Articles on economics, monetary system, standardized weights and measurements, commerce, and trade of the ancient Indus Valley people and other nearby civilizations
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. >
Lothal was part of an important inland system of navigable pathways that traversed the whole adjoining region, possibly even extending towards Mohenjo-daro. >
The landscape and mapping project around the now dry riverbed of the Beas river has cast important light on how ancient riverine settlements and environments interacted with an urban center like Harappa. >
"Recent work on Mesopotamian chronology supports the theory, maybe first proposed by Bibby (1970: 355), that long-distance trade between the two partners was initiated from the Indus." >
Was the ‘dockyard’ at Lothal a ‘dockyard’ or not? An in-depth look at this question in a true multi-dimensional manner is long overdue. This study seeks to revisit the dockyard hypothesis by examining Lothal from a landscape perspective, using advanced techniques such as multi-sensor remote sensing, cloud computing, and digital elevation models. >
The exchange and communication systems that connected distant parts of the Indus Civilization (c. 2600 to 1900 BC) and beyond had roots beginning in the early Neolithic period. >
