Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c13.17

c13.17

Of the other objects from the cemetery, the copper spear and shaft-hole battle-axe from burial B indicate that this is the grave of a warrior (Fig. 26). The spear-head, 9 inches long, has no mid-rib and recalls Harappā types, but the stoutly-made axe, with a shaft-hole 1·2 inches in diameter, seems to derive from Sumerian and Akkadian prototypes, while its nearest parallels, significantly enough, come from the graves of chieftains of barbarian tribes beyond the fringe of the oriental urban civilizations at Maikop and Tsarskaya in South Russia. In the loosely-knit structure of semi-nomadic barbarian society, spread over the steppe and along the frontiers of the more settled communities in Mesopotamia or Persia, such types, ultimately originated by Sumerian metal-smiths, would have a wide and often rapid distribution.