The latest from Rick Pettigrew at The Archaeology Channel:

Friends and colleagues: India has a rich, complex and very ancient cultural tapestry that deserves better understanding and appreciation around the world. So it gives us great pleasure to exhibit an important part if India's cultural past in Ur: A Video Essay on Tamil - Part 1, the latest video feature on our nonprofit streaming-media Web site, The Archaeology Channel (http://www.archaeologychannel.org).

In south India is a culture with a continuous literary tradition more than 2000 years old. With 80 million speakers, Tamil is one of few languages besides Greek that is both classical and modern. This video essay outlines in images and music the development of the rich Tamil culture and writing systems. The origins of its earliest written script, found on cave walls, is a mystery. Some say it descends from the still undeciphered Indus script, used 4000 years ago in modern Pakistan and northwestern India, and that the Indus people spoke Dravidian, ancestral to Tamil.

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Richard M. Pettigrew, Ph.D., RPA
President and Executive Director
Archaeological Legacy Institute
http://www.archaeologychannel.org