Trade

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

New excavations at the Umm an-Nar site Ras al-Hadd HD-1, Sultanate of Oman (seasons 2016–2018): insights on cultural interaction and long-distance trade

Maurizio Cattani
"Recent discoveries of Indus and Indus related materials at sites in the interior, and a general reassessment of comparable materials throughout Oman, suggest a more complex model of interaction. . . these artefacts probably reflect the presence of small groups of Indus merchants and craftspeople integrated into local communities and directly involved with important socioeconomic activities."

Gonur Depe - City of Kings and Gods, and the Capital of Margush Country (Modern Turkmenistan)

Nadezhda A. Dubova
One of the most interesting trends to follow around ancient Indus studies is the increasing amount of research and knowledge of neighboring cultures and civilizations in time and place: the ancient Arabian Gulf, Mesopotamia, Central Asia (not to mention South and East India, even Southeast Asia).

Materializing Harappan identities: unity and diversity in the borderlands of the Indus Civilization

Brad Chase
The authors take on the complex question of how Harappan or Indus culture made its presence felt in Gujarat from about the middle of the third millennium through the decline of Indus civilization six or seven hundred years later. How did Indus traditions as expressed in material culture and the manufacture of these objects relate to what we see in Indus cities like Mohenjo-daro and Harappa?

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.

Perspectives from the Indus: Contexts of interaction in the Late Harappan/Post-Urban period

Rita P. Wright
Rita P. Wright, an archaeologist with long experience understanding the Indus areas around Harappa (see the Beas Settlement and Land Survey) looks at the complex evidence surrounding the decline of Indus civilization at the end of the third and beginning of the second millennium (around 2000 BCE and afterwards).

Animal movement on the hoof and on the cart and its implications for understanding exchange within the Indus Civilisation

Cameron A. Petrie
It seems to be an adage around the ancient Indus research that solving one mystery simply surfaces another. This is the case with this paper. It takes on the question of ground – land – transportation in ancient Indus times only to find that larger answers around transport remain fuzzy.

Indus and Mesopotamian Trade Networks: New Insights from Shell and Carnelian Artifacts

Jonathan Mark Kenoyer
A judicious review of the evidence for trade between the ancient Indus and Mesopotamia, with a focus on prestige objects like carnelian beads and shell bangles and the implications and questions we may draw from them about the nature of the connections between both civilizations.

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