— Mesopotamia, Meluhha, and those in between —Figure 31.1 Map of the regions discussed in the text (courtesy of Gregory Possehl).texts of the time refer only to “Telmun” as the entrepot through which eastern sea trade
reached Southern Mesopotamia (Englund 1983; Crawford 1998: 1-8). The somewhat
sudden appearance of references to “Magan” and “Meluhha” as well as to “Marhashi”
(likely the Kerman region of Southeastern Iran; see Steinkeller 1982, 2006; contra
Francfort and Tremblay 2010) in the Akkadian texts of Sargon and his descendants
(f.2300-2100 BC) is a phenomenon that has not been well explained (e.g., Gelb 1970;
Glassner 1989). Better studied is the near-complete lack of Mesopotamian imports in
sites of the Harappan Civilization (see During Caspers 1984; Chakrabarti 1990; Possehl
2002a) despite an appreciable (if still rare) number of Meluhhan-related objects in
Mesopotamia (see Parpola et al. 1977; Possehl 1997a: 90; Kenoyer 2008). If the
Meluhhans and Akkadians were carrying out more direct trade by the Sargonic period,
as the texts would suggest, then what were the people of the greater Indus Valley getting
in return?
While the “ships of Meluhha” may have anchored at the Akkadian capital, as Sargon
of Agade boasted, they were probably not trading exclusively in Meluhhan-manu-
factured goods. Instead, it seems likely that they were probably stopping first at Magan
(and/or Dilmun) to unload cargo. While at these intermediary ports, the Meluhhans
may have traded their goods for raw materials such as copper, diorite, timber, and
possibly chlorite/steatite, which were then brought to Mesopotamia (Oppenheim 1954;
Cleuziou and Tosi 1989). This does not explain, of course, what the Mesopotamians
gave the Meluhhans in return for these precious raw materials. Traditionally, scholars
500
kilometers0