Indus Valley Civilization feature on German TV

June 27, 2010 by Daniel Stender · 4 comments · Printer friendly version
Filed under: Miscellaneous 


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.