Author: Marta Ameri Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108173519 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 524
Book Description
Studies of seals and sealing practices have traditionally investigated aspects of social, political, economic, and ideological systems in ancient societies throughout the Old World. Previously, scholarship has focused on description and documentation, chronology and dynastic histories, administrative function, iconography, and style. More recent studies have emphasized context, production and use, and increasingly, identity, gender, and the social lives of seals, their users, and the artisans who produced them. Using several methodological and theoretical perspectives, this volume presents up-to-date research on seals that is comparative in scope and focus. The cross-cultural and interdisciplinary approach advances our understanding of the significance of an important class of material culture of the ancient world. The volume will serve as an essential resource for scholars, students, and others interested in glyptic studies, seal production and use, and sealing practices in the Ancient Near East, Egypt, Ancient South Asia and the Aegean during the 4th-2nd Millennia BCE.
Author: Asko Parpola Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190226919 Category : Religion Languages : en Pages : 385
Book Description
Hinduism has two major roots. The more familiar is the religion brought to South Asia in the second millennium BCE by speakers of Aryan or Indo-Iranian languages, a branch of the Indo-European language family. Another, more enigmatic, root is the Indus civilization of the third millennium BCE, which left behind exquisitely carved seals and thousands of short inscriptions in a long-forgotten pictographic script. Discovered in the valley of the Indus River in the early 1920s, the Indus civilization had a population estimated at one million people, in more than 1000 settlements, several of which were cities of some 50,000 inhabitants. With an area of nearly a million square kilometers, the Indus civilization was more extensive than the contemporaneous urban cultures of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Yet, after almost a century of excavation and research the Indus civilization remains little understood. How might we decipher the Indus inscriptions? What language did the Indus people speak? What deities did they worship? Asko Parpola has spent fifty years researching the roots of Hinduism to answer these fundamental questions, which have been debated with increasing animosity since the rise of Hindu nationalist politics in the 1980s. In this pioneering book, he traces the archaeological route of the Indo-Iranian languages from the Aryan homeland north of the Black Sea to Central, West, and South Asia. His new ideas on the formation of the Vedic literature and rites and the great Hindu epics hinge on the profound impact that the invention of the horse-drawn chariot had on Indo-Aryan religion. Parpola's comprehensive assessment of the Indus language and religion is based on all available textual, linguistic and archaeological evidence, including West Asian sources and the Indus script. The results affirm cultural and religious continuity to the present day and, among many other things, shed new light on the prehistory of the key Hindu goddess Durga and her Tantric cult.
Author: Asko Parpola Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 9780521795661 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 400
Book Description
Of the writing systems of the ancient world which still await deciphering, the Indus script is the most important. It developed in the Indus or Harappan Civilization, which flourished c. 2500-1900 BC in and around modern Pakistan, collapsing before the earliest historical records of South Asia were composed. Nearly 4,000 samples of the writing survive, mainly on stamp seals and amulets, but no translations. Professor Parpola is the chief editor of the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions. His ideas about the script, the linguistic affinity of the Harappan language, and the nature of the Indus religion are informed by a remarkable command of Aryan, Dravidian, and Mesopotamian sources, archaeological materials, and linguistic methodology. His fascinating study confirms that the Indus script was logo-syllabic, and that the Indus language belonged to the Dravidian family.
Author: Jagat Pati Joshi Publisher: ISBN: Category : India Languages : en Pages : 488
Book Description
"The CISI series publishes for researchers the sealing and inscription materials of the current Indus culture (c. 2600–1900 BC), which flourished in Pakistan and northwestern India, as completely as possible and in the highest quality images possible. The material systematically documented in the series lays the foundation for an up-to-date study of the writing, religion, and art history of the still poorly known Indus culture. The latest part of a long-running international publishing project brings readers access to seal and inscription finds from smaller excavation sites of Indus culture and its pre-stages."--
Author: Mortimer Wheeler Publisher: CUP Archive ISBN: 9780521069588 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 208
Book Description
This book discusses climate and dating of the Indus Valley civilization and Sir Mortimer Wheeler summarizes other contributions to the study.
Author: Dennys Frenez Publisher: Archaeopress Access Archaeology ISBN: 9781784919177 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 640
Book Description
This volume, a compilation of original papers written to celebrate the outstanding contributions of Jonathan Mark Kenoyer to the archaeology of South Asia over the past 40 years, highlights recent developments in the archaeological research of ancient South Asia, with specific reference to the Indus Civilisation.
Author: N. Jha Publisher: ISBN: Category : Harappa Site (Pakistan) Languages : en Pages : 308
Book Description
The present volume is devoted to the study of the Indus script and its decipherment. It offers a methodology for reading the Indus script by combining paleography with ancient literary accounts and Vedic grammar.These illustrate the methodology and also help shed new light on the Harappans and their connections with the Vedic Civilization.The language of the seals is Vedic Sanskrit,with a significant number of them containing words and phrases traceable to the ancient Vedic glossary Nigha, compiled from still earlier sources by Yaska.
Author: Marta Ameri
Author: Asko Parpola
Author: Asko Parpola
Author: Jagat Pati Joshi
Author: Mortimer Wheeler
Author: Dennys Frenez
Author: S. M. Sullivan
Author: Harriet E. W. Crawford
Author: N. Jha
Author: Shikaripur Ranganatha Rao