Which statement about the script of the Indus Valley Civilisation is correct?
- A.It was alphabetic and has been fully deciphered
- B.It was pictographic, written boustrophedon, and remains undeciphered
- C.It was written only from left to right in Brahmi letters
- D.It was borrowed unchanged from Mesopotamian cuneiform
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B. The Harappan script uses about four hundred picture-like signs, and it was written in the boustrophedon style, that is from right to left in the first line and then from left to right in the next, turning like an ox ploughing a field. Since the inscriptions are very short and no bilingual text exists, no reading has been accepted, and the civilisation is therefore called proto-historic.
Option A is wrong on both counts: the signs are far too many for an alphabet and no decipherment has been agreed. Option C names Brahmi, a much later script of the historical period, first read from the inscriptions of Ashoka. Option D is wrong because the Harappans traded with Mesopotamia but wrote in a script of their own, quite unlike cuneiform, which was pressed into clay with a wedge-shaped stylus.
Read the full article: Indus Valley Civilisation: Sites, Town Planning and Decline
Practice Questions
View allThe Great Bath of the Indus Valley Civilisation was found at which site?
- A.Harappa
- B.Mohenjo-daro
- C.Lothal
- D.Kalibangan
Show answer
The Great Bath stands in the citadel of Mohenjo-daro in Sindh. It is a brick tank about twelve metres long and seven metres wide, with flights of steps at two ends, small rooms around it and a layer of natural tar below the floor to stop water from seeping away.
Read the full explanation →The only Harappan site with an artificial dockyard has been identified at which place?
- A.Lothal
- B.Surkotada
- C.Chanhudaro
- D.Banawali
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Lothal lies on the Bhogava, a tributary of the Sabarmati in Gujarat, and its eastern side holds a large brick basin connected to the river by a channel.
Read the full explanation →Harappa was excavated in 1921 by which archaeologist?
- A.R. D. Banerji
- B.Sir John Marshall
- C.Daya Ram Sahni
- D.Mortimer Wheeler
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He dug at Harappa on the bank of the Ravi in 1921, and the finds from that season identified a wholly unknown urban culture, which was named after the site.
Read the full explanation →Evidence of a ploughed field, the earliest in the subcontinent, was found at which Harappan site?
- A.Dholavira
- B.Kalibangan
- C.Rakhigarhi
- D.Alamgirpur
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Kalibangan stands on the dry bed of the Ghaggar in the Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan. A field there, belonging to the pre-Harappan level, carries two sets of furrows crossing each other at right angles, showing that two crops were grown in the same plot at the same time.
Read the full explanation →Bricks used in Harappan houses were made in which fixed ratio of length, breadth and thickness?
- A.1:2:4
- B.2:2:1
- C.4:2:1
- D.3:2:1
Show answer
A Harappan burnt brick was four units long, two units broad and one unit thick, and the same proportion turns up at sites hundreds of kilometres apart.
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