Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.12

c14.12

There are certain great tombs, such as that of Maikop in South Russia and others, of more than petty chieftains, and in these much of the metal-work can be seen to be of types derived from Early Dynastic or Akkadian tools, weapons and wrought silver or gold. Such metal-work can be traced farther eastwards, to such sites as Tepe Hissar and Turang Tepe at the south-east corner of the Caspian Sea, and again into Anatolia in the richly furnished tombs of Alaca Hüyük and, rather later, in those of Trialeti in the Caucasus. It is significant that the Indo-European words for an axe (Sanskrit *paraśu*, Greek *πέλεκυς*, presupposing an original *peleku*) and that for copper (*roudhos*) appear to be of Mesopotamian derivation (Assyrian *pilakku*, Sumerian *urud*) and there may be similar connexions with the words for an ox and a star. The adoption of the metal shaft-hole axe of Sumerian type by the barbarians on the northern fringes of the kingdom of Sumer and Akkad has been commented on in Chapter V - indeed, the Shahi-tump axe has its best parallels in the Maikop tomb.