This civilization thrived in the valley of the Indus River, covering parts of modern-day Pakistan, northwestern India, and eastern Afghanistan, during the 3rd to 2nd millennia BCE.
The Indus people left behind around 4,000 stone, bronze, and copper tablets inscribed with mysterious symbols and images of humans and animals, such as bulls and unicorns. No scholar has yet been able to decipher the inscriptions on these tablets. Researchers have confirmed that this writing system has no parallels in the world.
Now, the Indian government has launched an unexpected initiative. For anyone who can successfully decode these ancient letter-like symbols, the government is offering a reward of one million dollars.
“I am announcing a cash prize of one million U.S. dollars for individuals or organizations that can decipher the script,” said Muthuwel Karunanidhi Stalin, the Chief Minister of the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. According to him, the mystery has remained unsolved for 100 years, despite numerous attempts by archaeologists and experts.
What You Need to Know About the Indus Civilization
This civilization, also known as the Harappan, is the largest in terms of area but the least understood among the ancient major urban cultures. It flourished from 2600 to 1900 BCE and then suddenly vanished from historical records, as reported by the Daily Mail.
Scholars know very little about this people. The Indus did not leave behind archaeological evidence of wars or other historical events. They communicated using one of the most unusual writing systems in the world.
The shortest inscriptions consist of 5 characters, while the longest contain 34. Some experts even doubt that these symbols represent a language, suggesting they might be pictograms conveying religious or political messages.
The ruins of Indus settlements were accidentally discovered in the 1920s by British and Indian archaeologists. To date, researchers have excavated 1,000 of these settlements. Within them, they found the world’s earliest known toilets, as well as complex stone weights, drilled beads made of precious stones, and intricately carved stone seals.
“This was the largest urban culture of its time,” wrote scholar Andrew Robinson in a 2015 study published in the journal Nature.
Why did this civilization disappear? In recent years, archaeologists have frequently proposed two theories regarding this. The first suggests that climate change, specifically rising temperatures that led to a decrease in monsoon rains, resulted in catastrophic consequences for the entire population.
The second theory, supported by archaeological research, posits that deadly earthquakes were the cause of the Indus civilization’s disappearance.