$1m prize offered to decipher 5,300-year-old ancient script and unlock secrets of lost civilisation shrouded in mystery
SCIENTISTS are offering someone $1 million if they can solve a mystery from the Bronze Age.
Researchers have long been trying to solve an ancient script from the Indus Valley Civilisation that existed between 5,300 and 3,300 years ago.
The civilisation in the northwestern parts of South Asia existed between 2600 BCE and 1900 BCE covering much of modern-day Pakistan, northwestern India and northeast Afghanistan.
An ancient script made up of signs and symbols by people from the Indus civilisation could give scientists a major insight into one of the world's earliest urban societies but no one has officially cracked it.
According to computer scientist Rajesh PN Rao, he receives numerous emails from self-declared codebreakers, mainly from India or of Indian birth saying they have solved the script.
He told the : "They claim they've solved it and that the 'case is closed.'"
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But the University of Washington Professor says that these answers ignore key facts about the script.
So, to boost efforts to solve it, the chief minister of India's Tamil Nadu state, MK Stalin has announced a $1 million prize (£800,000) for anyone who figures out the ancient code.
The minister said: "I announce a cash prize of $1 million to individuals or organisations that decipher the script to the satisfaction of archaeological experts."
It came after a new study suggested that there were key similarities between the symbols in the script and those found on ancient Tamil pottery.
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The Indus Civilisation, also known as Harappan, was made up of farmers and traders who lived in walled and brick cities with around 2,000 sites discovered across the region.
It is not known why or how the civilisation rapidly declined with no signs of famine or warfare left behind when its ruins were discovered in the 1920s by British and Indian archaeologists.
But other key secrets such as the language, beliefs, and how the civilisation was structured are all thought to be hidden behind the script of signs and symbols.
A leading Indologist told the BBC: "The Indus script is perhaps the most important system of writing that is undeciphered."
There are around 4,000 scripts that have been found on a variety of objects like pottery, tablets, and stone seals.
Each script has an average of five signs or symbols with no long texts.
What do we know about the Indus Valley Civilisation?
The Indus Valley Civilisation existed across northwestern parts of South Asia between 5,300 and 3,300 years ago during the Bronze Age.
It covered much of modern-day Pakistan, northwestern India and northeast Afghanistan.
The Indus Valley civilisation was one of the world's earliest urban societies.
The civilisation, also known as Harappan, was made up of farmers and traders who lived in walled and baked-brick cities.
Their cities were at their peak between 2600 BC and 1900 BC.
The demise of the population was sudden and scientists still do not know what happened with no evidence of armies or warfare.
On many of the square seals bearing the script, the writing runs on the top of the seal and an animal motif, often a unicorn, is in the middle with an object next to it.
Researchers have no answers to any of the markings found on the stone seals or other objects.
Some believe it could be connected to early Brahmi scripts, Dravidian and Indo-Aryan languages or early Hindu scriptures with a religious, spiritual, or magical meaning or inscription.
Others think the script is made up of political or religious symbols.
But, Rao notes that many of these theories attempting to solve the script ignore where it has been found.
The pattern of signs and symbols has been primarily found on stone seals used in trade and commerce.
It is for this reason that Rao does not believe that they indicate anything religious or spiritual.
No artefact has been found that shows a translation of the symbols into another language that can be decoded.
Even computer science has not been able to crack the message when researchers have used it to try and identify patterns and structures.
Nisha Yadav, a researcher at the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research said: 'We still don't know whether the signs are complete words, or part of words or part of sentences."
But, some patterns were found and she added: "Our understanding is that the script is structured and there is an underlying logic in the writing."
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Yadav and her colleagues found 67 signs that make up 80% of the script with the most common being what looks like a jar with two handles.
But despite the monetary incentive to crack the 5,000 year-old code, Yadav and fellow researchers do not believe and answer will come any time soon.
