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Early Writing: The Evidence from Sri Lanka-by Michael Roberts Source:Thuppahis Darshanie Ratnawalli, here reproducing an article presented in the Colombo Telegraph and The Island in June 2016, where the title runs  “Sri Lanka’s role in South Asia’s earliest writing controversy” A few years ago someone came up with the campaign line ‘small miracle’ as a unique proposition to promote Sri Lanka to tourists. The Rajapaksa Government took exception to the ‘small’ and scrapped the campaign midway. This was a pity. The country has genuine small miracle credentials, tending sometimes to raise eyebrows by producing phenomena usually deemed too big, too grand for a country of its size. It can for example claim ownership of the oldest surviving, reliably dated samples of writing to be found in the whole of South Asia. It was long thought that the earliest writing in South Asia were the inscriptions of the Indus Valley civilization. Now with the 2004 debut of an ...