Yes — it changes completely, and the chapter itself is the demonstration. Compare how much this one chapter can tell you about Mesopotamia with how much it can tell you about the Harappans, and the whole difference comes from one fact: cuneiform can be read and Sindhu lipi cannot.
| Kind of knowledge | Mesopotamia (cuneiform deciphered) | Sindhu–Sarasvatī (script undeciphered) |
|---|---|---|
| Names of rulers | Sargon of Akkad; Hammurabi, who ascended in 1792 BCE | Not one Harappan name is known |
| Dates of events | Akkad rises 2334 BCE; Assur takes over 2154 BCE; Babylonia from 1900 BCE | Only period boundaries — Early, Mature, Late Harappan — dated by excavation and radio-carbon, never by a text |
| Law and government | The Code of Hammurabi — the actual rules for civil and social conduct, and the fact that they were enforced empire-wide | Nothing. We can see planned streets and a standard weight system but cannot read a single rule |
| Trade partners | Sargon's tablets name Dilmun, Magan and Meluhha by name | Harappan goods are found abroad, but the Harappans never tell us where they sent them |
| Beliefs and literature | 'Great myths and epics, hymns, the law codes, and educational treatises' — including the Epic of Gilgamesh | Seal motifs and figurines survive; what they meant is guesswork |
| Ordinary working life | Tablets recording the work of 'potters, seal cutters, shipbuilders, carpenters, farm workers' | We know the crafts existed from the objects; we do not know the workers |
| Thoughts and ideas | Directly attested in their own words | Fig. 4.3's verdict applies: 'It is generally difficult to understand the thoughts and ideas of people' |
The change is not only more information — it is a different kind of information. Fig. 4.3 makes exactly this distinction. Material remains tell you how people lived; written documents add names, events, and social, political and cultural life, and make dating 'relatively accurate' because documents mention specific dates of coronations and wars. Archaeology gives you the pattern of a society. Writing gives you its people.
Egypt shows the change happening. Before 1822, Egyptian monuments were impressive but mute. Then Champollion read the Rosetta Stone's hieroglyphs against its Greek, and the same stones started giving up names, reigns, prayers and medical recipes — the Papyrus Ebers alone lists more than 700 cures and spells. Nothing new was excavated; the same evidence simply began to speak.