[Y-Indology] [ Y.Indology] Conferece on Indus Valley

[Guest guest]

Dear Shourkat Shoro,

 

No formal papers were presented at the Long Beach conference, so in

this case there will be no published proceedings. There is no

up-to-date comprehensive bibliography in Indus studies, so the best way

to start a literature search is to begin with the most recent full

reviews, and then to track down more specialized studies through the

bibliographies in the papers cited in them. The bibliography in

Kenoyer's Oxford U. Press book is a good general place to start since

he is co-director of the Harappa project, where the broadest Indus

excavations have occurred in recent decades. Many of the old excavation

reports by Marshall, Mackay, Vats, Rao, etc., are still absolutely

critical to any work in the field, for many reasons, and relatively

inexpensive reprint volumes of these are generally in print in India.

Any real work in the field requires a full set.

 

The issue on Indus symbols at present is very much in flux, and will be

changing even more when Vol. III of the _Corpus of Indus Seals and

Inscriptions_ is published, which is supposed to happen very soon.

There is much that is going on in this subfield that has only been

presented so far in lectures, informal publications, or fairly

inaccessible journals, and you can expect an explosion of publications

with new viewpoints both right before and after Vol. III makes it to

print. The volume will contain, among other things, hundreds of

unpublished inscriptions (or those currently only published in

difficult-to-get journals or excavation reports) that have come out of

the Harappa project since 1989 (the last year covered in the current

two volumes). The quality of the photographs of these new materials

goes far beyond those found in the first two volumes, thanks to the

superb photographic work by Richard Meadow, of the Harappa Project.

(For some of these materials, since the indispensable project website

at http://www.harappa.com .) Vol. III is also supposed to contain the

best available old photos from the archives of the Archaeological

Survey of the hundreds of important (and often very anomalous!)

inscriptions that were lost in mysterious circumstances the 1920s and

30s. (Many apparently were stolen or, as archaeologists put it

euphemistically, "found their way into private collections.") None of

these hundreds of inscriptions are shown in the existing two volumes of

the _Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions_, which is one reason why

any work on the inscriptions absolutely requires access to the old

excavation reports. Whatever sources you consult, it is important that

any work on the inscriptions focuses on _photographs_ and NOT from the

transcriptions of inscriptions in the concordances or other studies ,

which (as I've shown in my own work) badly distort and "linearize" the

inscriptions, stripping them of much of their historical value and

making them look unreasonably like part of a phonetic writing system,

which they certainly were not.

 

One Indus field that is really exploding now, and is not covered well

in most review books, pertains to studies of Indus agriculture, animal

husbandry, fishing, etc. Steven Weber, one of the presenters at the

Long Beach conference, has just co-edited a very important volume of

studies on these topics: Steven Weber and William Belcher, _Indus

ethnobiology: new perspectives from the field_ (Lanham, Md: Lexington

Books: 2003). I cite below a list of the articles in the book, which is

well worth buying (unfortunately, the publisher is small). You will

find that the additional bibliographical materials that you'll find in

these articles are very rich and important:

 

The Indus civilization: an introduction to environment, subsistence and

cultural history / Gregory L. Possehl -- Vegetation history and wood

exploitation in Pakistani Baluchistan from the Neolithic to the

Harappan period: the evidence from charcoal analysis / Margareta

Tengberg and Stéphanie Thiébault -- Prehistoric pastoralism in

northwestern South Asia from the Neolithic through the Harappan period

/ Richard H. Meadow and Ajita K. Patel -- Fish exploitation of the

Indus Valley tradition / William R. Belcher -- Archaeobotany at

Harappa: indications for change / Steven A. Weber -- Investigating

agriculture and environment in South Asia: present and future

contributions of opal phytoliths / Marco Madella -- Secondary products

and urbanism in South Asia: the evidence for traction at Harappa /

Laura J. Miller -- Food and fodder: plant usage and changing

sociocultural landscapes during the Harappan phase in Gujarat, India /

Seetha N. Reddy -- Indus and non-Indus agricultural traditions: local

developments and crop adoptions on the Indian peninsula / Dorian Q.

Fuller -- Minimizing risk?: approaches to pre-Harappan human ecology on

the northwest margin of the Greater Indus system / Kenneth D. Thomas.

 

Finally, I should mention that archaeological work in areas in Eastern

Iran is exploding right now due to the recent discoveries around

Jiroft, and everyone is waiting to see how this affects Indus studies,

since the level of material wealth in this previously unknown

civilization may have far exceeded that found in the Indus Valley. A

recent group of articles on the Jiroft finds is found in Vol. 287 (Oct.

2003) of the French journal _Dossiers d'Archeologie_. The volume is

only around 10 Euros with free shipping, and can be ordered online from

the publisher at www.dossiers-archeologie.com . Preliminary reports on

Jiroft finds are also found in the American journal _Science_ 302 (7

November 2003). Excavations in this region stopped essentially in the

1970s because of the political troubles in Iran, and are only now

beginning. Even more important now would be expanded excavations in

Afghanistan and Pakistan, but for obvious reasons that is not going to

happen again for a long time, I'm afraid.

 

Warm regards,

Steve Farmer

http://www.safarmer.com/downloads

 

On Sunday, April 11, 2004, at 02:31 AM, shoukat hussain wrote:

 

> On the e.mail I found the program of the Indus Valley

> conference reported by shri Mahadev Deshponde . I am Director of the

> Institute of Sindhology , University Of Sindh , Jamshoro, Pakistan.

> (www.sindhology.com.pk ) Obviously I am interested in the research

> work on the Greater Indus valley and Sarswati . I would like to know

> the recent interpretations. I n Sindh , J.M.Kenoyer , Gregory Possehl

> and Mahadevan are very well known and respected as their research work

> is being studied and discussed . I would like to have published

> proceedings of the conference on Indus Valley . These proceedings and

> articles will benefit to our reseach scholars. Could some one please

> help me.

> Shoukat H. Shoro

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