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Symbols scratched into pots after they were fired are called graffiti.Graffiti probably developed at the same time as potter's marks,around 4000 BCE,but the earliest examples from Harappa date to around 3300 BCE.They count as the earliest evidence for writing in the Indus Valley.By about 2800-2600 BCE,the symbols that began as graffiti had become a written language,one that was spreading rapidly throughout the region.
Why did writing spread so quickly? For one thing,it was useful,especially to merchants who traveled throtghout the Indus Valley.They used square seals with animal designs and bold script across the the top to seal goods for trade.They also developed a system of tablets for keeping accounts.Archaeologists have recently found a building that was a kind of “mint” that made the tablets that merchants used to keep track of their goods.
Merchants weren't the only people who were quick to see the power of the written word.Religious leaders may have used writing to record the names of deities and important religious rituals.
Archaeologists have been trying to understand the Indus script for more than a hundred years－without any luck.For one thing,they've only found about 2,000 examples of it,and none of the examples has more than 23 symbols (most have only five).But they have been able to figure out a few of its features.They know that the Indus script is not directly related to any known writing system.They know that it was written from right to left (as is the script used to write Urdu,the modern language of Pakistan). But sometimes longer inscriptions are written from the right in the first line,then from left to right on the mext line,and so on,back and forth until the end.This type of writing style is called boustrophedon,a Greek word that means “as the ox turns,”because it moves down one row and up the next,the way oxen plow a field,or people mow the lawn.
