CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

MESOPOTAMIA, MELUHHA,

AND THOSE IN BETWEEN



Christopher P. Thornton

INTRODUCTION

T

he Harappan Civilization of Pakistan and Northwest India remains something of
an enigma for archaeologists despite almost a century of excavation and research.
While few would argue against the idea of “the Harappans” being both urban and
literate (although see Farmer et al. 2004 ), we still know next to nothing about the
structure(s) of their societies (e.g., are there elites?), about the history of their develop-
ment (e.g., multiple centers of origin or only one?), and the so-called “Indus Script”
remains entirely unreadable (see Wells 2011 ). What little evidence we do have for the
more socio-political aspects of Harappan society come, somewhat frustratingly, from
Mesopotamian texts of the Akkadian and later periods with their occasional references
to “Meluhha” and the people and trade goods from that region (e.g., Parpola et al. 1977 ;
Reade 1995 ; Possehl 1996 ). Given the problems associated with using the term “Indus
Civilization” to refer to a vast socio-cultural phenomenon that stretches far beyond
the realm of the Indus Valley (Possehl 2010 ), the term “Harappan Civilization” will be
used following the convention of naming archaeological cultures after the first reported
site (in this case, the site of Harappa in the Punjab of northeastern Pakistan).
The literature on the locations of ancient “Telmun/Dilmun” (i.e., the upper Gulf ),
“Makkan/Magan” (i.e., the lower Gulf ), and “Melukkha/Meluhha” (i.e., the greater
Indus Valley) is copious and need not be repeated here (Oppenheim 1954 ; Bibby 1969 ;
Potts 1990 ; Edens 1992 : 130 ; Glassner 1996 ; Ratnagar 2004 for summaries and bibliog-
raphy). The reference to all three areas in multiple texts of the later third millennium
BC, often when referring to ships and sea trade, provides a convincing argument that
Southern Mesopotamia was deeply involved in the importation of goods from as far
away as India via the Persian Gulf. Overland trade from the east had played a key role
in the preceding fourth millennium, leading to the spread of first Uruk and then Proto-
Elamite merchants and administrators onto the Iranian Plateau in order to gain better
access to the flow of resources (Alden 1982 ; Helwing 2004 ). As the sea trade grew in
importance, the slower and more costly overland trade probably deteriorated (Possehl
1986 : 88 ; T.F. Potts 1993 ), contributing to the collapse of trade routes across north-
central and northeastern Iran (from Godin Tepe to Tepe Hissar) in the first half of the
third millennium.
Contact between the greater Indus Valley and Mesopotamia probably began around
the same time that the northern Iranian trade routes collapsed, although Sumerian