Mesopotamia The Invention of the City
Although not about the ancient Indus valley, this groundbreaking examination of ten ancient Mesopotamian cities is rich food for thought about how ancient Indus cities may have developed.
Lepromatous leprosy in Bronze Age Oman: micro-CT provides tools for paleopathology in fragmentary and commingled assemblages
The study from Frontiers in Medicine, March 2025 presents the first paleopathological evidence for lepromatous leprosy in Bronze Age Oman (2500–2000 BCE), specifically at the site of Dahwa.
Were the Cretulae (Clay Sealings) from the Indus Port Town of Lothal Part of an Administrative Archive? Contextual, Interpretive, and Comparative Evidence
"Once considered in all their components, clay sealings can in fact be key objects for understanding several aspects of the socio-economic organisation of the Indus Civilization," writes the author of this important recent paper built on years of work and thinking about the unique Lothal sealing trove he has done so much to help us understand.
New radiocarbon dates of human tooth enamel reveal a late appearance of farming life in the Indus Valley
This is an extremely important paper, just published in Nature. It completely scrambles timelines around South Asia and the development of agriculture in the region.
Bronze Age cymbals from Dahwa: Indus musical traditions in Oman
Sometimes you have to find something far away to understand something nearby. This seems to be the case with the discovery of a complete set of copper cymbals in Oman, which have allowed archaeologists to be much more sure that similar finds of only one cymbal in Mohenjo-daro and elsewhere were actually musical instruments.
The So-Called Stupa Mound at Mohenjo Daro and its Relationship with the Ancient Citadel
What was really going on at the so-called stupa mound in Mohenjo-daro? This important paper by Giovanni Verardi and Federica Barba challenges the long-standing interpretation of the so-called Stupa Mound at Mohenjo Daro, as a Buddhist stupa dating to the 2nd century AD.
