Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c11.152

c11.152

Nor do the points of contact cease here. In Mesopotamia and just over the Syrian border at Mari some eight or ten stone vessels have been found (again in Early Dynastic contexts), which are of precisely the same type of those from South Baluchistan, and here similarity gives way to identity in certain instances. From Shub-ad’s grave at Ur came a small stone cup of this class with elaborate carved ornament probably imitating some kind of woven fabric, and this is exactly matched by a fragment from the Dasht River in the Makran; other cups carved to imitate basketry occur at Kish in Mesopotamia, at Susa in Elam and at Mohenjo-daro. A common form has carved on the surface the representation of a reed hut with door and windows the lintels of which, made of reed bundles in the original huts, are shown realistically sagging in the carved versions. Now these ‘house-urns’ are common in Sistan and at Khurab in the Persian Makran, and in Early Dynastic Sumer turn up at Mari, Khafajah, Lagash and Adab, and at Susa in Elam – again always in Early Dynastic associations. Here we must be dealing with exports from the Makran to the west, pots presumably originally containing some unguent fragrant with curious spices and rare in the eyes of the Early Dynastic Sumerians, who treasured the little carved vessels, thinking them worthy to be buried with a queen among the great Royal Tombs.