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the-south-asian.com June / July 2005 |
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June /
July
2005 Real Issues
Lifestyle
Books Between
Heaven and Hell
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Page 4 of 6
Harappan Heritage Culture, Technology, Trade:
Mathematics , Trading Seals & Commercial Trading weights & Raw Materials The Indus Civilization also gave us the 16 annas to a
Rupee monetary system, used in south Asian countries until recently, seems
to stem from base-8 [ octal] Indus mathematics. Other scholars claim that
there was a consistent binary system of weights and measures such that the
application of this binary measuring system in architectural features such
as brick size was common. The Harappan system of weights established the
most frequently occurring weight as 13.63 gms. Taking this weight as 1, the
weights found were either fractions or multiples of this weight. [ 1/16,
1/8, ¼, ½, 1, 2, 4, 10, 12.5, 20, 40, 100, 200, 400, 500 and 800]. Evidence
of these weights was found in Iraq at Ur [where the Tigris & Euphrates
meet], in Bahrain, in Oman. The significance of these weights is that
traders from both the Mesopotamian & Harappa civilizations were stationed
abroad in both these lands and also in Bahrain [ Dilmun & Saar in northwest
Bahrain] and Oman and Dholavira in the Ran of Kutch - Gujarat. Trading Seals signified marks of individual authority/
ownership. They were used in sealing contents of Packages [jars, baskets,
containers] and had a small hole on the back which was threaded using a
string. At MohenjoDaro, Harappa and Lothal in Gujrat and the main IVC
port/export city, bulk goods reprocessing [opening of packages, jars,
repackage, sorting, checking] was carried out using these seals. Such seals
have been found in Oman, Ur, Susa, Bahrain. Message seals were used to convey /store the
information such as the identity of a sender of a message or merchandise or
the authority of a particular trading agent carrying the seal. Copper mined out of Oman and Dilmun [Bahrain] became the
most heavily traded product between Mesopotamia and the IVC. Lapis and
turquoise came from the Chagai hills [scene of Pakistan’s Nuclear Bomb Test
site]. Lapis specifically from the Badakhshan province mines in Afghanistan
was an alternative source. Modern scholars identify Meluhha with the Indus Valley,
Makkan with the Makran and Omani coasts, Dilmun with Bahrain, Failaka, with
the adjacent Arabian coastline. These three far-flung lands were important
partners in the immense trade network in which Mesopotamia participated. In
the major literary references to Harappa – Meluhha includes: - Inscription referring to Meluhhan ships docked at Akkad, a
city of Sumerian times in 2330 B.C. -References to a Meluhhan ship-holder and a Meluhhan
interpreter. -Gudea of Lagash inscriptions: 'the Meluhhans came up (or
down) from their country to supply wood and other raw materials for the
construction of the main temple of Gudea?s capital.' -References to luxury items being imported from Meluhha. -References to a Meluhhan workers village. It is fascinating to note that by the Ur III Period
[(2112-2004 B.C.], the Meluhhan (Harappan) workers residing in Sumeria had
Sumerian names, leading Parpola [ IVC language specialist, University of
Helsinki, Finland] to comment that 'three hundred years after the earliest
textually documented contact between Meluhha and Mesopotamia, the references
to a distinctly foreign commercial people have been replaced by an ethnic
component of Ur III society' (Parpola et al. 1977:152). Here we have an undeniable economically-based presence of
Indus traders maintaining their own distinct village in a distant peripheral
location over a considerable span of time. While this presence does not
entail the economic domination necessary for the application of center and
periphery models, it is highly intriguing. Once again, the Harappans may not
have needed to trade with the west, but there can be no doubt that they did
so. In Trading Encounters between the Indus -Valley and
Mesopotamia – Babylon, there is little evidence of warfare. The same weights
and measures were used for over a thousand miles, an incredible feat in the
Bronze Age. Indus traders set up flourishing colonies in the Gulf and
Mesopotamia; no evidence of the reverse has yet been found.
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