Indus trade with Mesopotamia

The Mesopotamian evidence

Cuneiform texts from the Akkadian period onward refer to three trading lands beyond the Gulf: Dilmun, generally identified with Bahrain; Magan, with Oman; and Meluhha, further off, supplying carnelian, ivory, exotic woods, copper and animals. An inscription of Sargon of Akkad claims that ships of Meluhha docked at his capital.

Texts also mention a Meluhhan interpreter, and individuals described as Meluhhan appear in Mesopotamian records, indicating resident traders rather than merely goods passing through intermediaries.

The material evidence

Indus objects have been found in Mesopotamia and the Gulf: etched carnelian beads, long barrel beads, Indus-style seals and weights, and pottery. Conversely, Gulf-type seals occur at Indus sites, and Lothal has produced a seal of Persian Gulf type.

The trade appears to have run both by sea, up the Gulf via Oman and Bahrain, and overland through Iran, where sites such as Shahr-i Sokhta show Indus material.

What moved

Outward from the Indus went carnelian beads, shell, ivory, timber, and probably cotton textiles — which would leave little archaeological trace but which the Mesopotamian references to a distinctive cloth may indicate.

What came back is harder to identify, which is itself informative. Silver, wool, textiles and oil are plausible, and much of the return may have been in perishables. Some scholars have suggested the balance was settled in silver, which does appear at Indus sites.

The identification

Meluhha equals the Indus is the standard view, resting on the direction, the distance, the goods and the timing, and it is strongly supported though not directly proved, since neither the Indus script nor any Mesopotamian text supplies a decisive link. After the decline of the Indus cities, references to Meluhha change character and eventually come to denote somewhere else, which is consistent with the collapse of the trade.