Trade

Articles on economics, monetary system, standardized weights and measurements, commerce, and trade of the ancient Indus Valley people and other nearby civilizations

Moving Mountains: The Trade and Transport of Rocks and Minerals with the Greater Indus Valley Region

Randall Law
Harappa’s rock and mineral assemblage from the perspective of the greater Indus Valley’s complex geology, the distance one would have to travel to acquire certain materials and a discussion of the differing motivations behind the acquisition and transport of rock and minerals in the greater Indus Valley region.

Bronze Age Salūt (ST1) and the Indus Civilization: recent discoveries and new insights on regional interaction

Dennys Frenez
"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."

Symbols of Dilmun’s royal house – a primitive system of communication adopted from the late Indus world?

Steffen Terp Laursen
Perhaps some of the best clues to deciphering Indus seals may lie in the Arabian Gulf, where inscribed seals seem to have arrived and taken root just as they disappeared in Indus cities around 2000 BCE. "The Harappan sealing tradition, however, continued in Dilmun long after it had vanished from the Indian subcontinent and lived a vibrant life of its own," writes Steffen Laursen.

Shell Working Industries of the Indus Civilization: A Summary

Shell Inlay
Jonathan Mark Kenoyer
Major species of marine mollusca used in the shell industry are discussed in detail and possible ancient shell source areas are identified. Variations in shell artifacts within and between various urban, rural and coastal sites are presented as evidence for specialized production, hierarchical internal trade networks and regional interaction spheres.

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