Preliminary Observations on Symbol Correspondence Between the Vinča and Indus Sign Systems

The Vinča symbol corpus of Neolithic southeastern Europe and the Indus script of the Harappan civilization are among the most well-known undeciphered sign systems of the ancient world. Despite the extensive cataloging of both corpora, direct comparison between the two symbol inventories has received relatively little systematic attention. This working paper presents preliminary observations indicating the presence of multiple morphological correspondences between Vinča signs and Indus script symbols. Several compound signs appear nearly identical or structurally similar across the two corpora. In addition, the study proposes that certain Indus signs may exhibit nested modifier structure and demonstrates that comparable compound configurations can be produced through the recombination of independently occurring Vinča symbols. The purpose of this paper is not to propose a definitive historical relationship between the systems but to document these correspondences and encourage further quantitative and contextual analysis.