No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Indus-Mesopotamian trade: The record in the Indus
... Evidence of exports from Makkan to the greater Indus Valley is quite limited but consistent with the apparent general impermeability of the Indus communities to external influences and the importation of foreign productions (Possehl 2002a). A small number of ingots and artefacts likely obtained from the smelting of Omani ore have been detected at Harappa and Dholavira using lead isotope analysis (Hoffman, Miller 2009: 245, fig. ...
This paper presents the substantial update of an unpublished interim report written in 2014 to serve as a historical and methodological framework for post-doctoral research about the cultural and commercial interactions between the Umm an-Nar communities of the Oman Peninsula and seafaring merchants and craftspeople from the Indus Valley, which I was conducting for the Department of History and Culture of the University of Bologna. 1 This paper presents an updated compendium of the archaeological and ancient textual data about long-range trade and multicultural interactions involving the nomadic and sedentary communities of the Oman Peninsula , with a specific focus on the Early Bronze Age including the so-called Hafit and Umm an-Nar periods (ca. 3200-2000 BC). Substantial evidence of direct and intermediated interactions are discussed in light of their contribution to the local development of particular socio-technical spheres and how they influenced the cultural and economic setting of the local society in the different phases. In order to properly interpret the long-term significance of this phenomenon, the discontinuous trajectory of mutual inputs with neighbouring regions is considered within a longer time span covering the seven millennia from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Iron Age.
... The Harappans could have carried along with them large quantities of native pottery and other trade items. The external trade that the Harappans had with Mesopotamia has been discussed by many scholars (Ratnagar, 1981;Tosi, 1982;Rao, 1979;Possehl, 1994Possehl, , 1996Possehl, , 1997Possehl, , 2002. Ratnagar (1981) provides an object-wise analysis of the Harappan materials found in the Mesopotamian region. ...
The alluvial landscape located between the glacier-fed Himalayan rivers of Yamuna and Sutlej, bounded by the Siwaliks in the north and the Aravalli outliers and the Thar Desert in the south, poses a great enigma archaeologically due to the absence of perennial rivers and presence of a large number of archaeological sites, and yet it is configured with multitude of channels and palaeochannels. This region is vividly described in the Rigveda, the Mahabharata and other ancient works, and it houses one of the most revered settlements, namely, Kurukshetra. This region also houses one of the prosperous and well- developed urban civilizations of the third millennium BCE, and provides evidences of its formative phases datable to fourth millennium BCE. Human presence in this region could be traced even further back, albeit not in the plains, but in the lower Siwaliks bordering the upper reaches of the River Sarasvati. Various geological studies illustrate how the River Sutlej flowed into River Sarasvati and thereby contributed a bulk of the volume of water flowing through it. This region witnessed the human occupation in a major way from the fourth millennium BCE onwards. The recent radiocarbon dates from the sites of Kunal and Rakhigarhi further push back the antiquity to fifth millennium BCE. Ever since, a continuous human occupation could be noticed up to the end of the Harappan Civilization that came roughly around 1900 BCE. The recent geological and geomorphological studies, further aided by the dating techniques, also help in the understanding of the dynamics of River Sarasvati and its tributaries, and in the role of River Sutlej, thereby giving a better perspective of human occupation and continuity vis-à-vis the river system.
... About 1600 BCE was also the time of the collapse of all the highly developed, late Bonze Age city-states, which stretched from the Mediterranean to India. It is now believed that these city-states knew about each other, and various artifacts such as jewelry and pottery items found at different sites illustrate that there was also trade between them (Possehl, 2002;Sarianidi, 1999;Witzel, 2003, p. 31). ...
In this article, the origins of the cult of the ritual drink known as soma/haoma are explored. Various shortcomings of the main botanical candidates that have so far been proposed for this so-called “nectar of immortality” are assessed. Attention is brought to a variety of plants identified as soma/haoma in ancient Asian literature. Some of these plants are included in complex formulas and are sources of dimethyl tryptamine, monoamine oxidase inhibitors, and other psychedelic substances. It is suggested that through trial and error the same kinds of formulas that are used to make ayahuasca in South America were developed in antiquity in Central Asia and that the knowledge of the psychoactive properties of certain plants spreads through migrants from Central Asia to Persia and India. This article summarizes the main arguments for the botanical identity of soma/haoma, which is presented in my book, The Tawny One: Soma, Haoma and Ayahuasca (Muswell Hill Press, London/New York). However, in this article, all the topics dealt with in that publication, such as the possible ingredients of the potion used in Greek mystery rites, an extensive discussion of cannabis, or criteria that we might use to demarcate non-ordinary states of consciousness, have not been elaborated.
... La civilització de la vall de l'Indus (abreujada com a CVI), també coneguda com a civilització de Harappa (a partir del nom d'un dels seus jaciments principals, al Pakistan), s'estengué des del nord-est de l'actual Afganistan fins al Pakistan i el nord-est de l'Índia entre el 3300 i el 1300 aC (Kenoyer, 1991;Possehl, 2002a;Wright, 2010) (fig. 1). ...
The Early Bronze Age on the Oman Peninsula was a period of fundamental change in the development of social complexity, the exploitation of new resources such as copper and the general mode of life. It was also a period of long-distance exchange between the Oman Peninsula and the neighbouring regions along the Arab-Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Within the scope of this paper, the material evidence for long-distance exchange from the two archaeological sites Bat and Al-Khashbah, located in central Oman, will be presented. Both have been intensively investigated over the past years by a team from the University of Tübingen. This is followed by a synopsis of the current state of research on interregional contacts of the Oman Peninsula during the whole of the third millennium BCE, which will provide the background for a re-assessment of its role as intermediary between the great powers of Mesopotamia and the Indus in the trading networks along the Arab-Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
The contribution reviews the external relations of Southern Central Asia in the Middle- and Late Bronze Age (late third and early second Millennium BC) through its contact finds with the Mesopotamian and Indus Civilizations. It is concluded, that interaction between these regions took the form of a continuous, elite-oriented exchange of exotic objects, concepts and technologies.
Lothal is an important harbour-town of the Indus Civilization at the head of the Gulf of Cambay on the west coast of India (FIG. 1). During the recent excavations there, a circular steatite seal has been found which is neither wholly Indian nor Sumerian in workmanship (PL. IX). On the other hand, it closely resembles the seals from the Persian Gulf islands found by the Danish expedition led by Professor Glob and Dr Bibby. Sir Mortimer Wheeler has named them 'Persian Gulf' seals which, according to him, 'appear to have been made at the various entrepôts (such as Bahrain itself) of a cosmopolitan Persian Gulf trade of the kind which has been analyzed by A. L. Oppenheim from Larsa tablets' (note I). Commenting on these seals, the late Col. D. H. Gordon wrote: 'The problem of Bahrain is a very interesting and important one, and it is possible that these seals may help to solve it. Some day such seals may come to light in India, but so far they have not; Bahrain may have been Dilmun and it was almost certainly an entrepôt on the trade route to India, and so it is possible that seals of this kind were carried on to the Indus or to ports in Kathiawad and will some day be found in those localities, though this will not necessarily make them Indian or even of Indian style' (note 2). The hope expressed by Gordon has now been fulfilled by the discovery of a 'Persian Gulf' seal at Lothal, thus providing the first real evidence of trade contacts between India and the Persian Gulf.
This article tries to clarify the problem of Mesopotamia's exports, which by an historically unfortunate accident seem to have been of a perishable nature. In addition to the better known exports of grain and cloth it is suggested that leather, fish, perfumed fats and oils, and possibly slaves, all played a part. It is also pointed out that there was a considerable inter‐city trade within Mesopotamia. An attempt is made to find archaeological traces of the processing of trade goods in Mesopotamia prior to export.