'Story or History of writing'/Part:13

Genographic project is a study that aims to map historical human migration patterns by collecting and analyzing DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people from around the world. In truth we now know, based on recent scientific studies of DNA, that modern humanity originated in Africa, that African people are the world's original people, and that all modern humans can ultimately trace their ancestral roots back to Africa. Around the time that people were first venturing outside the continent, hunting and gathering was still the lifestyle of choice. Humans lived in

communities that rarely exceeded a couple of hundred individuals, and social bonds were formed to enable these small bands of people to share food resources and hunt cooperatively. With the evolution of language, these bonds blossomed into the beginnings of society and culture as we know it today. The first moves away from the nomadic hunter–gatherer way of life came between 14,000 BC and 9500 BC, a time when rainfall was high and the Sahara and North Africa became verdant. It was in these green and pleasant Fertile Crescent lands that stretching in a broad semicircle from the Nile to the Tigris and Euphrates, the first farmers were born, and mankind learned to cultivate crops rather than following prey animals from place to place. The

civilizations in Mesopotamia was Recognisable since 5000 BC, though the written records exist only from 3300 BC and this great civilisation fell around 2000 BC, The last year of the Sumerian civilization was 1750 B.C. when neighboring peoples invaded Sumer, carried away the king and established themselves in the land; the Sumerian people began moving , Some may be remain there and mixed with invaders and many others may be  migrated into the plain of the Indus valley probably through Baluchistan and thence ultimately passed down into the regions south of the Vindhya, where the four southern states lie. It is also worth to note that, early civilizations which arose in the valleys of the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates,and lastly of the Indus, bore the marks of black men .                      

Harappa of the Indus valley civilization was originally a small settlement in 3500 BC but Indus valley civilization first developed fully some 4,500-5,000 years ago. They had trade relationship with Mesopotamia. During the later 3rd millennium was a direct one: ships from Meluhha (the Indus) docked in Mesopotamian ports; some Meluhhans settled in Sumer too. Dilmun operated as a middleman between Mesopotamia and the Indus in some of this trade, and after the Ur III state collapsed its role in this grew: in the early 2nd millennium BC both Harappan and Mesopotamian ships sailed only to Bahrain, which acted as an entrepot between them. This would be the place one might expect to find a bilingual, but it hasn't happened yet: There are local seals with Harappan inscriptions, but the local seals are otherwise uninscribed. It seems probable that the Harappans used perishable materials for their records, and presumably this would have applied to records of their transactions in Dilmun too. 

By 1800 BCE, the Indus Valley Civilization saw the beginning of their decline: Writing started to disappear, standardized weights and measures used for trade and taxation purposes fell out of use, the connection with the Near East was interrupted, and some cities were gradually abandoned. The reasons for this decline are not entirely clear, but it is believed that the drying up of the Saraswati River or a large group of nomadic cattle-herders, the Aryans, migrated into the region from central Asia or both were the main cause. Other experts speak of a great flood in the area. Either event would have had catastrophic effects on agricultural activity, making the economy no longer sustainable and breaking the civic order of the cities and all these pushed Dravidians or Indus valley people southward, and the Indus valley settlements were turned into ruins by around 1700 BC, and did not reappear for another 1,000 years or so, when they re appear ,they were sangam tamils of south India, where they remain ever since. All of these clearly indicate that Proto-Dravidian [or Tamil dravidian] speakers' writing were atleast for about 5000 years in India.Therefore to know the origin of tamil letters, we must analyze the indus valley script first?

As an example, Among the rubble of Indus Valley

excavations along with prototype of the Shiva lingam—phallic-shaped rocks,they also found another deity. The syllables AH, MU ,VAN defines the primordial God, who also functions as a "Cosmic Man".This deity, "Ahmuvan". is pictured on Indus Valley tablets as an elongated anthropomorphic figure with three protuberances in the head and it is now suggested to be associated with the Tamil god "Murugan".Not only that, The Tamil alphabet which is read as 'AH' metamorphosed from an earlier script, Tamil Vattezhuthu that is also read as 'AH' has its origin from this indus valley, Draco constellation, which read as 'AH' and the first letter of 'AH', 'MU' ,'VAN'. Here the direction of writing as right to left in Indus script, So written as 'VAN','MU','AH'. All of These links further confirm the the connection between Tamil & Indus Valley! More Indus Valley Scripts and its possible Interpretations are also attached.

So-called 'plant-like' and 'trident-shaped' markings have been  found on fragments of pottery dating back 5500 years at  Harappa is attached here. According to Dr Richard Meadow of Harvard University,the director of the Harappa Archaeological Research Project, these primitive inscriptions found on pottery may pre-date all other known writing. It probably suggests that writing developed independently in at least three places - Egypt, Mesopotamia and Harappa between 3500 BC and 3100 BC.

[Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam]

Part:14 will follow