vidale indus mesopotamia

THE MELAMMU PROJECT http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ “Growing in a Foreign World. For a History of the “Meluhha Villages” in Mesopotamia in the 3rd Millennium BC” MASSIMO VIDALE Published in Melammu Symposia 4:

A. Panaino and A. Piras (eds.), Schools of Oriental Studies and the Development

of Modern Historiography. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Symposium of the Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage Project. Held in Ravenna, Italy, October 13-17, 2001 (Milan: Università di Bologna & IsIao 2004), pp. 261-80. Publisher: http://www.mimesisedizioni.it/

This article was downloaded from the website of the Melammu Project: http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/ The Melammu Project investigates the continuity, transformation and diffusion of Mesopotamian culture throughout the ancient world. A central objective of the project is to create an electronic database collecting the relevant textual, art-historical, archaeological, ethnographic and linguistic evidence, which is available on the website, alongside bibliographies of relevant themes. In addition, the project organizes symposia focusing on different aspects of cultural continuity and evolution in the ancient world. The Digital Library available at the website of the Melammu Project contains articles from the Melammu Symposia volumes, as well as related essays. All downloads at this website are freely available for personal, non-commercial use. Commercial use is strictly prohibited. For inquiries, please contact [email protected].

VIDALE FOR A HISTORY OF THE “MELUHHA VILLAGES” IN MESOPOTAMIA

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MASSIMO VIDALE Ravenna

Growing in a Foreign World:

For a History of the “Meluhha Villages”

in Mesopotamia in the 3rd Millennium BC

1. Separating facts from conjectures

he presence of individuals orgroups immigrated from the Indo-Pakistani Subcontinent in Meso-

potamia in the 3rd millennium BC wasrecognized since the discovery of theIndus Civilization at Harappa and Mo-henjo-Daro in the early ‘20ies, becausein a few cases Indus-like seals were foundin stratified contexts in some of the mostimportant Sumerian cities. In 1932, C.J.Gadd opened a new line of archaeologi-cal research, collecting and publishing ina fortunate paper a series of seals fromMesopotamia (found during digs or ac-quired on the antiquarian market) sharingwhat he regarded as an “Indian style.”Gadd’s interpretation was fundamentallycorrect, although the series of seals hepublished included also specimens ofwhat we presently identify as Dilmuniteseals coming from the Gulf islands ofFaylaka and Bahrein. The great seasonsof extensive excavations at Mohenjo-Daro (Sindh, presently in Pakistan) wereover, and the final report by J. Marshall(1931) had been published. Both the in-scriptions and the animal icones on themajor group of western seals had obvioussimilarities with the steatite seals un-earthed by thousands in the major citiesof the Indus civilization. It was on thebasis of these finds, at least in a firststage, that the Indus valley civilization

was dated to the middle Bronze age.Since then, two generations of archae-ologists and philologists have attemptedto investigate the problem of the Indiancommunities that settled in Mesopotamiain the second half of the 3rd millenniumBC. As the identification of the land ofMeluhha with the coastal areas controlledby the Indus Civilization is almost uni-versally accepted, the textual evidencedealing with individuals qualified as“men” or “sons” of Meluhha or calledwith the ethnonym Meluhha, living inMesopotamia and of a “Meluhha village”established at Lagash (and presumably atother major cities as well) unexcapablypoints to the existence of enclaves settledby Indian immigrants (see Parpola et al.1977; Possehl 1984: 185; for the originaldebate Lamberg-Karlovsky 1972).

On the other hand, it soon becameclear that no Mesopotamian article – forexample, not a single Sumerian cylinderseal – had been recovered at Mohenjo-Daro (nor would have been found in laterexcavations at other Indus sites). As theelevated compound of Mohenjo-Daro hasbeen excavated for about 350 houses andbuildings, accounting for about 10% ofthe total built mounded surface, it ishardly possible that such absence iscasual. On the basis of the present evi-dence, it is more likely that, although we

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have ascertained that Indian groups trav-elled, traded and settled in the west,Sumerians did not travel directly to thecoasts and plains of the Indus, nor theysettled – at least in substantial groups –in the Indus cities. Another possible in-terpretation is that an ideological attitudeprevented Indus traders and travellersfrom importing objects produced abroadand using them at home. The temptation,at this point, is to refer to the historicaland contemporary brahmanical attitudeaccording to which the outer world isconsidered impure and potentially pol-luting at a socio-ritual level. Perhapssimilar ideas were at play 5000 years agoas well. But although this might appear areasonable assumption, as you see wehave shifted (almost inadvertently) fromfacts to a conjecture.

As this attitude is a major, recurrentfault of archaeological research in thearchaeology of the Indus valley, in thispaper – aimed at summarizing part of theinformation piled since Gadd’s paper,and presently available on the questionof the Meluhhan communities in Meso-potamia – I try to list under two separateheadings (paragraphs 3. and 4.) what we

may accept as facts and what, for themoment being, are no more than inter-pretations, hypotheses and conjectures.Separating facts from interpretations isnot easy, because each scholar – the pre-sent writer included – is tempted to in-clude what he or she deems as “verylikely interpretations” to some funda-mental facts. Even in the title I arbitrarilyassume that the Indus enclaves in Meso-potamia were identified as “Meluhhavillages,” whereas the only positive evi-dence of this entity comes from Lagash (Idid it because thus the title sounds muchbetter).

But interpretations (including whatmight appear to many as “wild” conjec-tures) might turn out important, presentlyor in the future, both because they maystimulate curiosity and further research,and because, if they are expressed in theproper way, they might become workhypotheses (i.e., historical interpretationscapable to be scientifically tested). Actu-ally, whenever possible, I made the effortof suggesting how these hypotheses mightbe tested on the field or in the archaeo-logical materials.

2. Textual and archaeological evidence

After Gadd’s paper, the second im-portant contribution on the Indus com-munities in Mesopotamia was a paper byParpola et al. (1977). This review of thetexts then available containing referencesto Meluhha and Meluhhans was focusedon 9 texts dating to Ur III times, but alsoincluded references to Sargonic texts.The general picture in this paper is thefollowing. The maximum archaeologicalevidence of Indian imports and Indus-related artefacts in Mesopotamia may bedated to latest phases of ED III (at the

Royal Cemetery of Ur) and immediatelylater to the Akkadian period, when, aswidely reported, Sargon claimed withpride that under his power Meluhhanships docked at his capital, and at leastone tablet mentions a person with an Ak-kadian name qualified as a “the holder ofa Meluhha ship.” The reconstruction ofthe nature of the Indo-Mesopotamiantrade is a very complex and demandingissue. Presently I have not the space, norprobably the full competence to reviewand update the general evidence, but it is


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widely known that, according to the lit-erary sources, between the end of the 3rdand the beginning of the 2nd millenniumBC Meluhhan ships exported to Meso-potamia precious goods among whichexotic animals, such as dogs, perhapspeacocks, cocks, bovids, elephants (?Collon 1977) precious woods and royalfurniture, precious stones such as car-nelian, agate and lapislazuli, and metalslike gold, silver and tin (among othersPettinato 1972; During Caspers 1971;Chakrabarti 1982, 1990; Tosi 1991; seealso Lahiri 1992 and Potts 1994). In hisfamous inscriptions, Gudea, in the sec-ond half of the 22nd century BC, statesthat Meluhhans came with wood andother raw materials for the constructionof the main temple in Lagash (see Par-pola et al. 1977: 131 for references).Archaeologically, the most evident rawmaterials imported from India are marineshell, used for costly containers andlamps, inlay works and cylinder seals;agate, carnelian and quite possibly ivory.Hard green stones, including garnets andabrasives might also have been importedfrom the Subcontinent and eastern Iran(Vidale & Bianchetti 1997, 1998-1999;Heimpel et al. 1988; Vidale 2002; seealso Collon 1990, Tallon 1995 and Sax1991). Carnelian could have been im-ported in form of raw nodules of largesize (as implied by some texts) to betransformed into long beads, or as fin-ished products. As we shall see, recentstudies would better suggest that theIndus families in Mesopotamia importedraw materials rather than finished beads(Kenoyer 1997; Kenoyer & Vidale 1992;Inizan 2000), and expediently adaptedtheir production to the changing needs of

the Mesopotamian demand and markets.To the same period is ascribed a famous

cylinder seal owned by a certain Su-ilisu,“Meluhha interpreter” (Sollberger 1970;Tosi 1991). Another Akkadian text rec-ords that Lu-sunzida “a man of Meluhha”paid to the servant Urur, son of Amar-luKU 10 shekels of silver as a paymentfor a tooth broken in a clash. The nameLu-sunzida literally means “Man of thejust buffalo cow,” a name that, althoughrendered in Sumerian, according to theauthors does not make sense in the Meso-potamian cultural sphere, and must be atranslation of an Indian name; I will re-turn later to this important point. By UrIII times, this intense trade had definitelypromoted the formation of local enclavesof Indus origin. Although no written evi-dence suggests a direct involvement ofthe Lagash settlement with trade andcraft production, Parpola et al. (1977:145) think that the ethnic name points toa settlement originally founded as a tradeenclave by foreign merchants. The textsindicate that Meluhhans were perceivedas distinct ethnic group, living in aseparate settlement but largely integratedin the contemporary Sumerian society,owning or renting land and accumulatingand variously distributing their agricul-tural products (see below). The authorsexplain the absence of reference to craftproduction in the Ur III times hypothe-sizing that the Indus communities inMesopotamia had been largely integratedin Sumerian society and had fully adopteda subsistence based upon agriculture,while a state of crisis in the motherlandhad disconnected the traditional long-distance trade routes and craft organiza-tions.


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3. Other relevant facts

I will try now to report a series ofarchaeological observations, that, de-pending (in part) on subsequent finds,may help us to discuss and complete thishistorical picture. The possible interpre-tations and conjectures I deem as inter-esting for discussion and perhaps futuretesting are reported in a parallel series ofpoints in the following section.

3.1 Round seals with inscriptions inIndus signs and animal figures in Indusstyle are reported from Mesopotamia,Failaka and Bahrein (for a recent andcomplete review see Peyronel 2000) (Fig.1, 1-3). These seals are dated, on thewhole and on the basis of stratigraphicalconsiderations, within the 2 latter centu-ries of the 3rd millennium BC and toimmediatey later times. So far, we know2 seals with Indus bulls having cunei-form inscriptions. For Mesopotamia, theearliest known seal has a pre-Akkadianor early Akkadian inscription (hard toread and controversial: see in order Gadd1932, Parpola et al. 1977, Peyronel 2000with further references) (Fig. 1, 6). Incontrast with the later round seals, it hasa square contour with rounded corners.Reportedly, it was found on the surfaceof Diqdiqqah, a suburban portual settle-ment of Ur. Another important seal withan Indus bull and cuneiform inscription,presently at the Cabinet des Medailles ofParis, is still unpublished (and is com-mented below).

Note also that some of the seals fromBahrein come from graves, and seals aredistinctively absent from the few con-temporary Indus graves excavated in theSubcontinent. A round seal in a private

collection, reportedly from Iran, showsan Indus bull surmounted by a proto-elamite inscription (Winkelmann 1999:Fig. 1, 5). From a looted grave in Bactriacomes a round chlorite seal coated with agold foil, with a Indus bull on one sideand a mythological Bactrian creature onthe opposite face, without inscription (Li-gabue & Salvatori nd; Fig. 1, 4). Finally,from Bactria comes also another (andanomalous) cylinder seal in lapislazuli,presently in the Schoyen collection andstill unpublished, where a boar-huntingscene is accompanied by a well-carvedIndus inscription.1

All of the round seals found in thewest (Mesopotamia, the Gulf, Bactria,Iran: Fig. 2) show exclusively one animalicone, a powerful bull with lowered headand short horns, with a raised muscolarmass on the shoulder often marked byseries of parallel grooves. This strict se-lection contrasts with the standard seriesof square steatite seals from the Indusvalley sites, which employs a series ofnot less than 10 different animal icones.The unicorn, accounting to about 60-70%of the total in Pakistan and India, neverappears in the western round seals. In theIndus valley, the bull with lowered headand short horns comes second in fre-quency after the unicorn, with a percent-age of about 6% of the total (Possehl2002: 128 ff.; Franke Vogt 1991, 1992;Shah & Parpola 1991; Joshi & Parpola1987).

3.2 The other seal with a cuneiform in-scription (at the Cabinet des Medailles ofParis) bears an Indus bull with a loweredhead, and has been preliminarily read by

1 This seal is visible at the site <http://www.nb.no/baser/schoyen/4/4.4/441.html#2645>.


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J.-J. Glassner (2002) as Ur.dNinildumdumu Ur.gi7, an expression that might bepreliminarily interpreted something like“Dog” – or “slave” – of Ninildum, son of“Big Dog” or “Mastiff” – or, perhaps al-ternatively “in charge of the mastiffs” –F. D’Agostino, personal communication).Ninildum is a secondary Mesopotamiandivinity that appears in the famous“Curse of Akkad” (perhaps composed atNippur, and dated by some authors at thetimes of Naram-Sin, while others in con-trast suggest a Ur III dating) and in fewother later texts2 (Vidale, in print). Whatis clear is that Ninildum a goddess ofcarpentry and timber, called in laterBabylonian texts “great heavenly car-penter” and “bearer of the shiny hatchet.”The identity and some possible implica-tions of the term “Dogs” are brieflycommented below (see 4.2).

3.3 A part of the signs visible on theround Indus seals found in the west areanomalous (Gadd 1932; Parpola 1994).They have no match in the lists of signscommonly recorded in Pakistan and India.It is also well known that part of the se-quences of Indus signs in the round stea-tite seals with Indus inscriptions fromMesopotamia and the Gulf are unparal-leled in Punjab and Sindh. Some of thesigns (particularly the so-called “man”sign) appear in the western inscriptionswith evidently anomalous frequencies.Most likely, such inscriptions reportnames and attributions in foreign lan-guages.

3.4 In some Sumerian cities, such asUr, so far excavation brought to lightonly such round seals with Indus inscrip-tions, while at Kish and Umma circulatedstandard square Indus seals and theirsealings (see Gadd 1932, Chakrabarti

1990 and Parpola 1984 for reviews).3.5 The last decades of research suggest

that it is impossible to discuss the role ofthe Indus communities in the west with-out considering in detail some aspects ofthe international trade in semipreciousmaterials and beads. In contemporaryGujarat, carnelian, a form of agate that innature has a distinctive dull olive-browncolour, is turned red artificially in spe-cial ceramic containers and kilns. Themost important mines are still exploitedin Gujarat, and the production of highquality carnelian remained for 5000 yearsa craft specialization of the Subconti-nent, particularly in the north-westernregions of Gujarat and Sindh (Kenoyer etal. 1991, 1994). There is little wonderthat carnelian is quoted by the ancienttexts as an important article of Indo-Mesopotamian trade of the 3rd and early2nd millennium BC. Many of the carnel-ian beads found in the graves of the mainSumerian cities or at Susa in the secondhalf of the 3rd millennium BC are pres-ently interpreted as made locally byIndus craftpersons or artisans trained inan Indus technical tradition but produc-ing shapes and decorations after the spe-cific local demand.

The local production of etched carnel-ian beads in Mesopotamia with Industechniques had already been proposed inthe past by J. Reade (1979: 25) whonoted, among other non-Indian patterns,the presence an etched bead bearing theMesopotamian symbol of Shamash, thesun-god (ibidem: Fig. 1, F1y. In this pa-per, Fig. 3, F1y). A recent study of thecollections of beads from Lagash andSusa confirms that long barrel-cylindercarnelian beads and other types of car-nelian beads of a quality much superior

2 For “The Curse of Akkad” see Pezzoli-Olgiati 2000(at the site <http://www.cwru.edu/affil/GAIR/papers/2000papers/Daria.html>, with bibliography. For a

Babylonian text mentioning the goddess, see themyth of Erra and Ishum in Foster 1995, and the site<http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com>.


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to that distinguishing local productsmight well have been manufactured inthe Indus valley (Inizan 2000; Roux &Matarasso 2000); on the other hand, thecollection from Susa includes a highlysophisticated double long barrel-cylindercarnelian bead, a type unknown in theIndus valley, for which we would betterhypothesize a manufacture in Susa byresident Indian beadmakers (Inizan 2000:Fig. 6). As excavations at Susa broughtto light examples of cylinder-like steatiteseals with Indus features (Gadd 1932;Kenoyer 1998: Fig. 1.15), long barrel-cylinder seals and etched carnelian beads,these indicators strongly point to thepresence of a Meluhhan “craft village” inone of the capitals of ancient Elam. J.M.Kenoyer, who has an intimate knowledgeof the Indus bead technologies, afterhaving examined samples of varioustypes of carnelian beads from the RoyalCemetery of Ur, reports that even somebead types unknown in the Indus valleymight have been manufactured by Indiancraftpersons, most probably living andworking at Ur: “...These clues suggestthat merchants and entrepreneurs fromthe Indus Valley may have set up shopsin cities such as Ur to market their goodsand also produce objects in local de-signs.... It would be the earliest evidencefor a pattern that came to be a norm inlater historical times, when craftsmenand merchants from the Subcontinentextended their trade networks throughoutWest Asia as well as Southeast Asia”(Kenoyer 1998: 97; see also 1997: 272).On the whole this paleotechnologicalevidence is a strong argument for sup-porting the hypothesis that the Meluhhancommunities in the west continued theiroriginal close involvement with trade,processing and selling of semipreciousstones at least from late ED III to theAkkadian period.

But it is impossible to tackle with theissue of the carnelian trade if we do notdistinguish clearly between two quite dif-ferent types of beads, namely the longbarrel-cylinder carnelian beads with alight central swelling found by the hun-dreds in the “royal” graves excavated atUr and the so-called etched carnelianbeads. The first type is probably the mostexclusive and refined type of bead everproduced in the Near East and SouthAsia. In the Indus Valley, the best speci-mens of these beads (Fig. 5, above) aredistinguished by a deep and perfect redhue, by a perfect translucency, by the ab-sence of transparent or white bands andby a perfectly axial perforation. Thelongest specimen reached a length ofabout 13 cm. At the major centers ofHarappa and Mohenjo-daro, but also inminor settlements such as Allahdino, thebeautiful long barrel-cylinder beads werefound hoarded in buried copper vessels,arranged in gorgeous necklaces of perhapsbelts with copper fittings (J.M. Kenoyer,personal communication).

The idea that the beautiful long barrel-cylinder carnelian beads with a distinctivecentral swelling found in Mesopotamiawere Indian products had been originallyproposed by E.J.H. Mackay (in Marshall1931: 511 ff.). In Mesopotamia, thesebeads come mainly from Kish, from theRoyal Cemetery of Ur, and Lagash (Inizan2000). The spectacular finds of Ur sug-gest that such exclusive, costly productswere monopolized and obtained by thegreat houses of the Sumerian cities fromIndian traders and beadmakers sincerelatively early times, displayed anddestroyed by burial in great amounts asan element of ostentation in public fu-nerals aimed at assessing the claim of theSumerian lords to a royal status.

The bulk of long barrel-cylinder car-nelian beads found in Mesopotamia may


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be confidently dated to pre-Akkadic times(i.e., to Early Dinastic III), althoughsome beads of this type circulated andwere apparently found – as one wouldnormally expect – even in much latercontexts. Other beads of the same type arereported from Iran, at Susa and Jalala-bad. In the Iranian sites, long barrel-cylinder carnelian beads and etched car-nelian beads may be found together (seefor a general discussion Chakrabarti 1982;1990: 31-33). Long barrel-cylinder car-nelian beads had been also buried in thelooted graves of Bactria; the value oftheir base material is also indicated bythe fact that fragments of these beadswere also recycled for making preciouslyinlaid jewels (Ligabue & Salvatori n.d.:Figs. 62, 71, 45). On the whole, long bar-rel-cylinder carnelian beads around thelate Early Dinastic III Period (in terms ofthe traditional Mesopotamian “high”chronology, around 2400-2350 BC) de-pended upon an intensive production ofcarnelian originating in the Indus valley.Further research is needed to ascertainwhen, how and to which extent the tradi-tional Indus technology of carnelianbeads was transplanted from Gujarat andSindh to the hypothesized workshops ofthe Meluhhan communities in Mesopo-tamia and Iran.

The second type of carnelian bead iscommonly defined “etched carnelianbeads” (Beck 1933; Dikshit 1949; During

Caspers 1971, 1982; Reade 1979; Lom-bardo 1988) (Figs. 3, 4; Fig. 5, below).They are much smaller beads, manufac-tured with quite simpler techniques, butembellished by white designs (morerarely black or purple) traced on theirsurface. Such designs were chemicallycarved on the beads’ surfaces by a pyro-technological process involving the useof alcaline juices and further cycles ofhigh temperature heating (Mackay 1933,1937; Bhan et al. 1994; Vidale 2000).Their cost for unit of product shouldhave been incomparably much less thanthe former type. Out of the etched car-nelian beads found at Ur with a reliablecontext, more than 40% are dated fromEarly Dinastic III to Early Akkadictimes, the same percentage to Middle toLate Akkadic times, while only 2 findsare confidently datable to Ur III times.Thus, in terms of the traditional absolutechronology, these latter Indian importswould fall between 2450 and 2200 BC.For what the beads from Kish (thesecond group for its size) are concerned,they come from Early Akkadic graves,dated (always following the same tradi-tional scheme) from 2400-2350 to 2300BC. In other words, they are slightlylater than the long barrel-cylinder car-nelian beads and they evidently becamepopular in the Akkadian period, a cir-cumstance that requires a proper histori-cal explanation.

4. More interpretations and conjectures

4.1 Adopting an obvious evolutionaryscheme, one is tempted to assume thatthe first seals to circulate in Mesopota-mia (let us say between 2500-2300 BC)were the standard squarish steatite sealswith Indus inscriptions and iconography;later might have been adopted seals like

the one at the British Museum, where thecorners were rounded, and the titles ornames possibly translated in cuneiforminscriptions and in other languages; fi-nally, between 2200-2000, the Induscommunities adopted a standard roundseal where Indus signs were used to


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express similar titles, names or formulasin foreign languages. The presence atBahrein of a round seal bearing only theinscription and no bull is probably par-alleled by the disappearance in the moth-erland of the animal icones, and by theadoption (in the Harappa sequence, inperiod 3C) of rectangular steatite bearinganalogous simple inscriptions. The factthat the British Museum seal with thebull and cuneiform inscription comesfrom Diqdiqqah might be quite signifi-cant, because the settlement, althoughbadly ransacked at the times of the exca-vations at Ur, was rich in in residues ofcraft activities. As a fluvial port and acraft centre, it might well have been aMeluhhan enclave. (I believe that if thesite is still accessible and somehow pre-served, in spite of the old disturbances,an archaelogist with practical experienceof Indus materials and artifacts mightfind on surface important evidence).

The recurrent and exclusive presenceof the short-horned bull with loweredhead in the round seals from Mesopota-mia, the Gulf, Bactria and possibly thewestern Iranian plateau (Fig. 1), in frontof the different and variable animaleicones used in the normal Indus valleyseals in my opinion leads to the unexca-pable conclusion that this bovid had aprecise meaning for the Indus communi-ties migrating, settling and trading in thewest. The unpublished cylinder lapislazuli seal from Bactria with a huntingscene might have been a royal or anyhowaristocratic possession, rather than astandard trading tool, and this might wellexplain its completely different symbolicand iconographic message.

There is an almost general consensusthat this big bull visible in the roundwestern seals is the Indian gaur (Bos

gaurus gaurus), a powerful, wild or haf-temed bovid, nearly extinguished in wide

regions of the Subcontinent, but the rea-sons why these western group identifiedthemselves with this particular animalare quite unclear (for details on the gaurin South Asia and some highly conjec-tural interpretation see Vidale, in print).Presenty, the north-eastern Indian semi-domesticated gaur or mithan in the Assamregion and in the local Naga cultures isat the centre of complex ideologicalprojections and ritual cycles, and it ispossible that similar values were at playalso in the Indus valley culture as well(Simoons 1968). Because the gaur iconesin the motherland are constantly loweringtheir head on some kind of container ormanger, and those in the western roundseals often are not, I have also suggestedthat this absence might symbolicallytransform the animal’s lowered head frompeaceful (eating) to aggressive (charg-ing), and that this latter transformationwould fit with the Indians’ perception ofliving in a foreign, potentially enemy anddisruptive world.

This regular association (round sealswith Indus signs to the gaur icone) obvi-ously recalls the Sumerian name Lu-sunzida and its meaning “Man of the justbuffalo cow.” It may hardly be a case thatthe Indus seals in the west always show abovid, and that the only Indian proper“name” we may confidently reconstructfor an Indus trader in Mesopotamia as-cribes in positive terms this individual toa bovid. Parpola et al. interpret the ex-pression as a proper name incorporatinga reference to a traditional Indian bovinefemale deity unknown in Mesopotamia.While this is entirely possible, I ratherwonder if Lu-sunzida does not simplyrefer to the symbolic icone “institutio-nally” adopted by the western Induscommunities. True, the bovid on theseals is always male, while the name Lu-sunzida clearly contemplates a female-


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centered descent. But there is at least oneseal (Gadd’s nr. 18) where the gaur issubstituted by two copulating bulls, thusinvolving sexuality and the female sex inthe same semantic sphere. At any rate,after considering the name Lu-sunzida Iwould venture to guess that the Indussettled communities – such as those livingin the Meluhha village of Lagash – mighthave referred to themselves as to “Thepeople of the just gaur,” or somethingsimilar.

Naturally, the association round west-ern seals-gaur would also imply that alsoin the motherland the different animalsvisible in the standard seals referred, atleast originally, to different roles andstatus positions within the urban socialcontexts. This problem is completely outof my present scope, but the implicationsof such evidence might be obviously im-portant and manifold for the understand-ing of the Indus society per se.

4.2 The inscription in the Paris sealwould confirm that Indus settlers in Me-sopotamia intelligently established criticalconnections with local cults and temples.Besides temple oveerseers in charge ofscribes and craftpersons, keepers and fi-nancers of sacred gardens, traders trans-porting cereals for the temples, we mighthave in the Paris seal a “slave” or a“dog” of Ninildum, the goddess of timberand carpentry. Wood, timber for con-struction, ships and wooden furniture areconsistently mentioned as coming fromMeluhha, and both the trade in timberand the overall industry had a strategiceconomic role in 3rd and early 2nd mil-lennium economies. The find of seals inthe Bahrein graves might reflect theadoption of local rituals by families ofnaturalized immigrants (possibly, peoplespeaking and writing both Indian andlocal languages): as already stated, thispractice is unknown in the few contem-

porary Indus graveyards so far excavatedin Pakistan and India.

The reference to Ninildum might haveanother important implication: as thisseal was bought in the antiquarian marketin Beirut (J.-F. Jarrige, personal commu-nication), if it actually came from theLebanese region – a circumstance thatpresently cannot be demonstrated – onemight suppose that the bearer had his orher interests in the trade of the timber ofthe famous cedars, so actively searchedfor in Mesopotamia, i.e. in one of thestrategic knots that tied the Mesopota-mian markets with the Mediterraneancoasts. If the hypothesis that seals withcuneiform inscriptions are earlier thanthose bearing Indus signs, this mightplace the Paris seal in the chronologicalframe of the Akkadian period, when thepolitical and military pressure towardsthe “upper sea” was at its strongest peak.This is a pure conjecture, but it is fasci-nating, as it would widen the range andgoals of the economic activities of theIndus traders to the Mediterranean coast.Incidentally, one may observe that bothNinildum and Ninmar, the two divinitiesworshipped or served by individuals withprobable Meluhhan connections, are fe-male goddesses.

The mention of the name or title“Dog” in the Paris seal is quite unclear,but at present it might be referred to thepresence of “dogs” receiveing rations ofbread and beer in exchange for theirservices at the statal dockyards of Lagash,in late Ur III times (Zarins 2002, 2003).If the “Dogs” drinking beer and eatingbread at ther royal yards are not animals,as literal translations would imply, Iwould seriously consider the possibilitythat the title identified a corp of profes-sional guards (perhaps mercenaries, andperhaps – on the basis of the Paris seal –of Meluhhan affiliation) appointed by the


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state to the dockyards; but the questionneeds to wait for a proper publication ofthe Paris seal, and to be addressed to aninterested assiriologist.

4.3 While in Mesopotamia writing wascared for and taught in professionalschools maintained in palaces and tem-ples, and the relative record has beenreconstructed in great detail, nothingsimilar was observed in the Indus valley(one might say, this is because templesand palaces have not been identified forthe Indus; but, at least for the palaces, Iwould disagree: my ongoing research).Here – at least in the larger cities –writing seems to have been a reativelywidespread function, possibly performedby consistent groups of urban scribesemployed by several large, partially in-dependent corporate groups, families orgreat houses. This is suggested by thefind in the most important excavations ofseveral small-scale dumps and/or activityareas with unfinished and partially in-scribed steatite seals. The production ofthis key admistrative tool, in fact, doesnot appear to have been centralized by astate or urban authority, but performed atdifferent places and houses at the sametime. At home, such dispersed patternmight account for the high number ofrare or isolated signs recorded for thewhole writing system, as well as by theabsolute lack of standardization in theseal-making technical sequences (Vidale,ongoing research). Moreover, the factthat part of the signs in the westernround seals have no match in the corpora

recorded in Pakistan and India mightsuggest local elaboration, invention, andprobably contexts of growing uncertaintyin the use and trasmission of this spe-cialized information technology by thewestern immigrated communities. Theinvention of new signs or the modifica-tion of traditional ones might have been aresult of a growing effort at adapting theoriginal writing system to the expressionof foreign and quite different languages.This elaboration might well have been apart of the advanced process of accul-turation described in detail in Parpola et

al. 1977. But which languages, precisely,did express the “non-Indus” sequences inthe western round seals in Mesopotamiaor in the Gulf? Among the possibilities inMesopotamia range semitic languagessuch as Akkadian or Amorrite, or Sume-rian (as one would expect in the case ofpartially naturalized immigrants: Parpola1986: 411). For the Gulf, Glassner(2002) found that the majority of theproper names in the inscriptions ascribedto the Dilmun and Magan have Amorriteaffinities. While such Amorrite names inthe Gulf in the late 3rd millennium BCwould constitute an interesting historicalquestion, I think that another possiblecandidate language for the Gulf inscrip-tions in Indus characters would be someform of protohistoric south-eastern se-mitic language (why not, in simplerwords, a form of proto-Arabic?).3 Afterall, the Dilmun civilization of the late3rd millennium BC, with its emphasis onlong-distance trade and navigation, the

3 It may also be observed that the more the westerninscriptions diverge from the sign sequences nor-mally observed in Punjab and Sindh, the more fre-quently they contain a sign representing a schematichuman figure (Vidale, in print). Actually, accordingto my preliminary evaluations, the “man” sign withits variants appears in the western inscriptions corpuswith frequencies absolutely anomalous when com-pared with the rarity of the same signs group at

Mohenjo-Daro. A possible explanation is that the“man” signs and its variants were used as logogramsfor expressing a patronimic identity. Direct descentmight have been adopted as a social convention ofidentity in the western acculturated contexts, whereaswe have nothing similar in the motherland (where, onthe contrary, the most important element of affiliationmight have been the social identity directly signalledby the animal icone).


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managing of intercultural cults, and itsoverall non-farming subsistence, repre-sents an early successful adaptation tothe ecological and geopolitical setting ofthe Arabian peninsula. The social andeconomical evolution of the historic Arabtribes and nations would have followedfor millennia similar strategies.

4.4 The fact that at Ur, so far at least,we have only round seals with Indus in-scriptions, while at Kish and Umma cir-culated standard square Indus seals andtheir sealings, might imply that Sumeriancities might have had different economi-cal attitudes and policies (in differenttimes) towards the Indus immigratingcommunities. Most probably, in the com-plex political history of Mesopotamianstates during the second half of the 3rdmillennium BC, each group, communityor “Meluhha village” had its own history.Trade by the means of settled enclaves atthe source of the potential flow of reve-nue and commodities would conform to atraditional commercial patterns of laterIndian trading communities; at the sametime, being based upon traditional alli-ances and personal acquaintances betweenfamilies of traders and élites of consum-ers of precious, exotic items, this tradewould have been closely dependent uponthe vagaries of local politics, and mighthave easily fallen as soon as such a spe-cialized demand was dismissed, or thepolitical fortune of an urban élite sud-denly failed.

4.5 There might have been an eco-nomic and ideological opposition betweenlong barrel-cylinder carnelian beads,requiring a careful monitoring of theproduction cycle, based upon the pro-curement of the largest carnelian nod-ules, the access to the peculiar stone usedfor Indus drill-heads (see below) and theskilled work of the best chippers anddrillers, and etched carnelian beads, more

common ornaments that could be madesophisticated by the means of the appli-cation of common alcaline substancesand pyrotechnology (Fig. 5). Just to givean impression of the possible cost of anIndus necklace or belt made of long bar-rel-cylinder carnelian beads, on the basisof experimental replications we calcu-lated that the production of one of theseornaments roughly amounts to 480 daysof work by an highly skilled artisan(Kenoyer 1998: 138, 161; see also Ke-noyer et al. 1991, 1994; Kenoyer & Vi-dale 1992). No wonder that such preciousbeads were actively sought for and mo-nopolized by the Sumerian élites com-peting for kingship at the times of thedinastic lords buried in the Royal Ceme-tery of Ur (late 25th-24th century BC?).In contrast, the cheaper but quite showyetched carnelian beads became popularafter the conquest of Sargon. Actually,these beads are reliable indicators of theactivities of the Meluhhan traders inMesopotamia in the last centuries of the3rd millennium BC (Figs. 2, 4). If, fol-lowing the partial lists provided by D.KChakrabarti (1990: 20 ff.), we plot thenumber of western steatite seals withIndus features found in the variousMesopotamian centers with the frequencyof etched carnelian beads found in thesame urban contexts (Tab. 1) we easilysee a clear pattern.

This Table is obviously partial, anddoes not claim to provide any represen-tative sample, but nonetheless it suggestsa positive correlation between the circu-lation in Mesopotamia of seals with Indusinscriptions and symbols the spreadingadoption of etched beads. It seems thatlong barrel-cylinder carnelian beads weresymbolically connected with the pre-Akkadian Sumerian houses competingfor kingship. In contrast, the cheaper andquite showy etched carnelian beads, after


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the political unification of the country,became available to a wide, less exclu-sive demand, as one would expect in the

case of the expanding urban burocraciespromoted by the expansion of the Ak-kadian centralized state.

CitySeals with Indus inscriptions

or Indus iconographies

Etched carnelian

beads*

Ur 11 55Kish 3 13Lagash 2 ?Eshnunna 2 7Nippur 1 2

Table 1. Correlation between the number of seals with Indus icones and Indus signs inMesopotamia and reported finds of etched carnelian beads. After Chakrabarti 1990.* The number refers to both isolated beads and groups. Most of these beads come fromgraves.

5. Towards a new historical picture

In summary, I believe that it will beonly by integrating the textual evidenceon the Meluhhan communities in Meso-potamia with a fast-growing body of newarchaeological evidence that we maymove to a more detailed historical recon-struction. Long-distance trade by navi-gation between the two poles of the Gulfwas already established by late-Neolithicand early Chalcolithic times (Carter2002a, 2002b). It was the the beads andshell trade that, in Mesopotamia, in theGulf, most probably at Susa and possiblyeven in Bactria, gradually promoted thelocal settlement of families of special-ized merchants and craftpersons from theIndus valley, who channeled along theirtracks the supply of raw materials and, ingeneral, the complex know-how of theIndus crafts. Archaeological evidencepushes back the beginning of this processat east to the end of the 4th millenniumBC, when Late Uruk Sumerian engraversfrequently employed the colummella ofthe Indian shank shell (Turbinella pyrum)for their cylinder seals (Kenoyer, inprint).

While these early imports might havebeen due to indirect or occasional trade,by Early Dinastic II-III times, Indiantraders and craftpersons were asked toprovide more and more substantialamounts of highly prestigious and costlyproducts such as shell ornaments andlamps, inlay pieces, and high quality car-nelian strictly reserved to the courts ofthe lords of the Sumerian city-states. Ifwe have to believe to the cuneiform textsthat insistently ascribe to Meluhha thelapis lazuli trade, Meluhhan traderswould also have been promoted theflowing, in a relatively short time, of in-credible amounts of the blue stone at thecourts of Ur (in the estimates of Casa-nova 1997, about 95% of the entire in-ventory of the lapis lazuli ever found inthe Near East and South Asia comes fromthe graves excavated by Leonard Wool-ley in the Royal Cemetery). The preciserole of the Indus valley civilization in thelapis lazuli long-distance trade is still amajor open question in the protohistoryof South Asia and the ancient Near East.If the Indus traders were actually directly


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involved in such a large-scale business, itis hard to believe that they did notorganize their agencies, store-rooms andcredit institutions at the Sumerian courtsand temples; but as we have seen thetextual references so far recorded do notdirectly support this archaeological hy-potheses (on the other hand, it is wellknown that texts are mute on the wholequestion of the aristocratic families buriedin the Royal cemetery of Ur and theirimpressive and costly funerary rituals).

The sargonic conquest put a suddenend to the competion for kingship amongthe Sumerian lords. The precise dating ofthe conquest is an old-debated, difficultquestion in Near Eastern archaeology,and the traditional “high” dating of 2350BC has been questioned by variousauthors. In 1977, for example, Parpola et

al. (1977: 130) accepted a date around2300 BC. Recently, a re-visitation ofMesopotamian chronology by J. Reade(2001) placed the conquest of Sargon atthe beginning of the 22nd century BC.For the history of Mesopotamia, obvi-ously enough, the consequences of thisdate would be far-reaching. Consideringthis important problem from the easternmargins, here it will be enough to saythat such a dating is probably slightly toolow, but there is the actual possibilitythat a dating between 2300 and 2250 BCmight better fit with the 14C datingsfrom sites such as Shahr-i Sokhta as wellas the available general framework oftypological and stylistic comparisonsestablished from central Asia to India (S.Salvatori, personal communication).

The conquest might have badly dam-aged the Indus traders, who might havebased part of their fortune and projectsupon alliances and close personal rela-tionships with the defeated and deposedélites, and, indirectly, the Indus craftgroups. If the great Sumerian houses

used to obtain their sumptuary goods oncredit, the loss for the Indian traderswould have been a true disaster. Inanother paper (Vidale 2002) I suggestedthat the sudden, unexpected fall of theSumerian demand might have caused inthe specialized manufacturing settlementsof the Indus valley a ruinous collapse ofbeads’ production, followed by a generalcrisis of the local craft organization. Thecollapse might be evident in the crisis ofthe carnelian bead “workshops” ofChanhu-Daro (Sindh, Pakistan), where ina single stratigraphic horizon hundreds ofsemi-finished long-barrel carnelian beadswere suddenly abandoned and dumpedfor a mysterious reason (Mackay 1937,1943; Vidale 2002). Whatever the cause,this evidence should have depended, be-sides the fall of the demand, upon amajor, sudden disruption of the contex-tual relationships of production.

These levels at Chanhu-Daro are pre-liminarily datable, on the basis of ce-ramic evidence alone, within the periodlabelled at Harappa 3B (about 2400-2200BC), a range including all the variousdates so far proposed for Sargon’s con-quest. This is also the moment of themaximum diffusion of Indus ceramicsalong the coasts of the Gulf, matchingwith the times of the occupation phase ofthe settlement of Ras al-Jinz in Oman,showing the most intensive interaction ofthe local communities with the Industraders (Cleuziou & Tosi 2000). Were theChanhu-Daro “workshops” abandonedbecause of Sargon’s advent? It is a con-crete possibilty that could be investigatedre-opening the trenches excavated byE.J.H. Mackay in this site and obtainingnew absolute datings; and such a syn-chronicity, if consistently ascertained,would be an important correlation for thewhole chronology of protohistoric SouthAsia.


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Parpola and his collegues (1977: 150)remarked that “Textual references toMeluhha and Meluhhans prior to the UrIII dinasty (relegated) that country andits inhabitants to a non-Mesopotamian,foreign status. Goods and materials wereexotic to Mesopotamia and came from adistant Meluhha...” The authors con-vicingly argue that in the Akkadian pe-riod Meluhha was referred to as foreign,remote land, providing exotic goods un-der the control of ship-owners and long-distance commercial enterprises, and re-quiring the help of professional transla-tors. In the light of the probable invol-vment of Meluhhan traders and craftper-sons with the ED III Sumerian courts, Iwould rather suggest that such a distancewas mainly a political one. The Akkadianrulers after the conquest had no directpolitical ties with the Indian traders, andSargon’s famous statement resounds ofthe pride of having re-established a fruit-ful economic and political relationshipwith the eastern prestigious partner.

The Meluhhan trading communitiescould not have asked for a more favour-able solution. The prompt mass produc-tion of etched carnelian beads after theconquest is a perfect example of the in-telligent, creative and highly opportunis-tic behaviour exhibited by Indian craftcommunities across the world’s history.If it is true that we do not have for theperiod textual evidence with detailedeconomical information, the productionof beads etched with the symbol ofShamash archaeologically shows thesame attitude revealed by the later Ur IIItexts: Indian beadmakers and tradersimmediately adapted to the changingideological environment and soon cameterms with new cults, tastes and ritualhabits, inventing new, ad hoc types ofornaments. According to a fascinatinghypothesis, as we have seen, they might

even have followed the northward expan-sion of the Akkadian kingdom and at-tempted to take advantage in the timbertrade with the Lebanese region (obvi-ously, if on the contrary the Paris sealwas brought to Beirut by a dealer, thiswould not be true). The presence ofetched carnelian beads at Ugarit and TellBrak, at any rate, might indirectly sup-port this possibility.

At the beginning of the Akkadian pe-riod (and possibly before), the Indusfamilies living in the western commercialenclaves already recognized the gaur,one of the standard animal figures of thestandard seals in the motherland, as theirsymbol. While the choice of a standardround form would somehow connectthese seals with those of the Gulf cul-tures, the image of this wild or semi-domesticated creature, represented alsoin round or square seals in contemporarythe Indus valley as well, might be the ex-pression of a real or ideal claimed linkwith the motherland. These seals wereused, although with some transformation,from 2300-2200 to about 2000-1900 BC.At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, theUr III record from Lagash shows a com-munity maintaining its original ethnicaffiliation but successfully integrated withthe Sumerian society, particularly incontexts suggesting economic and ideo-logical interaction with temples and localcults. Meluhhans bear Sumerian names orare identified by their ethnical or profes-sional identity. They live in a separaterural settlement identified as a “Meluhhavillage” somewhere in the province ofLagash; the community owns or rents itscultivated land and manages a centralgranary, that delivers rations or paymentsin barley to craft specialists. They appearvariously involved with the managementof temples and other religious institu-tions: one is perhaps an “inspector” of a


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temple, another a skipper trasportinggrain for a temple’s mill, another one re-ceives a substantial payment in barley forthe temple of Ninmar. To the same god-dess is sacred a “Meluhha garden,” pos-sibly a precinct where fruits and flowersimported from India are cultivated. Aswe have seen, there is the possibility that“Dogs” of Meluhhan affiliation were em-ployed by the Lagash lords as organizedguards for controlling the state dock-yards.

What is doubtless surprising in the UrIII references from Lagash is the totallack of written information on theexpected involvement of the Indus orMeluhha village in craft production andtrade of precious commodities. The hy-pothesis that this apparent crisis of thetraditional long-distance trade activitiescould have been due to the incipientcrisis of the urban organizations in theIndus valley around 2000 BC, advancedby the authors, is presently denied by theevidence that Harappa flourished tillabout 1800 BC, and that Harappa period3C (about 2200-1900 BC) was not at all atime of decline (Meadow et al. 1999,2001; Meadow & Kenoyer 2000). An-other possibility is that the bead andsemiprecious trade probably controlledby the Indus communities was not re-corded in the same contexts and with thesame administrative media used for re-cording payments, rations and deliveriesof the agricultural product. We may also

think, as suggested by Parpola et al.

(1977), that by the 21st century BC thedescendants of the original immigratedMeluhhans had little direct connectionswith the motherland (i.e., that long-distance trade had been monopolized bythe Dilmun sailors and traders). Thecompetition with the Dilmun traders atFaylaka, Tarut and Bahrein must havebeen hard. The presence of Dilmun sealsboth from the cities of Sumer up to theDiyala Valley, as well as in the IranianPlateau (Susa and Tepe Yahya) and inIndus centers such as Lothal (Rao 1973,1979, 1985) points to a very active roleof these merchants. In time, they proba-bly attempted to establish their own tradeoutposts at both poles of the Gulf trade,perhaps trying to intercept the flow ofexchanged commodities before their ul-timate loading. If this was their strategy,on the long run they shoud have beenvery successful, given the disappearanceof Meluhha as a trading partner from thecuneiform records in the first 2 centuriesof the 2nd millennium BC and the corre-spondent rise in its place of Magan forcopper, and later of Dilmun alone (Mery2000: 276 ss., Fig. 176; Tosi 1991: 121;During Caspers 1982). The search forancient seaports on the northern coasts ofthe Gulf, and the very limited excava-tions so far carried out in a few sites, hasnot significantly contributed, so far, tothe solution of these particular questions.

6. Conclusions

As well remarked by M. Tosi “...thelack of Mesopotamian imports in the In-dus Valley reveals the lesser significanceof these connections for the eastern pole.Very much like the Roman trade withIndia and Arabia, as described in the

Periplus of the Erythrean Sea in the 1stcentury AD, the flow of goods towardsthe head of the Gulf in the later 3rd mil-lennium BC was determined more by theMesopotamian demand than by economicintegration with the distant lands that


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supplied these goods from the shores ofthe Indian Ocean.” (1991: 119). Sumeri-ans and Akkadian interacted more withDilmun sailors and traders, Indian immi-grants and largely acculturated socialgroups than with the remote “BlackCountry” of Meluhha. In Mesopotamiaand in the Gulf, the immigrant Indusfamilies maintained and trasmitted theirlanguage, the writing system and systemof weights of the motherland (known inMesopotamia as the “Dilmunite” stan-dard) as strategic tools of trade. Theirofficial symbol of the gaur might havestressed, together with the condition ofliving in a foreign world, an ideal con-nection with the motherland. Nonethe-less, they gradually adopted the use offoreign languages and introduced minorchanges in the writing system for tack-ling with new, rapidy evolving linguisticneeds. The Indus communities in Meso-potamia developed thanks to an intimateunderstanding of Mesopotamian cultureand markets, and to a very opportunisticbehaviour. They promptly adapted their

products and trade to the fast-changingpolitical and ideological environments ofthe local social and cultural evolution.Their success in Mesopotamia is easilymeasured by their efficient adaptation, inorder of time, to the frantic politics andfights of the ED III city-states, to theAkkadian centralized bureaucracy and tothe even more centralized empire estab-lished by Ur-nammu. By 2000 BC, theirintegration with Mesopotamian social andeconomic reality seems to be total. Theacculturation process involved collabo-ration with local religious institutions,worship of foreign divinities, productionof ornaments with foreign religious sym-bols, adoption of “impure” foreign ritualsin life and death and (it would be easy toimagine) at the eyes of their compatriotsat home “eating impure food.” The priceof the success might have been their ap-parent “contamination” with Mesopota-mian habits, creeds and ritual practices, acircumstance that – we may be sure – didnot escape the attention of the traditionalélites in the Indus valley.

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FIGURES

1. Steatite seals with the image of the short-horned bulls with lowered head from Failaka(1), Bahrein (2-3), Bactria (4), the Iranian Plateau (5). Nr. 6 comes from the surfaceof the site of Diqdiqqah, near Ur. Not in scale.

2. Distribution of inscribed finds with Indus signs in Mesopotamia, in the Iranian Pla-teau and in the Gulf (from Parpola 1994).

3. Etched Carnelian Beads found in Mesopotamia and the Iranian Plateau. F1y, secondrow from below, right, bears the symbol of the Akkadian sun-god Shamash: it wasevidenty manufactured by a Meluhhan beadmaker for a local Mesopotamian marketor demand (from Reade 1979).

4. Distribution of etched carnelian beads from the Indus valley to the Mediterraneancoast (from Reade 1979).

5. Long barrel-shaped carnelian beads from Chanhu-Daro and Mohenjo-Daro (Sindh,Pakistan) (upper row, left) and reconstruction of the drilling technique, with lithicdrill-heads (upper row, right: from Mackay 1938, 1943 and Kenoyer 1997). Similarbeads were manufactured and traded in late ED III Mesopotamia. The longest exam-ples of these highly refined beads reach 13 cm. Lower row: examples of etched car-nelian beads found in the Indus valley, to be compared with those found in Mesopo-tamia, common in early and middle Akkadian times.

vidale indus mesopotamia

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