India Unbound
The Legacy of India
A script that nobody can read, a recipe for pi written about 1,500 years ago, and bricks made to a perfect ratio. Ancient India was full of brilliant builders and thinkers!
Did you know?
Nobody can read the Indus script yet! It has more than 400 different signs, found mostly on small stone seals. Most inscriptions are very short, only about five signs long, which makes cracking the code extra hard.
Aryabhata wrote a rule about 1,500 years ago: add 4 to 100, multiply by 8, then add 62,000. That is roughly the distance around a circle 20,000 units wide. It gives pi as 3.1416!
Indus Valley builders made bricks in a fixed ratio of 1:2:4. A brick was twice as wide as it was thick, and four times as long. Bricks like these fit together neatly, like building blocks.
Try this: Invent a Secret Script
The Indus script is still a mystery, so invent a script of your own! Draw 10 symbols and give each one a letter, such as a fish for A or a star for E. Write a short message using about five symbols, like most Indus seals. Give it to your family with just one clue. Can they crack your code?
Go further: The Great Bath
In the ancient city of Mohenjo-daro, now in Pakistan, Indus Valley people built a large brick pool called the Great Bath, more than 4,000 years ago. It is about 12 metres long, 7 metres wide and 2.4 metres deep, with steps going down at both ends. To stop leaks, builders fitted bricks tightly and added a thick layer of bitumen, a natural waterproof tar. How would you make a pool waterproof?