Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c13.39

c13.39

Mohenjo-daro. A copper axe-adze with a shaft-tube for hafting was found in a late stratum, and is a completely exotic object among the metal types of the Harappā Culture (Fig. 28). But it is characteristic of a number of sites in North Persia - Hissar III, Shah Tepe, Turang Tepe - likely to be approximately contemporary with the Akkadian period in Mesopotamia, and surviving in other sites (e.g. at Assur and in the B cemetery at Sialk) probably as late as the ninth century B.C. It is an import from the west, and a weapon of war, likely on the whole to date from the second millennium B.C., and to be taken into consideration with the shaft-hole axes from Shahi-tump and Chanhu-daro II. There is also a group of what can only be called swords, up to 1½ feet long and with a strengthening mid-rib in a manner foreign to the Harappā tradition, found again in the later strata only, and which present something of a problem when one comes to look for parallels. The swords or daggers nearest in type to those from Mohenjo-daro, with a tang and rivets to hold the handle, come from Palestine and date between 1800 and 1500, where they are often associated with the Hyksos period, but Palestine is remote enough from India, and one would expect intermediate examples to have been recorded. However, they certainly seem intrusive at Mohenjo-daro, and likely to have been brought by invaders from somewhere outside the western frontiers of the Harappā kingdom.