Tamil Nadu CM Stalin offers $1 million reward for decoding Indus Valley script

Stalin inaugurated a three-day international conference to mark the centenary of the discovery of the Indus civilisation.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin announced a $1 million reward for anyone who deciphers the Indus Valley script. At an international conference on the centenary of the Indus Valley civilisation’s discovery, Stalin highlighted the script’s enduring mystery and its cultural links to Tamil traditions.

Inaugurating a three-day international conference to mark the centenary of the discovery of the Indus civilisation, Stalin said,"We are still unable to clearly understand the script of the Indus valley civilsation that once flourished." Efforts are on to this day by scholars to solve the riddle and to encourage such efforts, a prize of US dollar 1 million will be provided to individuals or organisations that solves the riddle, he announced.

The Indus civilsation, one of the earliest, is reputed for its urban culture and its script has not been decrypted yet. The fading away of such a civilisation, and its context, also remains a riddle.

A report by Times of India stated that a Tamil Nadu archaeology department study has revealed that over 90% of the ancient graffiti marks found at 140 archaeological sites in the state, including Keeladi, have parallels or similarities with those of the Indus Valley civilisation that existed from around 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE. Researchers studied 15,184 graffiti signs inscribed on potsherds unearthed from these sites, discovering that some signs had exact parallels while others had near similarities.

“The exact shapes and their variants found in south India and Indus scripts indicate that they were not accidental,” archaeologist K Rajan told TOI. He said the Indus script or signs likely evolved over time rather than disappearing without a trace.

The study reveals several common symbols between south India and Indus Valley, including upward-facing arrows with triangle or flower-shaped heads, fish signs (stylish and exact forms), U-shaped signs, plain circles, ladder symbols, square boxes, X-shaped signs, and swastika-like signs (both clockwise and anti-clockwise).