Tamil Nadu CM Stalin offers $1m prize for deciphering Indus Valley script

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin on Sunday announced a $1 million reward to anyone who convincingly deciphers the Indus Valley script.

"The Indus script remains a mystery," he said, urging archaeologists, linguistic scholars and computer experts at the inauguration of a three-day international conference on the centenary year celebration of the discovery of Indus Valley Civilisation. John Marshall announced the discovery in 'The Illustrated London News' on Sept 20, 1924.

"The Indus culture has striking similarities with the Tamil culture," Stalin said, releasing a study on Indus signs and graffiti marks of Tamil Nadu. Drawing parallels, he referred to practices of burying the dead, taming the bulls, and making black and redware potteries. The discovery of carnelian beads and agate at excavation sites in Tamil Nadu hold testimony to this, he said.

"The recent dating of iron objects at archaeological sites such as Sivakalai, Adhichanallur, Mayiladumparai, Mangadu, Kilnamandi, and Telanganur shows iron age in Tamil Nadu and the one in Indus are contemporaries," the chief minister said.

Stalin announced the establishment of a chair in the name of Iravatham Mahadevan at the Indus Research Centre of Roja Muthiah Research Library (RMRL) at Rs 2 crore to conduct research on IVC. He announced an annual award for two scholars in archaeology, epigraphy, and numismatics. Minister for finance and archaeology Thangam Thennarasu said the Indus script had remained a mystery even after a century of the discovery of the civilisation. "Scholars were not able to decipher the logo-syllabic script in the absence of a Rosetta stone-type of bilingual script. There was no relic of horses in the Indus civilization.

Based on material evidence, script, and literature, only Dravidian civilisation has links with the Indus civilisation. There were references to camels in the Sangam literature, which also establishes its links with us," Thennarasu said.

Historians Romila Thapar, Nayanjot Lahiri, Sudeshna Guha, TN chief secretary N Muruganandam and commissioner of archaeology T Udhayachandran spoke at the conference.