The Indus Civilization
Page 38
52 Marshall 1931e: 79, pl. LIX, c.
53 Puri 1936—37: 41.
54 Mackay 1931c: 236.
55 Marshall 1931i: pl. LXX, a.
56 Mackay 1931c: 250.
57 Marshall 1931i: pl. CXIb.
58 Mackay 1937—38: 25—32.
59 Mackay 1937—38: 46.
60 Mackay 1937—38: 49—50, illustrations in Further Excavations at Mohenjo-daro.
61 Mackay 1937—38: 53.
62 Mackay 1937—38: 84.
63 Mackay 1937—38: 32.
64 Mackay 1937—38: 32.
65 Mackay 1937—38: 142.
66 Mackay 1937—38: 143—44.
67 Hemphill, Lukacs, and Kennedy 1991.
68 Belcher 1991: 114, 1994.
69 Mackay 1937—38: 6.
70 Tosi, Bondioli, and Vidale 1984.
CHAPTER 12
The Middle Asian Interaction Sphere
INTRODUCTION
The third millennium B.C. was a time of new, unique economic and political configurations in a part of the world that can be called “Middle Asia”: the regions between the Indus and the Mediterranean bounded on the north by Bactria and Central Asia and on the south by the Arabian Gulf (figure 12.1).1 The Middle Asian Interaction Sphere is made manifest in shared artifacts, including objects of trade and exchange as well as artifact styles and design motifs. Mesopotamian sources add written documentation for some of the activities within the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere, especially the maritime trade in the Arabian Gulf.
Figure 12.1 Area of the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere
Maritime activity was a vital component of the Third Millennium Middle Asian Interaction Sphere. This appears to have been founded on a revolution (at least a significant change) in maritime technology and/or knowledge around the middle of the third millennium. Not much is known of this “revolution,” but at this time there was a significant change in maritime activity in the Mediterranean and Arabian Seas. This upsurge seems to be based in technology and to have been economically exploited. This relationship to technology leads us back to the Indus ideology. This Harappan participation in the Third Millennium Middle Asian Interaction Sphere has a base in their ideology as well.
Figure 12.2 Map showing Intercultural-style motifs (after Kohl 1979)
The Intercultural Style: A Uniting Ideology?
A series of soft-stone artifacts associated with the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere were carved with a number of stylistically coherent motifs. These include combat snake motifs; humped bulls and other figures; “Umdugud,” the lion-headed bird; hut motifs; date palms; and rosettes, along with simpler portrayals such as mats, beveled squares, whirls, and an imbricate design. Since these motifs are widespread within the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere and across a number of ancient cultural regions, it has been called the “Intercultural style.”2 A map of some of these motifs and their distribution is given in figures 12.2 and 12.3. Some of the motifs can be associated with particular regions within the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere. The South Asian zebu is an example of this. Umdugud is a Near Eastern motif, and snakes in this sort of iconography generally bring Central Asia to mind. The hut urns seem best at home in eastern Iran. But, at the broad level, the Intercultural style is a shared set of symbols, brought together in a stylistically coherent set of motifs, carved on stone that is very much the same wherever it is found.
We know from an analysis of the stone that there were several places where objects of the Intercultural style were made. Tepe Yahya, in southeastern Iran is one, and Tarut Island near Bahrain is another.3
The Intercultural style seems to indicate that some of the participants in the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere shared a set of symbols, possibly an ideology. This was a syncretic form of belief that brought together symbols from all over the “intercultural world” of the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere, giving at least some of its participants a shared ideology and a form of unity. The fact that the Intercultural style is documented at the earliest stages of the interaction sphere may be an indication that it played a significant role in its origins (figure 12.4).
Historical Background
It was during the 1920s and 1930s, with the excavations of the Royal Graves at Ur and other sites such as Tell Asmar, Agrab Tepe, Kish, and Susa, that the full richness of Sumerian, Akkadian, and Elamite civilization came to light. During these same decades, but some 1,500 miles to the east, archaeologists unearthed the remains of the contemporary Indus Civilization. It was immediately apparent that the In-dus peoples and their Sumerian and Akkadian contemporaries had been in contact with one another since Indus artifacts had been found at a number of Mesopotamian sites.
Figure 12.3 Map showing other Intercultural-style motifs (after Kohl 1979)
Other pioneering archaeological work in the gulf, especially on Bahrain and on the Iranian Plateau at sites such as Tepe Sialk and Tepe Hissar, uncovered important new material that was clearly a part of the life of the third millennium in Middle Asia. For example, there were etched carnelian beads and quantities of lapis lazuli at Hissar and proto-Elamite tablets at Sialk, which informed archaeologists of something, but the message was not at all clear.
Renewed archaeological work throughout Middle Asia following the hiatus caused by World War II did much to clarify the early history of this region. The excavation of Altyn Depe and the discovery of the Turanian Bronze Age Civilization brought an important sense of geographic closure to the northern borders of the ancient Middle Asian Interaction Sphere. The urbanization of Turkmenia can now be seen as one more example of the sociocultural vitality of this region in antiquity. What has emerged is a complex mosaic of urban centers and regional polities all seemingly linked by an economic vitality that is both new and impressive.
The publication of A. Leo Oppenheim’s “Seafaring Merchants of Ur” in 1954, reviewing tablets from Ur, did much to bring a focus on the Arabian Gulf and third millennium maritime activities between Akkad, Dilmun, Makan, and Meluhha (see figure 12.1). The “Dilmun trade,” as it has come to be called, is an extraordinarily important element in the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere.
Figure 12.4 Artifacts of the Intercultural style from Tell Agrab (after Frankfort 1956)
Figure 12.5 Representations of three boats from Mohenjo-daro (after Marshall 1931i and Mackay 1937—38)
Maritime Trade
There are many representations of boats, especially in ancient glyptic art; three come from Mohenjo-daro (figure 12.5). There is also a reconstruction drawing (figure 12.6).
Third millennium maritime trade in the gulf eventually linked ancient India to Mesopotamia and has larger and as yet poorly charted dimensions. In 1952 Carl O. Sauer suggested that the route following the east coast of Africa to Arabia and on to the southern coast of Asia “may be a great lost corridor of mankind.”4 He was looking at the early dispersal of domesticated plants that were moved out of Africa into the economies of Arabia and South Asia at the time. Advances in Arabian archaeology are beginning to give archaeologists good reason to return to Sauer’s observation.5 Of particular importance to this revitalization is the evidence that has been accumulated for the spread of certain millets (sorghum, pearl millet, and finger millet) out of sub-Saharan Africa into Asia. These food grains have been documented at a number of Indian and Pakistani sites within the second and third millennia.6 Early in the third millennium B.C. sorghum was seemingly well entrenched in the regional economy at places like Hili 8.7 The significance of these African millets in terms of the gulf trade is that they help to document the maritime activity in the mid—third millennium.
Luxury Products or Necessities
Many of the materials traded within the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere appear to be luxury products, intended to satisfy the desires of elites and the needs of the Mesopotamian cult system. For the most part, the trade we see directly evidenced in the archaeological record involves semiprecious stones, metals, seals, jewelry, various forms of objet
s d’art, exotic animals, and the like. Food products, cloth, common building and manufacturing materials, and the material culture of mass consumption (even by Bronze Age standards) are not a part of this record, even in the cuneiform texts. This is classic “long-distance trade in luxury products” that V. G. Childe used as one of his markers of Bronze Age urbanization.8 It is the trade for aggrandizement, of elites and their cult system, not the common peoples of the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere. The common people may have acquired the products in their raw form and played the central role in manufacturing and transport, but they were not the consumers of these wares.
There is some indication of the common people in the maritime world of the Arabian Gulf in the second half of the third millennium. The important site at Ras al-Junayz, for example, seems to have been a place for fishing and boat repair. The African millets that come to South Asia at this time are foods that were probably not traded, but were acquired in the area of the Horn of Africa, as foodstuffs for the boat crews to consume on their way back home. That these crops proved useful to the monsoon farmers of the Greater Indus region was a by-product of their initial use as food for these crews.
This second level of maritime activity not withstanding, the driving force for the trade we include as a part of the Middle Asian Interaction Sphere was trade for the elites and their cults.9
THE DILMUN TRADE
During the Early Dynastic Period, a land known as Meluhha first appears in the Mesopotamian historical record. Another early reference is given by Sargon of Akkad (2334—2279 B.C.) when he described how ships from the lands of Dilmun, Magan, and Meluhha were tied up along the quay of his capital of Akkad.
Where Were Dilmun, Magan, and Meluhha Located?
Dilmun, Magan, and Meluhha were important places in the third and early second millennia B.C. and most archae-ologists are now in general agreement on their locations (figure 12.1).10
Figure 12.6 Reconstruction drawing of an Indus reed boat (by Jan Fairservis)
The Location of Dilmun
There is every reason to believe that Dilmun is the island of Bahrain and the adjacent coast of Arabia. This is based on what we know of the place from cuneiform sources. For example, Dilmun was an island in the Arabian Gulf that could be reached in 30 beru, or double hours, a reasonable estimate for sailing time from the northern end of the gulf to Bahrain. The ancient texts also tell us that one could draw fresh water from the sea near Dilmun, and indeed there is a place off the coast of Bahrain where one can do just that, an observation that clinches the case. If the location of Dilmun is virtually certain, the location of Magan is less so.
The Location of Magan
Magan is thought to be to the east of Dilmun. This is based on the consistency of the ordering of place-names in cuneiform texts; either Dilmun, Magan, Meluhha or the reverse. Thus, Oman and/or southeastern Iran are the logical candidates for its location. This would fit well with the fact that in cuneiform texts Magan is said to be rich in copper and Oman has recently produced abundant evidence for third millennium copper mining and smelting.11 Second, the statues of Naram-Sin and Gudea all mention that the stone used in carving them came from Magan. Modern testing of this material has shown that it comes from the proposed home.12 Thus, there is good reason for us to assume that Magan was, in the minds of the Mesopotamians, a land beyond Dilmun, which was located on both sides of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Location of Meluhha
The location of Meluhha has proved to be more difficult to determine. This topic has been discussed in many places.13 Most modern scholars assume it to have been the area we associate with the Indus Civilization, including the Kulli Domain of mountainous southern Baluchistan.14 The basis for this judgment rests primarily on five historical observations and one implication: (1) Meluhha was a real place as demonstrated by the presence of an Akkadian seal attributed to a translator of the Meluhhan language; (2) Meluhha is beyond Magan, as seen from the regular ordering of place-names; (3) there is Indus material in Mesopotamia, some with the Indus script, and some Mesopotamian material in Indus sites; (4) the presence of Mature Harappan material at Ras al-Junayz in Oman and in the gulf, within a fully maritime environment, supports the notion that the Indus Civilization was in maritime contact with Mesopotamia, as suggested by the written sources; and (5) the products mentioned in the texts said to come from Meluhha do not contradict an association with ancient India. These five observations lead to an implication: If Meluhha was not associated with the Harappan Civilization, then the Indus was apparently not mentioned in cuneiform documents. This would present an awkward historical situation, given the presence of more than trivial amounts of Indus material culture in both Mesopotamia and the gulf.
HISTORICAL SOURCES ON MELUHHA
References to Meluhha are found in texts dealing with the Mesopotamian economy, foreign trade—especially maritime trade—as well as royal inscriptions and literary and lexical texts. A complete corpus of seventy-six Mesopotamian texts from the Early Dynastic period to the reign of Hammurabi has been published.15 A summary of these attestations is found in table 12.1.
Table 12.1 Products mentioned in Mesopotamian texts as coming from Meluhha
Stone and pearls
Carnelian 8 attestations
Lapis lazuli 1 attestation, but in an incantation
Pearls 1 attestation
Wood and plants
Gis-Ab-ba-me-luh-ha 12 attestations
Mesu wood 7 attestations
Fresh dates 1 attestation
Animals
A bird 8 attestations, but 5 as figurines
A dog of Meluhha 1 attestation
A cat of Meluhha 1 attestation
Metal
Copper 2 attestations
Gold 1 attestation
Meluhhan-style objects
A ship of Meluhhan style 2 attestations
Meluhhan-style furniture 3 attestations
Figurines of Meluhhan birds 5 attestations (see animals above)
Ivory is not mentioned as a part of the trade with Meluhha, although it is mentioned in connection with Dilmun. Many of the texts mentioning Meluhhan products occur in a literary context and are therefore difficult to evaluate critically; finally, the number of attestations is small and the references diverse, not the kind of robust data on which sound historical argument can be founded.
THE TEXTUAL REFERENCES AND THE PRODUCTS OF MAGAN AND DILMUN
There are also references to the products that come from Magan and Dilmun. These are so numerous that they have never been systematically tallied, but a partial list, at least, has been assembled in the following sections.
The Land of Magan
Shereen Ratnagar notes seven ancient textual references to the boats of Magan.16 She also lists, with ancient textual citations, fifteen products associated with Magan, as given in table 12.2. It has already been argued that Magan is now the area we associate with Oman and coastal southeastern Iran, possibly including the region of modern Makran. With this in mind, it appears that Magan was both a place for the origin of products, especially copper, and an entrepôt. Magan was a place that passed products from Meluhha on to Dilmun and/or Mesopotamia. Gold, carnelian, and ivory are products that most strikingly suggest this.
The Land of Dilmun
More is known of Dilmun than either Magan or Meluhha, and the compilation of a systematic catalogue of textual references to it would be a task of sizable proportions. Ratnagar’s book has references to the products in table 12.3 as coming to Ur from Dilmun.
Dilmun has even more the flavor of an entrepôt than does Magan. The first seven items on Ratnagar’s list are all attested from either Meluhha and/or Magan and would not be found as a part of the Dilmun landscape. The coral, woods, and dates are, however, things that could have come to Mesopotamia from a number of places, one of which would be Bahrain Island and the adjacent Arabian coast.
In the ancient texts there is mention of Dilmun merchants and, as noted, many r
eferences to this place as a commercial center. One gets a sense that Dilmun was the operational nerve center for this early gulf and Arabian Sea trade. It is also worth repeating that none of the texts mention any Mesopotamian products being sent directly to Meluhha; interesting even in light of the fact that some exports may be “invisible.”17
Table 12.2 Products mentioned in Mesopotamian texts as coming from Magan
Copper Ivory Timber
Diorite or olivine gabbro Gold dust Wood products
Stone vases, some of which are alabaster Goats Gis-mis-makan or mesu wood of Magan
Carnelian and other semiprecious stones Magan reed Gis-ha-lu-ub or haluppu wood
Red ochre Magan onion Gis-gisimmar, another wood
Note: From Ratnagar (1981: 39—40).
Table 12.3 Products mentioned in Mesopotamian texts as coming from Dilmun
Copper Lapis lazuli White coral
Silver Other semiprecious stones Various woods