A statistical comparison of written language and nonlinguistic symbol systems

Figure 8.

Indus repetitions, from Farmer et al. 2004, figure 6. As described there, these are: ‘Examples of the most common types of Indus sign repetition.…The most frequent repeating Indus symbol is the doubled sign illustrated in M-382 A, which is sometimes claimed to represent a field or building, based on Near Eastern parallels. The sign is often juxtaposed (as here) with a human or divine figure carrying what appears to be one (or in several other cases) four sticks. M-634 a illustrates a rare type of sign repetition that involves three duplications of the so-called wheel symbol, which other evidence suggests in some cases served as a sun/power symbol; the sign shows up no less than four times on the badly deteriorated Dholavira signboard (not shown), which apparently once hung over (or guarded?) the main gate to the city’s inner citadel. The color photo of MD-1429 is reproduced from M. Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1998, p. 85, exhibition catalog number MD 602. The sign on either side of the oval symbols in the inscription is the most common symbol in the Indus corpus, making up approximately 10% of all symbol cases; despite its high general frequency, repetitions of the symbol in single inscriptions, of the kind seen here, are relatively rare.’