© Harappa Archaeological Research Project, in Yadav et al 2010 PLOS One
A typical seal of the Indus Valley Civilization, containing undeciphered signs.
A typical seal of the Indus Valley Civilization, containing undeciphered signs.
But if it's fame you're after (as well as intense scrutiny and even death threats) there's no better challenge than the symbols of the Indus Valley Civilization, which flourished some 4,000 years ago in present-day Pakistan and northwest India.
From this culture, archaeologists have recovered several thousand short inscriptions, most with just 4 or 5 signs. There is no consensus on how to read them, although dozens of speculative decipherments have been proposed over the past century.
Complicating efforts, the underlying language the script is tied to is disputed, and there are complex modern-day political ramifications to the question. Rival ethnic groups claim to descend from this once-great civilization and knowing its language would help cement cultural ties. Hence the reported threats to scholars immersed in the matter.
Furthermore, some researchers go so far as to deny the existence of an underlying language. That is, they argue the Indus inscriptions were not true writing - visible signs that unambiguously represent speech - but an alternate symbolic system similar to emblems, conveying more general meanings.
Despite naysayers and challenges, decipherment efforts have progressed in the past decade, thanks to better databases of texts and new computational methods for finding patterns among the signs. Here's what we know, for now.
Comment: One wonders what brought about such a brutal and morbid practice, one that apparently continued for centuries: