![\"Indus](\"https:\/\/th-thumbnailer.cdn-si-edu.com\/6I_MLhf6xkZO5Je_gfRAzPDirM8=\/1000x750\/filters:no_upscale():focal(2592x1728:2593x1729)\/https:\/\/tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/filer_public\/fe\/e0\/fee099a4-845b-4aae-9e4c-e46099875767\/harappan_seals_indus_valley.jpg\")
Seals with the signs and symbols of the Indus Valley civilization are waiting to be deciphered. More than 5,300 years ago, a civilization emerged along the lush basins of the\u00a0Indus River<\/a> in present-day northwest India and Pakistan. Its residents, mostly farmers and traders, lived in cities of baked brick, making it one of the world\u2019s earliest\u00a0urban civilizations<\/a>.<\/p>\n But around 2500 B.C.E., residents\u00a0migrated<\/a> away from big cities like\u00a0Harappa<\/a> and\u00a0Mohenjo-Daro<\/a>\u2014with estimated peak populations of\u00a080,000 residents<\/a> combined\u2014and dispersed into smaller villages in the foothills of the Himalayas. Eventually, the\u00a0Indus Valley civilization<\/a> faded away.<\/p>\n It left behind artifacts and archaeological sites that have kept scholars busy for centuries\u2014many featuring a mysterious script that nobody has been able to read. \u201cThe reason behind its demise remains a mystery, as do the rules and beliefs of the society, all possibly locked behind their yet-to-be deciphered language,\u201d as Regina Sienra writes for\u00a0My Modern Met<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n To encourage the decipherment of the ancient Indus script, the government of\u00a0Tamil Nadu<\/a>, a state in southern India, announced a massive cash prize for anyone\u2014scholar or amateur\u2014who can crack the code and begin the process of better understanding the enigmatic Indus Valley civilization.<\/p>\n The Indus River Valley, as seen from the International Space Station<\/p>\n Public domain via Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u201cWe have not been able to clearly understand the writing system of the once flourishing Indus Valley,\u201d says\u00a0M.K. Stalin<\/a>, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, according to Divya Chandrababu of the\u00a0Hindustan Times<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThe riddle hasn\u2019t been answered for the past 100 years despite several efforts by archaeologists and experts. I announce a cash prize of $1 million to individuals or organizations that decipher the script to the satisfaction of archaeological experts.\u201d<\/p>\n Stalin\u2019s announcement<\/a> comes on the heels of a recent archaeological study that suggests similarities between the mysterious Indus script and ancient graffiti in Tamil Nadu, on the other side of the country.<\/p>\n In the study,\u00a0K. Rajan<\/a>, an archaeologist at Pondicherry University, and R. Sivananthan, the deputy director of the state\u2019s archaeological department, digitized 15,000 graffiti-marked pot shards from 140 archaeological sites in Tamil Nadu and compared them against 4,000 examples of the Indus Valley script. They found that nearly 60 percent of the signs matched and 90 percent shared \u201cparallels,\u201d according to Arun Janardhanan of the\u00a0Indian Express<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n While the study could indicate cultural contact or shed light on the migration of the Indus people across modern-day India, the authors emphasized that their study took a \u201cmorphological approach,\u201d rather than a linguistic one. That is, aside from stirring up Tamil Nadu\u2019s interest in the far-flung Indus Valley, it hasn\u2019t brought archaeologists any closer to deciphering the million-dollar script.<\/p>\n
\n Gary Todd via Wikimedia Commons under CC0 1.0<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n![\"Indus](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Harappan_seals_(Indus_Valley).jpg#\/media\/File:Harappan_seals_(Indus_Valley).jpg\")