Megalithic Symbols
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Megalithic Symbols
Megalithic markings, megalithic graffiti marks, megalithic symbols or non-Brahmi symbols are markings found on mostly potsherds found in Central India, South India and Sri Lanka during the Megalithic Iron Age period. A number of scholars have tried to decipher the symbols since 1878, and currently there is no consensus as to whether they constitute undeciphered writing or graffiti or symbols without any syllabic or alphabetic meaning. History Megalithic markings are usually found in burial sites but are also found in habitation sites as well. They are tentatively dated from 1000 BCE to 300 CE marking the transition of the proto-historic period into the historic period of South Asia. From archaeological stratigraphy, potsherds with and without symbols are usually found at the lowest level, followed by potsherds with mixed symbols and Brahmi or Tamil-Brahmi and eventually at the highest level potsherds are only found with Brahmi or Tamil-Brahmi etchings. From around 300 CE, they ...
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Potsherd
In archaeology, a sherd, or more precisely, potsherd, is commonly a historic or prehistoric fragment of pottery, although the term is occasionally used to refer to fragments of stone and glass vessels, as well. Occasionally, a piece of broken pottery may be referred to as a shard. While the spelling shard is generally reserved for referring to fragments of glass vessels, the term does not exclude pottery fragments. The etymology is connected with the idea of breakage, from Old English ''sceard'', related to Old Norse ''skarð'', "notch", and Middle High German ''schart'', "notch". A sherd or potsherd that has been used by having writing painted or inscribed on it can be more precisely referred to as an ostracon An ostracon (Greek: ''ostrakon'', plural ''ostraka'') is a piece of pottery, usually broken off from a vase or other earthenware vessel. In an archaeological or epigraphical context, ''ostraca'' refer to sherds or even small pieces of ston .... The analysis of ...
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Celt (tool)
In archaeology, a celt is a long, thin, prehistoric, stone or bronze tool similar to an adze, hoe, or axe. A shoe-last celt was a polished stone tool used during the early European Neolithic for felling trees and woodworking. Etymology The term "celt" seems to have come about from a copyist's error in many medieval manuscript copies of Job 19:24 in the Latin Vulgate Bible, which became enshrined in the authoritative Sixto-Clementine printed edition of 1592. Where all earlier versions (the Codex Amiatinus, for example) have ''vel certe'' (the Latin for 'but surely'), the Sixto-Clementine has ''vel celte''. The Hebrew has לעד (''lā‘aḏ'') at this point, which means 'forever'. The editors of the Oxford English Dictionary " nclineto the belief that ''celtis'' was a phantom word," simply a misspelling of ''certe''. However, some scholars over the years have treated ''celtis'' as a real Latin word. From the context of Job 19:24 ("Oh, that my words were inscribed with an i ...
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Ancient Indian Culture
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history covers all continents inhabited by humans in the period 3000 BCAD 500. The three-age system periodizes ancient history into the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, and the Iron Age, with recorded history generally considered to begin with the Bronze Age. The start and end of the three ages varies between world regions. In many regions the Bronze Age is generally considered to begin a few centuries prior to 3000 BC, while the end of the Iron Age varies from the early first millennium BC in some regions to the late first millennium AD in others. During the time period of ancient history, the world population was already exponentially increasing due to the Neolithic Revolution, which was in full progress. While in 10,000 BC, the world population stood a ...
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Megalithic Symbols
Megalithic markings, megalithic graffiti marks, megalithic symbols or non-Brahmi symbols are markings found on mostly potsherds found in Central India, South India and Sri Lanka during the Megalithic Iron Age period. A number of scholars have tried to decipher the symbols since 1878, and currently there is no consensus as to whether they constitute undeciphered writing or graffiti or symbols without any syllabic or alphabetic meaning. History Megalithic markings are usually found in burial sites but are also found in habitation sites as well. They are tentatively dated from 1000 BCE to 300 CE marking the transition of the proto-historic period into the historic period of South Asia. From archaeological stratigraphy, potsherds with and without symbols are usually found at the lowest level, followed by potsherds with mixed symbols and Brahmi or Tamil-Brahmi and eventually at the highest level potsherds are only found with Brahmi or Tamil-Brahmi etchings. From around 300 CE, they ...
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The Hindu
''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It began as a weekly in 1878 and became a daily in 1889. It is one of the Indian newspapers of record and the second most circulated English-language newspaper in India, after '' The Times of India''. , ''The Hindu'' is published from 21 locations across 11 states of India. ''The Hindu'' has been a family-owned newspaper since 1905, when it was purchased by S. Kasturi Ranga Iyengar from the original founders. It is now jointly owned by Iyengar's descendants, referred to as the "Kasturi family", who serve as the directors of the holding company. The current chairperson of the group is Malini Parthasarathy, a great-granddaughter of Iyengar. Except for a period of about two years, when S. Varadarajan held the editorship of the newspaper, the editorial positions of the paper were always held by members of the family or held under their direction. Histo ...
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Tamil Inscriptions
This is a list of archaeological artefacts and epigraphs which have Tamil inscriptions. Of the approximately 100,000 inscriptions found by the Archaeological Survey of India (2005 report) in India, about 60,000 were in Tamil Nadu Ancient Tamil Epigraphy * Burial of Adichanallur, Tamil Nadu skeletons were found buried in earthenware urns that contained Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions. *Keeladi excavation site in Tamil Nadu found with Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions in various structures and artifacts, on pottery with Tamil names such as ''Aathan'', ''Uthiran'', ''Kuviran-Aathan'' and ''Thisan''. * Anaikoddai seal (steatite seal), Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions mixed in with Megalithic Graffiti Symbols found in Anaikoddai, Sri Lanka, *Potsherds found in Kodumanal and Porunthal *Tamil-Brahmi script dating to 500 BCE found at Porunthal site is located 12 km South West of Palani, Tamil Nadu *Tamil-Brahmi script dating to 500 BCE found at Kodumanal, Chennimalai near Erode, Tami ...
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South Indian Inscriptions
''South Indian Inscriptions'' is an epigraphical series that has been published by the Archaeological Survey of India in 34 volumes from 1890 through the present. The texts are supplemented with summaries and an overview of the texts, both in English The series was originally edited by archaeologist E. Dinesh, then V. Venkayya and Rai Bahadur. Volumes * I: Tamil and Sanskrit Inscriptions from Stone and Copper-plate Edicts at Mamallapuram, Kanchipuram, in the North Arcot District, and other parts of the Madras Presidency. Chiefly collected in 1886-87. * II: Tamil Inscriptions of Rajaraja, Rajendra-Chola, and others in the Rajarajesvara Temple at Tanjavur. ** Part I: Inscriptions on the Walls of the Central Shrine, with Four Plates. ** Part II: Inscriptions on the Walls of the Enclosure, with Four Plates. * Part III: Supplement to the First and Second Volumes, with Eight Plates. * Part IV: Other Inscriptions of the Temple. * Part V: Pallava Copper-Plate Grants from Velurpalaya ...
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Early Indian Epigraphy
The earliest undisputed deciphered epigraphy found in the Indian subcontinent are the Edicts of Ashoka of the 3rd century BCE, in the Brahmi script. If epigraphy of proto-writing is included, undeciphered markings with symbol systems that may or may not contain linguistic information, there is substantially older epigraphy in the Indus script, which dates back to the early 3rd millennium BCE. Two other important archeological classes of symbols are found from the 1st millennium BCE, Megalithic graffiti symbols and symbols on punch-marked coins, though most scholars do not consider these to constitute fully linguistic scripts, and their semiotic functions are not well understood. Writing in Sanskrit (Epigraphical Hybrid Sanskrit, EHS) appears in the 1st to 4th centuries CE. Indian epigraphy becomes more widespread over the 1st millennium, engraved on the faces of cliffs, on pillars, on tablets of stone, drawn in caves and on rocks, some gouged into the bedrock. Later they ...
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Anaikoddai Seal
The Anaikoddai seal is a soapstone seal that was found in Anaikoddai, Sri Lanka during archeological excavations of a megalithic burial site by a team of researchers from the University of Jaffna. The seal was originally part of a signet ring and contains one of the oldest Brahmi inscriptions mixed with megalithic graffiti symbols found on the island. It was dated paleographically to the early third century BC. Inscription Although many pottery fragments have been found in excavations throughout Sri Lanka and South India that had both Brahmi and megalithic graffiti symbols side by side, the Anaikoddai seal is distinguished by having each written in a manner that indicates that the megalithic graffiti symbols may be a translation of the Brahmi. Read from right to left, the legend is read by most scholars in early Tamil as ''Koveta'' (Ko-ve-ta ). 'Ko' and 'Veta' both mean 'King' in Tamil and refers to a chieftain here. It is comparable to such names as Ko Ataṉ and Ko Putivira ...
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Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's Islam by country#Countries, second-largest Muslim population just behind Indonesia. Pakistan is the List of countries and dependencies by area, 33rd-largest country in the world by area and 2nd largest in South Asia, spanning . It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by India to India–Pakistan border, the east, Afghanistan to Durand Line, the west, Iran to Iran–Pakistan border, the southwest, and China to China–Pakistan border, the northeast. It is separated narrowly from Tajikistan by Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor in the north, and also shares a maritime border with Oman. Islamabad is the nation's capital, while Karachi is its largest city and fina ...
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Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Mohenjo-Daro (archaeological site, Pakistan) on Encyclopedia Britannica website
Retrieved 25 November 2019
ur, ) is an archaeological site in the province of , . Built around 2500 BCE, it was the largest settlement of the ancient , and one of the world's earliest major

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Puhar, Mayiladuthurai
Puhar (also known as Poompuhar) is a town in the Mayiladuthurai district in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It was once a flourishing ancient port city known as Kaveri Poompattinam, which is described in Sangam literature like Silappadikaram, Manimekalai, Pattinapalai and Akananuru as the capital of the Early Chola kings in Tamilakam. Puhar is located near the mouth of the Kaveri river, on the sea coast. It is mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. It has now been established by marine archaeological research (conducted by the National institute of marine archaeology, Goa) that much of the town was washed away by progressive erosion and floods. In the 1960s and 1970s, archaeological research was conducted under the leadership of the noted archaeologist K. V. Soundararajan. Submerged wharves and several meter lengths of pier walls excavated in recent times have corroborated the literary references to Poompuhar. It was rebuilt several times after that. Ancient ...
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