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Document Details : Title: Indus-Mesopotamian trade Subtitle: The record in the Indus Author(s): POSSEHL, Gregory L. Journal: Iranica Antiqua Volume: 37 Date: 2002 Pages: 325-342 DOI: 10.2143/IA.37.0.127 Abstract : The story of mid-third millennium BC contacts between the Indus Civilization and the west has been told in several places. In fact, it was seals from Susa, Ur and other sites in Mesopotamia that were stylistically similar to those found at Mohenjo-daro and Harappa that gave archaeologists their first chronological estimate for the age of the Indus Civilization. There are many perfectly good Indus artifacts in Mesopotamian sites of the third millennium. A selection of these is given in Fig. 2, with the site and a citation. If ‘Meluhha’ is a Sumerian referent for the Indus Civilization, which seems to be the case, then there were Indus peoples in Mesopotamia, even a translator of the Meluhhan language. The documentation of Indus, or Indus-like, material in the west is reasonably strong, but the record is not balanced. There is not nearly as much Mesopotamian, or Mesopotamian-like, material in the Indus. But, there is some, and this paper offers me an opportunity to present it, in light of Professor Lamberg-Karlovsky’s long interest in third millennium trade. Another presentation of this theme was attempted by the late E. C. L. During Caspers. This paper should be used cautiously. Whether her thesis that there were Sumerian merchants resident in Indus settlements is correct or not, can be left to the individual reader. |
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