Science and Art of Calligraphy and Painting

Author(s): S Andhare
Publisher: Indian National Science Academy

Page 18

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Fig 12 Indus seals
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History of early scripts with special reference to Indus Valley Civilization.
A survey of ancient civilizations of the China, Japan and Korea and the Islamic Civilization of South west Asia and Africa, reveals that these countries have already assigned calligraphy, the status of a major art. The ancient civilization of India and Pakistan, namely the Indus Civilization is one of them. The turn of the century witnessed some of word's greatest archaeological discoveries; thanks to the pioneering efforts of some of the great archaeologists of the world, like Sir John Marshall, Alexander Cunningham, Burgess, Cousins, Sir Mortimer Wheeler and others that the past has been preserved for future.
Going back to the pre and Protohistory, the famous excavations at Mohanjo- Daro, Harappa (part of which is now in Pakistan), Lothal, Kalibangan, Dhola-vira and others have yielded calligraphic samples as 'Pictographs' in the form of seals and sealings. These extant remains evidence the art and craft of calligraphy going back to ca. 3000 B.C. That these seals, a term universally accepted among archaeologists, were moulded in