Mesopotamia

Indus Valley: Early Commercial Connections with Central and Western Asia

Dennys Frenez
A must-read paper for those fascinated by the extensive trade networks that the ancient Indus civilization was integrated with. Infused with the latest research from the many regions in question, it summarizes and delves into the evidence of people, texts, animals, minerals and plants to seals and weights, pottery, stone, metal and ivory objects, statues, games and toys and more.

Peaceful Harappans? Reviewing the evidence for the absence of warfare in the Indus Civilisation of north-west India and Pakistan (c. 2500-1900 BC)

Edward Cork
Whether or not the ancient Indus civilization was peaceful or not has intrigued a number of scholars and led to books like Jane McIntosh's A Peaceful Realm (2001). The apparent lack of weaponry and depictions of warfare, possibly ideas on the supposed egalitarianism of Indus civilization have led to a preponderance of this hypothesis.

What Lay Beneath: Queen Puabi’s Garments and Her Passage to the Underworld

Rita P. Wright
"The reconstruction of Puabi fully adorned provides insights into the fabric that lay beneath the sumptuous ornaments. The queen’s spectacular accessories, though important, have diverted our attention away from the cloth that lay beneath the eye-catching ornaments, which deteriorated (or de-materialized) long ago and so has been mostly invisible to us in the present day."

Guabba, the Meluhhan Village in Mesopotamia

Petrus S. Vermaak
Until Dr. Vermaak's paper (2008), no one had connected the known existence of a Meluhhan village in the Girsu/Lagash area with Guabba; the availability of more texts since the first connections were made by scholars like Asko Parpola allowed him to both locate it more precisely and tease out a number of other references that give us some sense of what these people did and were known for.

Control Mechanisms in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, the Aegean and Central Europe, c. 2600–2000 BC, and the Question of Social Power in Early Complex Societies

Lorenz Rahmstorf
"In the study of the archaeology of early complex societies in archaeology three questions concerning power are of interest: (1) Who had power? (2) Why did they have power? And (3) How was power exercised? "

Deconstructing the 'Harappan Courtiers': A Re-evaluation of Some of the Anthropomorphic Terracotta Figurines from Harappa

Sharri R. Clark
A comprehensive and important paper that actually takes on the much larger question of Mesopotamian to Indus influence which animated the work of earlier archaeologists. Clark discusses so-called "Harappan courtiers," figurines with tiaras and flower headresses that are thought to have parallels with Mesopotamian artifacts, particularly the royal burial goods of Queen Puabi.

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