A Neolithic stone implement bearing the Indus Valley script was recently discovered in Sembian-Kandiyur village in Nagapattinam district of Tamil Nadu by a village school teacher V Shanmuganathan.
The implement, a polished hand-held stone axe, has four Indus Valley signs, which were identified by epigraphists of the state's department of archaeology. According to Iravatham Mahadevan, an expert on the Indus script, the first sign on the celt depicted a skeletal, the second a jar, the third a trident and the fourth a crescent.
The artefact could be 3,500 years old, dated around 1,500 BC. The script indicates that the Neolithic people of north India could have penetrated further south than previously believed.
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