Indus Valley Civilization feature on German TV
Because my harddrives have become full lately I’ve begun to convert all the old television recordings into MPEG4. Among them there is a little feature on the Indus Valley Civilization which run on German television in 2008 and which now has become small enough to upload: it’s now to be found here. I’ve been told that the Americans do not agree with the manner facts are presented here, among other things it is claimed again that the Indus people used a script with remained undeciphered so far. At this point the makers of the documentation presumably followed Michael Jansen from the Stadtbaugeschichte at the RWTH Aachen where a project on Mohenjo-Daro was going on and with whom it seems they have worked together mainly. The position that the Indus Culture most probably not possessed no writing at all – deciphered nor undeciphered – was neglected throughout although the producers have been in Harvard and Michael Witzel and the others emphasized that point in the interviews. The documentation with its staged footage is certainly directed to a wider audience and so we may suppose that the story of the mysterious undeciphered script has been considered to be just more exiting. Anyway, I can’t remember another instance of Indology being in prime time television that way and on the following day there were several friends and siblings congratulating me for studying such an interesting and relevant subject – an unforgettable (and suppposingly single) affair.
Just a lateral point: One cannot but speak badly about TV and popular media. But could not we try to be more appealing to a wider audience (if we enjoy the feeling or even just if we dislike garbage stuff about India being said instead)? I am at odds with the US habit of writing a best-seller every second year, independent of the stage of one’s research. But I am sure there can be a middle way between superficiality and extreme philological accuracy. Moreover, extreme accuracy may become paralysing. What do people think?
The middle way: It’s a matter of style really. Truly good scholarship should be able to present complicated matters simply.
But TV shows….. the problem there is that the people editing the interviews are usually not at all able to make informed decisions about what is correct and what is not.
Just by chance, I know the person who edits philosophical interviews for the Italian TV, since she is a dear friend of mine (and a trained –but jobless– historian of philosophy). I understand your point, but “abandoning” the TV as a too desperate case to be treated means condemning so many of our friends and relatives to all sorts of steretypes about India…
Is there any way to get text of the video? I didn’t understand German language, if I had text, I could at least run google translate and understand it.