Abstract
REFERRING to the note in NATURE of October 1, p. 502, on the similarity of ancient scripts found in the Indus Valley and in Easter Island, it may be mentioned that Prof. Herman Wirth, of Marburg, has also directed attention to a number of similar symbols that have been found in North and South America, Sweden, Southern Andalusia, Mesopotamia, Africa and Oceania. He explains some of these signs on the usual lines of literal interpretation; but the fact that so many ideographs, “even [!] the Svastica” as Sir Denison Ross observes, are found in diverse parts of the world suggests that a certain class of archaic symbol cannot be interpreted as mere pictographs of material objects and local events. They obviously constitute the elements of a universal ‘language’ the symbols of which represent functions of Nature. The practical scientific knowledge of prehistoric civilisations implies some familiarity with the operations of the dual, positive and negative principle in Nature.
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L., W. Undeciphered Scripts. Nature 130, 741 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130741c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130741c0
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