Articles on economics, monetary system, standardized weights and measurements, commerce, and trade of the ancient Indus Valley people and other nearby civilizations
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. >
The famous article on the weights at Chanhi-darho by A.S. Henny, from Ernest J.H. Mackay original excavation reports. Chanhu-daro was an Indus manufacturing town in Sindh excavated by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston starting in 1929. >
This article, in a volume in honor of the "father" of Central Asian Archaeology, Victor Sarianidi, is a solid recap of the many connections between the ancient Indus civilization and contemporary Central Asian cultures. >
As Dr. Rafique Mughal leads the first major excavation at the site of Ganweriwala in the Cholistan desert – an exceptionally exciting development in ancient Indus archaeology – it is well worth reviewing his earlier papers, many of which were published in Pakistani archaeological journals forty or more years ago. >
A closer look at the mysterious Kulli culture of Balochistan that both pre-dated and was contemporaneous with ancient Indus culture, and apparently was part of an elaborate trading network that stretched west as far as the Jiroft culture in Iran. >
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. >
Shereen Ratnagar writes with a crystalline, no-nonsense intelligence about Lothal and its famous "dockyard" in a way that both uplifts and contextualizes this strange feature of a relatively small Harappan site. >
The discovery of shell-middens (mounds) in Las Bela, Balochistan, from roughly 8000 BCE raises the possibility of trade across the Arabian Sea during Neolithic times. >
The apparently sudden appearance of Indus-type seals, pottery and other implements around 2000 BCE in the Arabian Gulf, just before the Indus cities and culture seems to have gone into decline, is a great mystery. >
