Living Symbols
A spectacular exhibition opened on June 24, 2014 at the National Museum of Oriental Art (MNAO) 'Giuseppe Tucci' in Rome, Italy.
Ancient Indus civilization articles which can be downloaded and read as PDF files from this site.
Water Supply and History: Harappa and the Beas Regional Survey
A paper examining and interpreting climate models and the history of water supply as it pertains to the Indus Valley civilization (including dramatic changes in precipitation and shifts in the Ravi River among the rerouting of other streams and tributaries).
Lithic Production: The Excavation of RH962 Flint Mine and Flint Knapping Workshops on the Rohri Hills
This paper considers one aspect of the research conducted by the Italian Archaeological Mission in Sindh, more specifically the discovery of the Indus flint mines of the III millennium BC in the Rohri Hills, and the excavations carried out at flint mine RH962.
Bronze Age Salūt (ST1) and the Indus Civilization: recent discoveries and new insights on regional interaction
"The discovery of Indus seals manufactured with non-Indus raw materials, but with tools and techniques associated with Indus productions, further supports the idea that merchants and craftsmen from the greater Indus Valley were living and working at interior settlements in the Oman peninsula."
Cereals, calories and change: exploring approaches to quantification in Indus archaeobotany
Another sign of the growing importance of archaeobotanical datasets and the way in which qualitative and quantitative analysis can be used to paint a richer picture of something as complex as agriculture and nutrition in ancient Indus times.
Fish Symbolism and Fish Remains in Ancient South Asia
"Fish remains from archaeological sites have the capacity to offer a tremendous amount of information on social issues in addition to the more traditional goals of subsistence studies related to procurement strategies and seasonality," writes the author.
Prehistoric Fishing along the Coasts of the Arabian Sea: A Short Overview from Oman, Balochistan and Sindh (Pakistan)
"The scope of this paper is to update and discuss the available evidence for prehistoric fishing along the Arabian Sea coasts of the Sultanate of Oman, Las Bela and Sindh in Pakistan," write the authors. By prehistoric they mean going back to at least the 7th millennium BCE (7000-6000 BCE).
Bricks and urbanism in the Indus Valley rise and decline
"The building material for the villages and cities of the IVC [Indus Valley Civilization] was predominantly mud brick.
Diversity, variability, adaptation and ‘fragility’ in the Indus Civilization
A superb framing of how we might think of the Indus civilization and its evolution as a larger entity in comparison and contrast with other ancient civilizations. How did Indus cities fit into a rural context? Were they ruled by elites? How did they manage to survive so long?
The Short-Horned Bull on the Indus Seals: a Symbol of the Families in the Western Trade?
A superb, thought-provoking paper by one of the most imaginative and interesting of ancient Indus archaeologists, able to reconcile the bigger picture with data and suppositions that often fit together very nicely. They certainly do in this paper.