page_title: Proto-writing
section_title: Indian Bronze Age
hierarchical_section_title: Proto-writing / Bronze Age / Indian Bronze Age
caption_attribution_description: Impression of an Indus Valley seal, showing an "Indus script" string of five characters (British Museum, 2005 photograph)
context_page_description: Proto-writing consists of visible marks communicating limited information. Such systems emerged from earlier traditions of symbol systems in the early Neolithic, as early as the 7th millennium BC. They used ideographic or early mnemonic symbols or both to represent a limited number of concepts, in contrast to true writing systems, which record the language of the writer.
context_section_description: The so-called Indus script is a symbol system that emerged during the end of the 4th millennium BC in the Indus Valley Civilization.
caption: Typical "Indus script" seal impression showing an "inscription" of five characters
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