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Short inscriptions nobody can read.
Also known as: Harappan script, Indus Valley signs
The sign system of the Indus Valley civilisation, undeciphered and disputed even as writing.
Appears on Indus Valley seals, tablets and pottery and has not been deciphered.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
The inscriptions are extremely short and no bilingual text is known, which are the two conditions that make decipherment possible and are both absent here.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Whether the signs encode language at all is itself disputed among specialists, so the record does not assume the system is writing.
It is contested whether the Indus signs represent language.
Contexts: Language and transcription, History
Short sequences of signs, typically five or six, incised on stamp seals above an animal figure, with several hundred distinct signs recorded.