is an occupational suffix), he states that these two mean “to plow.”  Then when it occurs after the ZEE PINWHEEL, these mean “better herd(s) and plowed (fields); gather, draw in.”  An additional meaning, perhaps one of the compounds, perhaps separate, is given as “storm, black, rain; rainy season; social division, parish, Harappan clan.”  What a breathtaking series of meanings to come out of tongs!  The oddest thing about all this is that he never thinks tongs mean “tongs.”

Luwian hieroglyphs include the similar glyph THRONUS, “throne.”  This, however, is sideways compared to the Indus sign.  Unlike the disparate meanings Fairservis suggests for his supposed tongs, the Luwian glyph means precisely what it looks like, something to sit on.  There is an Old Norse rune that somewhat resembles the simpler STOOL, even being turned on its side compared to a real stool.  This symbol does not make a complete triangle, however, only containing a chevron at the bottom and the reverse on top, both attached to a vertical line on the left.  This represents the “p” sound (FUTHARK).

Wells indicates that there are a total of 33 instances of V15 and only one occurrence of V16, as follows: 20 at Mohenjo daro, six at Harappa, five at Lothal, one at Kalibangan, one at Banawali, and the one V16 at Kalibangan.  However, I find a few differences, as is common since he reverses the signs found on seals.

The single instance that Wells cites from Kalibangan is indeed a mirror image of that found on most seals (K-6).  However, this mirror image also occurs on one seal from Harappa (H-603).  It also appears on a Harappan tablet (H-715).  We expect the images on tablets to be the reverse of those on seals, since we assume the seals were manufactured to make impressions.  But when an image appears one way and its reverse on seals, we must presume these are its intended forms.  In particular, there are a number of inscriptions where both forms appear right next to each, with the “feet” of the two signs facing each other.  These occur on three seals from Mohenjo daro, one from Lothal, and on a bangle from Kot-Diji not cited by Wells (M-126, M-162, M-198, L-5, and Kd-8).

The FOOTED STOOL is thus an independent sign and so is REVERSED FOOT STOOL, V15 and V16, respectively.  They do not occur only together, but often do.  Proto-Elamite contains a sign that resembles the two together, although it is only two simple “stools” with the “feet” facing each other (M318~e).  As usual, the meaning is unknown.  As a final note on the Indus FOOTED STOOL and its reverse, note that these are not variants of the CRAB, which has similar “feet” attached to a pointed oval.  Both the CRAB and the FOOTED STOOL appear side by side on seal M-108, clearly distinguished.  Thus, they cannot be variants of a single sign.

The final sign for this post is the POT LID, V17, also KP199.  It is not shown in Wells in the five-stroke form.  It is a singleton occurring only M-812 from Mohenjo daro, where this is a single “post,” a post with a small rectangle attached on the left, another post, and a POT.  In the KP list, the first post and the post with attached rectangle are grouped as a single sign.  Apparently these researchers saw the second post as an instance of SINGLE POST.  Wells, instead, grouped both posts together with the post-and-rectangle (W496), a six-stroke sign.  Since other signs occur between posts, Wells has some justification for his grouping.  But since the post-with-attached-rectangle does not occur as an independent sign, there is some reason for not considering the six-stroke grouping one sign, as well.  It is partly this type of disagreement concerning what defines a sign that causes further disagreement about the total number of Indus signs among scholars.

There are similar symbols elsewhere, but no identical sign.  Egyptian hieroglyphs include the bread load on a reed mat, a horizontal rectangle with a roughly conical element in the center (R4).  This is a common triliteral phonetic, found in names with the element “hotep,” such as Imhotep and Amenhotep.  There is also the rolled up papyrus, also a rectangle, this one with a semicircular bump, a slanting line coming from each side of the bump (Y1).  This determinative first appears horizontally, but by the Twelfth Dynasty also occurs vertically, at the end of words for many abstract concepts.  The Old Kingdom variant often lacked the slanting lines, making it more similar to the Indus sign (Y2).

In Luwian hieroglyphs, the sign for TERRA/Locus has a similar outline to the left side of the post-and-rectangle, although it is positioned horizontally.  This means “earth/place.”  Proto-cuneiform adds the sign URUDU~b, “copper; metal,” a thin vertical rectangle with another rectangle attached on the left side.  This is closest parallel thus far.  Proto-Elamite comes a little closer with another vertical rectangle with another, smaller quadrilateral attached on the right.  It is similar to the Indus sign in reverse, if we ignore the fact that the post and the post-with-attached rectangle are not joined.

The Phaistos Disk, a clay disk found on Crete that probably dates to about 1700 BCE, has one glyph somewhat similar to a pot lid.  However, rather than a rectangle with a bump, it is a pointed oval with a rounded bump.  Thus, it is rather remote from the Indus sign.  Linear B has a slightly less remote symbol in the syllabic sign da, a vertical with a simple horizontal stroke attached on the right.  The Old Norse runes also contain a symbol with an angular bulge on the left, representing the “a” sound (FUTHARK).  Here, as with the Luwian glyph, the long stroke is bent rather than continuous.

Even in the rock art of the Americas, there is no exact equivalent.  In Texas there is a motif quite like the Luwian glyph, reminiscent of a single crenellation (Newcomb 1996: 177, Pl. 125, no. 1-F).  Farther west, a line with a crook at the far left has a square attached at the bottom (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 165, fig. 102j).  The POT LID, despite its simplicity, is a rare sign in all places.

A Few Minor Signs and a Stool

I want to quickly discuss three signs before getting to one of my favorites, today.  The first of the minor group needs a better name, but for now I'm calling it AY after the first letter of our alphabet.  It is similar except that one leg is longer than the other, as can be seen in the first chart shown in my earlier post on the TABLE sign.  The number I've assigned to the AY is III 18 as it is drawn with three strokes and it is the eighteenth among the three-stroke signs.  Formerly it was also KP186b where it appeared more pointed at the top, like our letter, than I see it on the single seal from Mohenjo daro (M-4).  It occurs in Fairservis as I-4, identified as a ploughshare with the meaning "to dig (plough)," and in Wells, no. 440.

CIRCLED ASTERISK appears on right in a ligature beside BEARER
(Joshi and Parpola 1987: 291 from Lothal)

The AY may indeed represent a simple plow as it resembles the Egyptian hieroglyph U13, a plow.  However, this glyph is oriented horizontally, with the short leg of the "A" at the bottom, the longer leg rising diagonally, with a small circle at the high end.  There are also two short diagonals added near the join of the two legs, their purpose a mystery to me.  The Indus symbol also resembles the Egyptian glyphs U6 and U7 which represent a hoe (distinguished by position, the first almost vertical, the second horizontal), determinatives in the verb "to cultivate."  These glyphs also somewhat resemble our letter "A," although one line is straight and shorter than the other leg, which is curved and a bit longer.  Because of these two possibilities from Egyptian, I have continually vaccillated between renaming the Indus symbol HOE or renaming it PLOW.  If any reader should care to state an opinion on the matter, please do so.

The closest Old Chinese parallel is quite distant, jin1 "the actual moment; notion of actuality, of presence....The composition is tautologic; [a chevron with a horizontal line below] union, [the outline of the Indus "A" shape without the central crossbar, tilted] contact" (Wieger 1965: 48).  I include this mainly to observe that elements which remind the viewer of physical objects may sometimes represent abstract concepts even in an ancient script.  While this seems less likely for the Indus script than for Chinese, it is worth considering, now and then.

Proto-cuneiform has a sign that looks very much like our letter "A," upright but with the crossbar passing beyond the sides of the letter on both sides.  Since the signs in this proto-writing system are conventionally laid out horizontally, this means that we should view it sideways, even though it appears vertical to our eyes.  It is termed GADA~a, which came to mean "flax; linen; linen cloth or clothing."  There is a similar sign in proto-Elamite, although it is tilted at a 45 degree angle and has not just one but two crossbars (M102~a).

A motif almost identical to the proto-cuneiform sign appears in the rock art of Texas, although oriented horizontally (Newcomb 1996: 172, Pl. 123, no. 2).  This is a rare sign and I do not recall another instance of it.  Further west, there is an "A"-like element attached to the end of a zigzag, once again oriented horizontally (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 158, fig. 95i).  Another symbol resembling the letter "A" is vertical like our letter and its crossbar only extends beyond the left leg (1984: 155, fig. 92j).  I have not seen this motif in Australian rock art.

The ASTERISK is III 19.  Unlike the symbol found on our keyboards, this Indus sign has six prongs.  Originally, I assumed it would be written with three strokes, a vertical line, a crossing line in one direction, and another crossing line, as if making an "X" over the vertical.  That's what it looks like.  But a closer view of the seals where it appears (mainly inside the circle or oval) convinces me it was usually made with a vertical, than a bent line on one side followed by a bent line on the other side.  Not that it matters that much.

This does not appear as an independent sign in the Koskenniemi and Parpola list or concordance (1982).  Neither does it appear in Fairservis (1992).  Wells does list it (W553).  He finds it on L-66A, a seal with so much abrasion that the signs must be guessed at.  My guess is as follows: DUBYA (?) / BACK CEE (?) / PINCH (?) / TWO POSTS (?) / FISH (?) / DOUBLE CEES / POT (?) (reading from the left, which appears to be the correct direction on seals, the opposite of the correct direction on tablets and impressions on pots).  I could easily be wrong about every single one of these.  The B side is the handle; the C side or edge has STACKED THREE; the D edge has a POST BETWEEN CIRCLES; the E edge has the ASTERISK in question; and the F edge has a FISH.  So there is at least one ASTERISK that is clear enough.

Lion and gazelle play Senet; note gazelle sitting on STOOL

It seems to me that there might possibly be one other, on Sktd-2 from Surkotada, although this may be an example of the QUADRUPLE DOTTED EX which I consider a different type of "asterisk."  This odd inscription is POT / CIRCLED TRI-FORK / TRI-FORK / PINCH / POT and the second row suffers from an abrasion on the left, after which there appears to be a horizontally oriented ASTERISK.  It is beside a SINGLE POST.  So, perhaps the seal must be turned sideways to read this other row of two symbols.  But which row is to be read first and which second and what is abraded and invisible?  It is also rather a bother than the part that is most legible begins and ends with the POT.  This is supposed to come at the end, so presumably there was some little insert in one of these, making it a POTTED ONE or something of the sort.  But I don't see anything like that.  Someone with better eyesight may be able to make better sense of this peculiar seal.  If that someone wishes to enlighten me, I would appreciate it.

Egyptian has no six-legged star.  It has the five-legged star mentioned in a previous post, N14.  It has a conventionalized flower with seven prongs surmounting a post, all of which is capped by overturned cow horns (the goddess Seshat's emblem), also mentioned previously (R20).  Then there is the extremely peculiar glyphs representing three fox skins tied together.  Oddly enough, this is the closest match in appearance because there are three short legs at the top and three longer legs hanging down in the glyph.  This makes it resemble the Indus ASTERISK with a very high waist.  Even odder is the Egyptian meaning.  In origin, it stood for the word mst, "apron of foxes' skins."  Well, of course, what else?!  So surely the Harppans must have made themselves foxskin aprons, too!

No, seriously, moving on, there is an asterisk symbol in proto-cuneiform also.  The eight-legged asterisk is cited most often, AN, originally the god of heaven, later "sky, heaven, An himself, a grain ear," and eventually a determinative for any god.  But there is also a six-legged variety, HAL, which came to mean "crotch, upper thigh" but also "secret; divination expert" and even "to stream; to divide."  If there is a connection among those, I don't see it.  Proto-Elamite has both the eight-legged and the six-legged asterisks (M046 and M046~a respectively).  There is also a six-legged asterisk surrounded by a starry-looking outline (M365~d).

Star-like motifs with varying numbers of "legs" appear in rock art quite often.  I cite two from Texas with six legs (Newcomb 1996: 136, Pl. 91, no. 1; 154, Pl. 106, no. 11).  Various numbers of legs occur, as I said, some of them odd, including five and seven.  Thus, it seems clear that the people were making the individual "legs" coming from the center, not making "X"-like marks that crossed each other.  In the collection from the Far West, there are 27 total occurrences of star-like forms, only some of which contain six legs (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 129: fig. 66k has 6; 159 fig. 96a has six with knobs at the ends).  Australian rock art also has many star-like motifs, although most have more than six "legs" (Flood 1997: 112, a 6-legged star on a long stem associated with giant bird tracks at Eucolo Creek, South Australia; 183, a 10-legged form at the Rockholes, Panaramitee Station; 185, an 11-legged star from Wharton Hill, Olary region, South Australia).

Old Chinese is here mentioned last because the outer form is so similar but the meaning clearly different.  What appears to be an asterisk with eight legs is mi3, "grains of different plants; the character rerpresents four grains, that are separated by the thrashing" (Wieger 1965: 285).  A early variant form of the same character is made with an "X" between the arms of which are four quotes.  The character for "star" in Old Chinese is nothing like this, containing one or more small dotted circles.

My point is this.  An asterisk-like form is so widespread among the symbol systems of the world, it is nearly universal (although not entirely).  But its meaning is not universal.  It may seem obviously stellar to us since there is an Egyptian glyph of a star (with five legs) and a very early Sumerian sign of a star (with eight or more legs).  Both Egyptian and Sumerian had other, similar signs with non-starry significance.  And Chinese has an asterisk that means "grain."  The meaning of the Indus ASTERISK cannot be presumed to mean either "star" or "grain" simply because it looks like a sign found in the script of a neighboring country.

Now we'll move on to a more common sign with two variants ZEE / BACK ZEE, III20, also known as KP188 (as BACK ZEE only), W544 (BACK ZEE) and W549 (ZEE), and Fs I-2 (BACK ZEE).  This sign actually has many variations because sometimes it stands more or less upright like our letter "Z."  More often, it tilts.  But the angle and direction of the tilt varies from rendition to rendition.  Sometimes it resembles our letter and sometimes it is backward (hence BACK ZEE).  Not all of the "backward" variants are on tablets, either. 

Since the seals were presumably made to be used to stamp things, as shown by the survival of various impressions in clay, scholars assume they are to be read backward.  The tablets presumably wouldn't work that way since many are too flat.  Besides, the order in which the signs tend to appear is reversed compared to that on the seals.  The little BI-QUOTES tend to appear toward the left on the seals, toward the right on the tablets.  The POT (which we haven't discussed yet) tends to appear toward the right on the seals, toward the left on the tablets.  It then makes sense that the signs themselves would be reversed as well, e.g. ZEE on seals, BACK ZEE on tablets.  To a certain extent this is true.  But there are also plenty of exceptions to muddy the waters.

There is one sign that might be this one in a ligature, BACK EN UNDER TABLE.  Some of the ZEE examples are tilted pretty far, so that the "letter" is about to fall on its face (e.g. M-993 and M-980).  If it did fall on its face, it would look pretty much like our "N."  If one of the BACK ZEE examples were to do this, it would look like a backward "N."  However, none of this type seems about to suffer this fate, so I can't give an example.  Still, this might be what has happened with the ligature I mentioned.  The TABLE (mentioned in a previous post) is placed over what appears to be one of these backward forms that has fallen completely over.  So, perhaps I should relabel the ligature BACK ZEE UNDER TABLE.  We will discuss this further when we get to it (in the 6-stroke signs).

There is no "Z"-shaped Egyptian hieroglyph.  But there is a zigzag, which is one possible thought for what the ZEE represents -- a very short zigzag.  The Egyptian glyph is N35, representing a ripple of water, usually with six or so points.  It is a phonetic glyph, indicating the consonant n.  It is usually placed horizontally but occasionally appears vertically.

Old Chinese has no zigzag or "Z" shape.  The closest thing is a very smooth and ever so slightly curving line, yi1, "germination" (Wieger 1965: 34).  This looks nothing like the ZEE in the old style, but has now become a straight horizontal, below which there is an attached "C"-like curve.  With a little imagination we can say this vaguely resembles our letter "Z" and it has become yi3, the second Celestial Stem, an astrological and dating symbol.

Also only vaguely similar is the doubled vertical zigzag found in Luwian hieroglyphs to represent SOLIUM, "seat" (Halet 1999: 93).  Proto-cuneiform is not much better.  There is a symbol resembling a zigzag formed by stacks of diagonal lines.  There are first seven stacked backslashes, then after a small space seven stacked slashes, another small space, and finally seven more stacked backslashes (try saying that seven times).  All this is LUM which came to mean "fertilizer; cloud; to be full; to be fertile."  Proto-Elamite makes do with a doubled line in its zigzag, which is horizontal, as usual.  As is also usual with this type of proto-writing, the line is angular, not curved.  So these are double zees, although stretched out a good deal more than our letter is (M057).

North American rock art provides fewer examples of such a short zigzag than I had expected.  I found none from Texas, but there were two in the collection from Nevada and eastern California (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 154, fig. 91d; 147, fig. 84f).  Neither is oriented as our letter would be.  The first is tilted at a 45 degree angle, more or less, the second at a 90 degree angle.

The final sign to consider today is my favorite of these, the STOOL, III21, formerly KP227, W453, Fs I-11.  Fairservis considers it to represent tongs and to mean "to gather, draw in."  He considers it a short variant of what I call the FOOTED STOOL, which he thinks is the main form of the tongs (a 5-stroke sign).  If it were really a little folding stool -- which is what it reminds me of -- it would always have fallen on its side when depicted.  I include as an illustration an old Egyptian drawing from papyrus in which a lion is playing the board game Senet with a gazelle.  One beastie sits on a folding stool like this sign, only it's right side up, as the Indus sign never is.  Thus, I do not mean to suggest that the sign represents an actual stool.  But that is a handy name for it.

Wells gives the frequency of this simple sign as three, indicating that it occurs twice at Mohenjo daro (on M-623 and M-725) and once at Kalibangan (on K-7).  I see it on two pot shards from Rahman deri also, Rhd-144 and Rhd-152 (the last one broken so that the sign is incomplete).  On the three seals, the "seat" is on the right, the "feet" on the left.  On the pot shards, of course, one cannot tell since there is no other sign to orient them.

There is no "stool" glyph in Egyptian.  The closest thing is Q4, the headrest, which I heard a museum guide refer to as the Egyptian "pillow."  Since these wooden gadgets were as hard as wood normally is, that hardly seems a good way to put it, but the average reader may think my STOOL handle just as unnatural.  Old Chinese likewise presents no parallel, although the writing of the right hand becomes an upright stool in modern calligraphy (cf. the 29th radical).

On the other hand, the Luwian hieroglyph THRONUS, "throne" is an excellent parallel.  It is triangular on top, though formed with doubled lines.  At the bottom, it has two legs, though these are curved and not straight like the Indus sign.  Thus, if the Indus STOOL were set upright like a real stool, it would look very similar to this.  The proto-Elamite sign M-096~d is virtually identical, including being oriented with the "seat" to the right and the "feet" to the left.  The only difference is that the "seat" is quite small and the "legs" comparatively long, whereas in all the Indus occurrences that I see, the "seat" is relatively large and the "legs" short.  Note that in M-623, the bottom edge of the "seat" had to be bent to accommodate the PANTS sign next to it.  Also note that the sign on the pot, Rhd-144 is a bit off-kilter so that if it were a real stool, it would probably topple over.

In rock art, a "stool"-like motif appears once in Texas (Newcomb 1996: 101, Pl. 57).  In this unusual form, the short legs are toward the right, the reverse of the Indus sign.  In the Far West, I see an upside-down "stool" as part of a more complex figure that also includes a cross at the bottom (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 146, fig. 83j).  Another, also upside-down but this time broad and thin, appears as an individual motif (1984: 155, fig. 92h).  I do not see this shape in Australian rock art.

Some Symbols Perched on Posts

There are two signs listed for the Indus script that I have not seen but which I include among the three-stroke symbols.  The first of these is EX ON POST, numbered III 14 in my system, previously KP250, W58, and Fs I-14.  Fairservis considers it a wind pole, noting that only a few doubtful examples are known.  Wells does not attempt to define it but gives its frequency as even more rare than that, stating that it is a singleton.  He has it appearing only on one tablet, H-847 from Harappa.  This copper tablet is too dim for my weak eyes.  I just have to assume it really looks like the letter "X" perched on top of a vertical line, hence my term for it.

Plant motifs
from Egyptian jar

In Egyptian hieroglyphs there is a post surmounted by seven spokes that do not quite meet in the middle, perhaps a conventionalized representation of a flower (R20).  On top of this are the upside-down bull horns, also not quite touching but surrounding the spokes.  All this is the emblem of the goddess of writing whose name is Romanized as Seshat.  Of course, it would make a better parallel without the bull horns, but the flower portion does not occur without them. 

A less convincing parallel is glyph U34, a spindle.  This has a post at the bottom and there is more of a "+" sign at the top, with more things in between.  But the whole thing looks more like a street light, with a triangular portion poised on its apex, capped with a half-circle, and that plus sign perching on top of all that.  It hardly seems likely that the Indus sign is depicting the same sort of thing as this.

Old Chinese has only the most distant of parallels in kua4, "to overcome an obstacle" (Wieger 1965: 90).  Here, there is a post again, with two short horizontal lines crossing it near the top.  These two short crossing lines are joined by a straight line in the modern character.  In the older version, the lower line itself curves upward to cross the upper horizontal.  Again, this is so different it hardly seems likely that the Indus sign represents the same notion and the notion in this case is pretty abstract anyway.

Luwian hieroglyphs also contain a spindle, FUSUS.  This glyph is delineated with an outlined form but again it begins with a post.  This widens near the top in a small swelling.  Then there is a much wider portion, rather reminiscent of the letter "t."  Yet again, this is only the most distant of parallels.  I do not really think the Indus sign represents a spindle.  It would be a most inconvenient shape for a spindle.

Replica of Indus tablet with HAIRY HUNCHBACK / POT / COMB

Rock art presents various motifs combining a vertical line and an "X"-like element.  But the result is typically somewhat different from the precise form of the Indus sign.  In Texas, the motif is upside-down compared to the Indus sign, the post above and the "X" at the bottom (Newcomb 1996: 196, Pl. 147, no. 26-A).  In western North America, there is an instance of a tilted "X" shape where one leg is extremely long, so long that it becomes the post itself, in effect (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 152, fig. 89g).  In another instance, the post is crossed by a short horizontal that ends in a small circle (1984: 148, fig. 85e).  In both cases, as in Texas, the "X" portion is at the bottom and the post at the top.

In Australia, one instance includes a long post to which three different "X" forms have been added at intervals (Flood 1997: 112, at Eucolo Creek, South Australia).  The topmost is not a true "X" but a "V" on a long horizontal, perched at the top of the post.  About a third of the way down there is a true "X."  Another third of the way down, there is a form with three prongs on the right and four prongs on the left, more of an asterisk than a true "X."  There are a number of what the author terms "star-like forms" engraved near Laura, one of which includes a bisected "V" on a horizontal, all perched on a short post, on Cape York peninsula, Queensland (1997: 208).

There may also be what I term a SKEWERED EX, numbered III 15, based on KP252.  This does not appear in Wells' list and Fairservis does not mention it.  It is the same as the previous sign except that the vertical stroke of the post continues through the "X."  The existence of this sign in the list may be due to efforts to read the same dim tablets on which the previous sign occurs, for all I know.  Since I cannot see either one, I cannot judge the matter.  If any reader wishes to comment, feel free.

The only additional parallel to be mentioned is proto-Elamite M248~g.  This is a horizontal long stroke crossed by two "X" marks.  That's not quite the same since the Indus sign includes only one "X."  But it is closer than anything else we have seen.

Another rare sign that looks quite different is the DOWN WY, numbered III 16.  This is an abysmal name but I have not thought of a better name yet.  It was previously KP203, W234, Fs D-2a and D-2b, a rather astonishing division.  Wells combines two signs that I separate.  This one looks like our capital "Y" turned upside-down, hence my clumsy name for it.  Wells combines this one with one of the signs that looks like the Greek lambda, stating that together they occur a total of nine times.  If we check the occurrences which he flags, they all seem to LAMBDA of one type of another but one, as far as I can see.  The only DOWN WY that I am sure of is L-88 from Lothal.  One from Mohenjo daro is a BACK LAMBDA (M-403) and the others are simply LAMBDA.

Fairservis, though, must have seen something else because he thinks there are two of the upside-down "Y."  His "a" version represents two legs and the body of a man, which he thinks is a proper name.  His "b" version represents part of a plow and means "to seize."  How he tells the one from the other, I have no idea.

There is an identical Egyptian hieroglyph, which is almost a shame considering this is such a rare sign (O-30).  It is a pitchfork.  Then there is another that includes two of the same shape on a horizontal line (S-27).  That's a horizontal strip of cloth with two strands of a fringe.  It serves as an ideograph or determinative in the word d3iw, "loincloth."  There is a special type of sceptre, the w3s-sceptre, that ends in a rounded "Y" shape, also, and then there's a glyph of the sky with a zigzagging line coming down that ends with this w3s-sceptre's type of curved "Y."  That is N2, the determinative for "night."  Finally, there is a distant parallel in the bird claw (H7).  It is only vaguely "Y" like at the bottom.  But I bring this up because some of the less realistic bovine icons on the Indus seals have feet that resemble this DOWN WY.  It's just possible that this sign represents some sort of foot.

Most of the other parallels are the same as for the upright BI-FORK: e.g., the "Y"-like Old Chinese ya1, "fork, crooked" (Wieger 1965: 255).  But there is also the character for ru4, "to enter" (1965: 50).  This is drawn with two strokes that begin together at the top and curve away from one another as they descend.  The result, especially in the old style of writing, is somewhat similar to the DOWN WY.

Proto-cuneiform BAD is a horizontal "Y" shape with the fork at the right.  It came to mean "to open, let out, drive away, separate."  The proto-Elamite signs M074~g and M291 are also horizontal but they fork to the left. 

Rock art in North America also evinces horizontal "Y" shapes in the far west (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 128, fig. 65e; 146, fig. 83b).  The first is angular, the second rounded.  Both fork to the left.  But there is an upside-down "Y" shape in Texas (Newcomb 1996: 101, Pl. 57).  Australian rock art shows "Y" shapes engraved by pecking at Early Man Rock-Shelter near Laura, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland (Flood 1997: 209).

The final sign considered here is a little more common.  I call it DUBYA, not perhaps the best term, numbering it III 17.  There are two variants, a rounded form "a" and a vee form "b."  The vee form only is KP315, the rounded form not being listed.  Wells includes the rounded form as a variant of the CUPPED POST.  He does not show the vee form.  Fairservis does not list either form.  I see the vee form "b" on pot shards Rhd-97 through Rhd-104, although the photos in the Corpus often show the sign upside-down.  I will discuss the rounded form again when we get to the CUPPED POST.

There are no Egyptian parallels, but Luwian hieroglyphs provide the syllable nu.  This is a bisected "V" shape on a post, or a skewered "V" in my terms.  There are little circles at the distal ends of the "V" and the post.  The symbol TONITRUS, "thunder" also resembles a "W" somewhat, with the outer lines bent outward a bit more, the inside portion made into a squarish lump.

Proto-cuneiform once had a form like an upside-down version of the curved DUBYA (Schmandt-Besserat 1996: 75).  This represented a type of garment or cloth.  At a somewhat later stage, there are two similar horizontal signs (cdli).  One is of the vee type (ZATU644~a).  The other is more curved, but the central bisecting line goes all the way through (ZATU644~b).  The meaning is unknown.  Signs similar to the vee variant exist in proto-Elamite, although turned in the opposite direction (M072, M072~a).  Another type takes this basic sign and adds long horizontal lines to the ends of the vee and post (M290~c, M290~d).  If these were vertical instead of horizontal, they would resemble little huts.

In Old Chinese there is an upside-down "a" form, jin1 "a small piece of cloth resembling the European handkerchief, that was worn in ancient times, hanging from the girdle, and used for cleaning and dusting" (Wieger 1965: 98).  There is a very similar character in which the post goes through the upside-down "U" shape and that "U" has extended ends that curve slightly outward, liang3.  "It represents scales in equilibrium" (Wieger 1965: 90).

Both the curved and vee types appear in rock art also, in Texas (Newcomb 1996: 109, Pl. 69), in the west (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 143, fig. 80d), and in Australia (at the Rockholes and Panaramitee Hill, Panaramitee Station, South Australia; Flood 1997: 101, L section).  These may be among the engravings that represent bird tracks.  See the post on the TRI-FORK for more information on this notion.

More Bird Tracks

The BI-FORK, III 12, is one of the signs I renamed the most often.  It looks like our letter "Y" without serifs, so originally I called it "wy," but simply wrote it with the letter.  This was not easy to look up in the average computer database, as most younger people would have realized from the outset.  The computer flags every word with the letter "y" in it when you only mean to look up the inscriptions with the "Y" symbol in them.  So I had to run through the whole list, rewriting each symbol's name as "wy" rather than "Y." 

Replica of Indus seal B-9 from Banawali with TRI-FORK (or QUAD-FORK)

That would have been all right, but I was noticing that there were not simply two-pronged forks like this one, but also three-pronged forks (which I was calling "tridents"), four-pronged forks, and five-pronged forks.  It seemed better to use some basic word to describe all of these with an adjectival prefix to distinguish them.  Hence, "bi-fork" for the two-pronged variety here.  The three-pronged version is now no longer a "trident," but has become a "tri-fork," in the name of consistency, while there are also a "quad-fork" and "quint-fork."

Coming back to the BI-FORK, it was previously KP85, W277, and Fairservis' I-16.  Wells observes it only once, at Lohumjo-Daro (Lh-1), where it is tall and thin, and where the forking is small and reduced.  However, I also see it on M-932, where it more closely resembles our usual letter, perhaps on the broken M-1293, and on L-50 in front of the bird motif (where the forking is spread wide).  On the bangle M-1633 it seems to be present again, although the stem is bent to the right.  And while the symbol seems upside-down to our view, it would also appear to be present on the pots Rhd-23 and Rhd-24.  That makes seven occurrences, still not very common.

There is a "Y" in Egyptian hieroglyphs, Gardiner's O-30.  It is a supporting pole, of which there were supposed to be four according to the Egyptian notion of the cosmos, one at each corner of the earth.  They were holding Mrs. Sky up off Mr. Earth, so this pole was the ideograph or determinative for the word shnt (with a little scoop below the "h"), "support of heaven."  But there were a few other glyphs that were similar to this one.  A horizontally oriented "Y"-like sign had an additional slash added to each edge of its top, so that instead of being a "V" on a post it was an "M" on a post.  This was an instrument employed in baking, or so Gardiner guesses (U-31).  He was uncertain, leaving a question mark.  But the sign was employed in the word for baking and bakers, so he was probably not too far off.  Then there is the strange off-kilter Aa-26.  This is a vertical with a bent line coming out near the top on the left.  It often replaced the throwstick, which looks like a "7" that's about to fall over.

In Old Chinese, there is another "Y" shape that has a bit of a curve to the upper part.  This is ya1, "a fork, crooked" (Wieger 1965: 255).  Another horizontal "Y" is found in proto-cuneiform where it is called BAD after the sign it develops into in later cuneiform, where it means "to open, let out, drive away."  In this sign, the forking is on the right.  In proto-Elamite, a very similar horizontal sign also appears but the forking is now on the left (M074~g).  In addition, there is a little wedge-shaped impression at the base of the post.  Another "Y"-like horizontal form adds a vertical line to the top of each of the lines of the "V" at the top of the first "Y" part, making it even longer (M291).

This simple forked sign appears in rock art also.  A shape much like our letter appears in the Texas collection (Newcomb 1996: 121, Pl. 87).  In the collection from the far west, I see three different types of "bi-fork," none of which is quite the same as this.  The first is most like the Old Chinese character, being curved, a "U" on a post in effect (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 182, fig. 119i).  The second is extremely tall and thin, with a tiny "v" shape at the very top (1984: 172, fig. 109a).  The last is most like the final Egyptian example, a vertical with a bent line attached, though on the right (1984: 171, fig. 108a).

The basic fork occurs in Australia in the curved form as a pecked engraving at Early Man Rock-Shelter, near Laura, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland (Flood 1997: 209).  Another curved "U" on a post "bi-fork" is the basis of a more complex engraving at Eucolo Creek in South Australia (1997: 112).  Here there are short horizontal lines added on the sides of the "U" at the top, about four on either side.  Down the length of the post there are crossing lines as well, about seven of them.  At the bottom of the figure, there is also an upside-down "U" shape attached to the post, considerably smaller than the large forking at the top.  The bottom "U" is unadorned.

The next sign is the TRI-FORK, III 13.  Formerly known as KP86b, W262, and Fs E-3, it is among the more common symbols both among Indus signs and elsewhere in the world.  Wells states that it occurs 116 times, 73 times at Mohenjo daro, 23 times at Harappa, 7 times at Lothal, twice at Kalibangan, 6 times at Chanhujo daro, 2 times at Allahdino, and once each at Surkotada, Nausharo, and Balakot.  Fairservis considers it an abbreviated form of a stalk of grain, but then gives its meaning as "lunar month; order, line, row."

Among the Egyptian hieroglyphs, there are none quite like this.  But there is a small circle on a post that has three almost triangular objects sticking out of it, which is vaguely reminiscent of the TRI-FORK (Aa-27).  In Middle Egyptian, this unknown object is usually accompanied by W-24, a little round pot often pronounced nw.

A three-pronged element is quite common in Old Chinese.  It takes a variety of positions and has more than one meaning.  One example where it occurs alone, leaning to the left, is yu4, the right hand (Wieger 1965: 120).  This is the 29th radical which now looks more like a folding stool than a trident.  Another example where it occurs alone but stands upright, is zhe4, "a sprout" (Wieger 1965: 696).  By this, he means a plant and he is speaking of the 45th radical which, although far more square than the older version, still  has three prongs.  This radical appears doubled, at the top, in the complex character meng2, "to bud, germinate, open, appear in the light" (1965: 110).  As in so many complex Chinese characters, the bottom portion hints at the sound of this word, being the word for "bright," ming2, written as the sun and moon side by side (or in Wieger a window and moon).

Hittite Queen Taruisa with Luwian hieroglyphs

Luwian hieroglyphs contain a syllabic sign, nu, in the form of a trident with a little circle at the distal end of each prong (Halet 1999: 90).  Proto-cuneiform GAL~b resembles a horizontal fork with three tines, which is to say the letter E placed with its back against a post.  This came to mean "large metal cup; chief; oldest son; big, large, great."  In proto-Elamite, another horizontal trident occurs, this one based on the "Y" shape, with a wedge-shaped impression at its base (M074~a).

There are various trident-like forms in the rock art of Texas.  One based on the "Y" shape with a rounded base occurs near a zigzag and lollipop (Newcomb 1996: 102, Pl. 59, no. 1).  The rounded version emerges from the sleeve of an anthropoid figure and represents a hand, as in Old Chinese (1996: 118, Pl. 78).  Another rounded trident emerges from a complex meander, on a long stem (1996: 127, Pl. 84, no. 3).  The schematic anthropoid figure shaped like an upside-down "U" has arms drawn as one long crossing line, at each end of which is a trident-shaped hand (1996: 127, Pl. 84, no. 4).

Heizer and Baumhoff suggest that trident shapes in Nevada and eastern California may often be representations of bird tracks and this may be the case with the upside-down, short tri-fork (1984: 165, fig. 102a on right).  It is less clearly the case where the form is a "Y" shape with the extra stroke added to the stem rather than at the top (1984: 158, fig. 95i).  Another odd example is a long, curving, upside-down "L" shape with the "v" form near the base (1984: 151, fig. 88m).  Finally, there is a horizontal "F" with three prongs instead of two (1984: 127, fig. 64j).  The last is surely not a bird track, whatever the others are.

Australian rock art of an early period often represents animal or bird tracks and this may be the case with some of the trident-shaped engravings at Panramitee Hill, Panramitee Station, South Australia (Flood 1997: 111).  There are rounded forms similar to the "U" shaped bi-fork mentioned earlier -- except that it is bisected by a vertical line in addition.  There are also forms that resemble a trident based on a "Y" shape but with an additional short horizontal across the base, the significance of which I do not comprehend.  I have also seen a motif that closely resembles the letter "E" with a somewhat longer stem, all at this same site.  The last, at least, is probably not an animal track.

The Indus TRI-FORK occurs in at least four variants, more if one counts mirror images.  There is the basic form which begins with the "Y" shape but has the additional short vertical inside the upper portion.  A second type is similar but, like the Old Chinese character, has a curved upper portion.  A third type begins, like the first, with a "V" on a post.  But instead of making the extra short stroke line up with the post, the short stroke is placed parallel to one of the sides of the "V" at the top.  There are then two versions of this, where the short stroke is one the right, or on the left.  The final type is where there is essentially a small letter "E" perched at an angle on top of the post.  It differs from the previous version in that the two branches of the "Y" are not equal.  One is long and one is short, thus giving the impression that it is an "E" on top, with its prongs sticking upward.

Various types of little TRI-FORKS are added to other Indus signs in ligatures.  Using KP numbers to identify them, they include:
KP25 (MAN HOLDING TRI-FORK)
KP106 (TRI-FORK & BUD TOPPED POT)
KP107 (BUD, SKEWERED DONUT & TRI-FORK TOPPED DUBYA)
KP148 (THREE POSTS WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP223 (SPACESHIP WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP235 (STOOL WITH BENT FOOT & ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP236 (FOOTED STOOL WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP238 (FOOTED STOOL WITH HAIRY LEGS & ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP258 (FAT EX WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP279 (TRI-FORK ON SQUARE)
KP292 (TRI-FORK TOPPED BATTERY)
KP323 (CUPPED TRI-FORK)
KP331 (POT WITH TRI-FORK TOP RIGHT)
KP332A (TRI-FORK TOPPED POT) (KP333-337)
KP351 (OVERLAPPING CIRCLES WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP356 (CIRCLE WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP357 (CIRCLE WITH DOUBLE LASHES & ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP364 (CIRCLED TRI-FORK)
KP365 (CAGED CIRCLED TRI-FORK)
KP390a (TRI-FORK & DOUBLE VEES IN DIAMOND)
KP390b (E TRI-FORK & VEE IN DIAMOND)
KP390c (TRI-FORK & VEE IN DIAMOND)
KP391 (CAGED TRI-FORK & VEE IN DIAMOND)
KP392 (VEE IN DIAMOND WITH ATTACHED TRI-FORK)
KP395 (VEE IN DIAMOND WITH ATTACHED E & BACK E TRI-FORKS)

Thus, this sign was one of the most popular signs, if all of its occurrences in ligatures are added to its independent occurrences.  But was it a plant, as Fairservis suggests?  It may have been an animal tail, since a goat has a trident tail on a seal from Banawali (B-9, homemade replica shown in the first illustration, above).  Then again, a trident is more than one thing in Old Chinese writing, so maybe it means more than one thing here too....

Bird Tracks

The next Indus sign is III10, QUOTE UNDER CHEVRON.  It looks like the letter "I" with a chevron over it, but I call it "quote" because the "I" portion is generally short.  It has also been KP138 and W243 but Fairservis does not list it.  Wells states that it only occurs doubled.  If that were true, it should be included in the 6-stroke signs.  On seals, it does appear followed by another QUOTE UNDER CHEVRON.  But on pots, it appears singly. 

Three-toed bird tracks ("Local Tracks of North America:
Quick-Guide to Commonly Seen Animal Tracks & Scats")

At first I thought it might be a variant of the more common SPEAR, a triangle on a post.  However, it appears along with the SPEAR in at least two instances (L-98 and M-650).  So it is not a variant of that sign.  It may be related to the next sign, SKEWERED CHEVRON, the sign I call the ARROW which is essentially a chevron on a post, and perhaps even the ANKH.  But all this is highly speculative.  Wells states that it occurs 6 times, ignoring the pots such as Hd-7.

There is nothing quite so simple as this in Egyptian hieroglyphs, but Luwian has a hieroglyph almost exactly like it.  The arrow, a chevron on a post, is the Luwian symbol for the syllable zi.  Although this is not listed as a sign in the Indus script to my knowledge, I seem to see it among those identified as the SKEWERED CHEVRON in Wells' list (K-9, H-597c impression).  Another Luwian sign appears to take similar elements and turn them about.  Recalling the tendency for the QUOTE UNDER CHEVRON to be doubled in inscriptions, note that Luwian mi is represented by | ( over the same two symbols.  In fact, the curve is more pronounced than in the parenthesis.

"Skewered Chevron" below Zigzag on pot

In the rock art of North America in both Texas and the far west, a bisected "V" or "U" shape appears often, sometimes ending with the base of the apparent letter, sometimes ending early and not attaching, sometimes penetrating and passing through (Newcomb 1996: 131, Pl. 87; Heizer and Baumhoff 1984; 143, fig. 79h; 151, fig. 98j).  These may be bird tracks.  In the Australian collection, the prints are shown in the opposite orientation, as a "V" shape rather than a chevron, with a dot at the bottom, two strokes at diagonals from this making a "V" shape, and a taller vertical (Flood 1997: 107, M section).  The dot and these lines are not attached and these are described as engraved bird tracks, at Red Gorge (or Deception Creek), Flinders Ranges, South Australia. 

The fact that the QUOTE UNDER CHEVRON generally appears in pairs may also indicate a possibility of it representing footprints.  The tracks of a variety of birds do present a three-pronged shape, or three toes forward and a fourth pointing backward, with many leaving an open space or a small dot at the join (localbirds.com 2010, PioneerCA).  Examples in North America include the heron, eagle, hawk, raven, and wild turkey.  The track of the great horned owl shows a different sort of pattern.

But I would not want to press this too far.  In Old Chinese there is a reasonably close parallel as well, go4, "A twig of bamboo, with a knot, and the whorl of pending branches inserted in the knot....By extension, an article.  Specificative of unities" (Wieger 1965: 198).  So, if the Indus symbol is not a footprint, perhaps it is a twig with a knot in it!

The Table Sign

The next Indus sign has had a number of names before TABLE and it may need a different one yet.  It is numbered III6 in my list, previously KP283, W237 and W239, Fairservis I-3.  I originally thought it looked like a square off version of our numeral seven, though sometimes a backward version.  It was then “square seven” and “back square seven,” rather clumsy appellations.  However, there are apparent numerals that better deserve the name “seven,” each comprising seven strokes.  So, I decided instead to call this one "jay" after the letter “J” and it became an upside-down version of that.  Thus it was “square down jay” and “back square down jay.”  Well, that was really too much.  Since I thought there was no right-side up version, it seemed I could just call it JAY / BACK JAY.  This might be preferable since one “leg” is usually longer than the other.  It does occur over other signs in this lop-sided form as well.  However, it seems possible that the form in which both legs are short where it occurs over other signs, the TABLE proper, may simply be a variant form of the JAY.  If there is only one sign with these two variants, it is better to have a single name.

Indus signs of 1-3 strokes

Assuming that all three forms are related, then III6a is the form most like our numeral 7, III6b is the backward variant of this, and III6c is the variant in which both legs are short, a form which should only occur in ligatures over another sign, according to other authors.  In reality, though, there really need to be more distinctions than this, since the relative length of the long and short legs varies, the width of the top horizontal line varies, and sometimes one leg is slightly curved.  When I look at all of the occurrences of this sign, I see about six that are somewhere in between the JAY and the TABLE forms, where both legs are either the same length or almost the same (K-40, Dlp-2, Rhd-160 through Rhd-165).

Indus signs of 3-4 strokes

Fairservis sees the “seven”-like symbol (or "a" variant) as a sickle and suggests the meaning “to reap or reaping.”  The KP283 sign is likewise a “seven” type or "a" variant.  This includes  M-632, K-45, Ad-8.  Those that are reversed include M-627, H-90, L-45, C-22, possibly Dlp-2 and Rhd-162 although these are difficult to judge.  I see K-40 as very close to even on both sides, but perhaps the right leg is slightly longer.  I cannot see any difference between the two sides on Rhd-160, 161, 162, 163, and 165.  Hence my judgement that there are 6 of the III6c variants as independent symbols.  Since some of the pot shards are broken, this judgement has to be something less than conclusive, however.

Indus signs of 4-5 strokes

No Egyptian hieroglyph is quite like this sign.  The reed shelter used as a phonetic symbol for the h sound starts out as the TABLE does.  That is, one begins by drawing three sides of a box.  But for this Egyptian glyph, one does not leave it at that as one does for the Indus sign ("c" variant).  Nor does one lengthen the last side of the box ("a" variant).  Instead, one almost closes the bottom of the box, then turns the line upward, partway into the box.  This creates a boxy spiral (Gardiner’s O4).

There is also a glyph that represents an adze (U19).  It begins with the same two strokes, an upward vertical and a crossing horizontal.  For the descending stroke on the right, however, the line is not perfectly vertical but curves outward after a short while.  It is as if the bottom of the Indus sign had been grasped by an angry hand and bent out of shape.

Old Chinese contains a character that vaguely resembles the III6b variant.  It is like an upside-down “J,” nicely curved.  There is also a wide horizontal just below the midline, however, which spoils the resemblance.  This is xun1, “to hover” (Wieger 1965: 37).  More similar in modern Chinese is the hook-like ji4 “to catch” (Wieger 1965: 38).  This now looks much like our numeral “7” only the downward stroke is more vertical and tends to have a hook-like mark at the bottom as the pen is lifted.

I found one example of a motif that closely resembles the III6a variant of the Indus sign in the rock art of Texas (Newcomb 1996: 151, Pl. 103, no. 9).  Farther west, I espied one each of the “a” and “b” variants (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 135, fig. 72b; 141, fig. 78c).  I have not seen this motif in Australian rock art.

This sign does not appear in proto-cuneiform but a similar shape does occur in proto-Elamite, though this is somewhat more complex (M321~b and M321~ha).  As is typical, the ancient Iranian equivalents are oriented horizontally instead of vertically.  And in this case, the long side of the symbol in both variants is made with doubled lines, ending in a truncated triangle.  The “b” variant also includes striping of the thicker leg while the “ha” variant adds a small rounded protuberance at the end of the shorter leg.

There are at least twelve Indus signs that include the TABLE in ligatured form, in one form or another.  Using KP numbers to identify them, these include KP137 (STACKED NINE UNDER TABLEc), KP180 (DEE WITH QUADRUPLE LASHES UNDER TABLEb), KP189 (ZIGZAG UNDER TABLEc), KP211 (STRIPED TRIANGLE UNDER TABLEc), KP212 (CAGED STRIPED TRIANGLE UNDER TABLEc), KP213 (STRIPED TRIANGLE UNDER DOUBLE TABLESc), KP222 (SPACESHIP UNDER TABLEc), KP243 (EX UNDER TABLEc), KP248 (QUADRUPLE DOTTED EX UNDER TABLEc), KP286 (EXIT UNDER TABLEc), KP294 (SQUARE AY UNDER TABLEc), and KP321 (PAW UNDER TABLEc). 

Clearly, the “c” variant is the most common in ligatures while the “a” and “b” variants are the most common independent forms.  Should these be separate signs or not?  How does one decide?  If we look at all of the examples, we seem to have all different lengths of “leg,” making it difficult to set a clear cut-off between TABLE (with equal leg lengths) and JAY (with unequal legs).  Thus, my inclination is to lump them together.  Others may feel differently.  Anyone who reads this is welcome to weigh in with thoughts and opinions on the matter!

As illustrations this time, I include my early attempts to make charts of the Indus signs with their major variants.  Ideally, at the end of this phase of my project, I will produce a larger and more comprehensive chart, including all variants of the Indus signs, as well as parallels in other symbols systems around the world.  It should then be possible to see at a glance whether or not there is or is not variation within the Indus script, whether or not there are indeed universal symbols, and if there are universals what these are.  If there are indeed any universal symbols, it should then be possible to determine whether these symbols are ascribed universal meanings.

 

The purposes in doing all this are several.  It is tempting to think that one can look at a sign in the Indus script and identify it either on the basis of what it seems to depict or on the basis of resemblance to a symbol in some other known script.  In making such an identification, it is then tempting to say that one has then identified the meaning of that sign in the Indus script.  For example, I might look at the FLAIL and say that it resembles the Egyptian hieroglyph for a flail, call it that, and claim that I have deciphered that Indus symbol.  But another person could look at the same Indus symbol, look at the same Egyptian hieroglyphs for a clue, and with equal justification call it an adze, considering that the Indus symbol resembles that Egyptian glyph more closely.  The Indus symbol is not identical to either Egyptian symbol, after all.  It might represent a flail.  It might be an adze.  It also might be something completely different, unrelated to either one.  This is such a simple little drawing, two strokes, it could be almost anything.  It might designate a finger gesture, a plant, a broken stick, a constellation. 

We are on no firmer ground when it comes to a more common symbol, such as the quartered circle or CIRCLED CROSS.  This one is as close to universal as any I have found, aside from the simple circle and line.  But whereas the symbol itself is easily found, the meaning differs widely.  It is a cultivated field in China, a basket or fire in a hearth to the Navaho, a sheep in Elam and Sumer, a village or town in Egypt.  What does that tell us about the Indus Valley?  I’m afraid it tells us nothing except that we simply cannot assume it means the same thing as one of the neighbors’ signs.

The point is this.  There are very few truly universal signs.  There are even fewer universal meanings -- if any.  I aim to discover whether there are any at all and thus far I have not found any.  If I find that there is a significant pattern among the Indus signs, say a larger number of complex signs with close parallels between Indus and proto-cuneiform signs or between Indus and proto-Elamite signs, then this might suggest a possibility for decipherment.  But if there are only a few parallels here and there between each type of symbol system, then we cannot rely on one symbol system as a simple key to the Indus script.

The Letter (Sign) Aitch

It takes three quick strokes to draw AITCH, which looks very much like our letter “H.”  That is obviously where I got the name for it.  The number I assigned is III5, while it is KP293b, W175, Fairservis G-6.  The last named scholar sees it as depicting a space between two poles (1992: 164).  Wells gives its total occurrences as only four, three times at Mohenjo daro, once at Harappa. 

Indus pot shard (Shah and Parpola 1991: 363, Rhd-115)

The Harappan occurrence is fairly tall and thin, the horizontal stroke placed close to the middle.  On seal M-274, the AITCH is even more slender and the horizontal is just below the middle.  On M-1164, the AITCH is wider and again the horizontal is centrally placed.  But on M-1204, the tall and thin AITCH has a very low horizontal.  Wells states that there is only one variety but I say that thin versus wide makes two.  And high-waisted versus low-waisted adds a third variety.  In addition, I find two more of this sign on pot shards from Rahman Deri, Rhd-171 and Rhd-172.  The photos show the sign sideways so that it looks more like an elongated capital “I” with enormous serifs.  But I believe it is the same AITCH.  That brings the total to a still measly 6.

There are two similar glyphs in ancient Egyptian.  One represents a channel filled with water (N36).  It is closer to the sideways image on the pots, since it is written with two horizontal lines parallel to one another.  These are joined with shorter lines.  Unlike the AITCH, the joining lines are not straight but slightly curved.  The other similar glyph is a later version of this same one (N23).  The straight horizontals become much shorter and the joining lines are no longer curved but have become two backslashes.  At this point it looks like a leaning Roman numeral II.

Re-Osiris, the good, great god
(from Nefertari's tomb)

Old Chinese also has two characters that resemble the sideways version of the AITCH.  The first is a close match, gong1, “It represents the ancient square [a tool].  By extension, work, skill, labour” (Wieger 1965: 212).  My modern Chinese dictionary clears its throat here, politely amending the meaning of this character as “a laborer, worker” (Far East Chinese-English Dictionary 2000).  The second character is more the upright letter “H” except that the outside lines are curved.  Thus, it is something like parentheses turned inside-out: ) (.  Then a short horizontal line joins them near the top.  This is jiung3, “The suburbs, the country, the space.  The two vertical strokes delineate the limits; the horizontal stroke represents the interval between them, the void space” (Wieger 1965: 94).  This is the 94^th radical now, which no longer resembles our letter in the least but has come to look more like the Indus element I term the TABLE (like a bracket [ but turned sideways like a coffee table).

There are motifs in the rock art of North America that resemble the AITCH, although none are as symmetrical and tidy as our letter and the Indus sign.  In each case, one vertical is shorter than the other.  Thus, when they are joined, the short one pulls the long one over.  Neither one ends up perfectly vertical.  The Texan AITCH is listing to the left (Newcomb 1996: 151, Pl. 102, no. 7).  Two AITCHES further west also lean to the left while a third tilts to the right (Heizer and Baumhoff 1984: 153, fig. 90m; 134, fig. 71a).

Proto-cuneiform does not include an AITCH.  However, there is a sign made with two long horizontal lines parallel to each other.  These are not normally joined, but rather each has a short stroke attached at a slight angle.  In one variant the two short strokes combine into a single stroke which, in effect, stands above the first of the two lines, passes through it and goes on to the second long line.  Thus, PA~a becomes a type of “H” lying down.  This came to mean “leaf, branch, wing, feather.”

Proto-Elamite has one symbol that contains two plus signs: + +.  A variant runs these together, making a type of low “H” with an overly long central horizontal (M007~b).  Another sign resembles an outlined letter “H” (M324).  The meanings are unknown. 

A word about proto-Elamite is in order.  Generally speaking, proto-Elamite signs can be divided into a very few classes.  There are numerical signs which are understood reasonably well through their similarity to proto-cuneiform.  There are also a few often repeated signs that apparently represent commodities, which appear alongside the numerical signs (Damerow and Englund 1989).  But the vast majority of signs, thought to represent “owners,” appear too seldom to be identified with any degree of accuracy.  This general state of affairs is largely due to the nature of the texts which are economic in nature. 

It may well be that the majority of signs in the Indus script also represent something akin to “owners,” whether people or institutions.  Some researchers have suggested that the small core of common signs in this script should represent phonetic symbols.  But I am skeptical.  It seems to me more likely that these represent commonly repeated concepts.  For example, in Egyptian hieroglyphs, one often sees the little flag that represents a deity (see second illustration above).  In this fully developed writing system it also has a phonetic realization (ntr), but this need not have been the case at the origin of the script.  This may not have been the case in the script of a neighboring civilization either, namely in the Indus Valley, where people may well have spoken more than one language.  It seems particularly unlikely that every single symbol should make use of the rebus principle right from the start.  That wasn’t the way it worked in Egypt or Sumer or China right from the start.  Why should it have worked that way in the Indus Valley?