The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c15.10

c15.10

Thus far, therefore, links have been detected with central Asia, north-eastern Afghanistan, north-eastern Persia, south India and, nearer home, with Rajputana, Gujarat and Baluchistan. Other links with Mesopotamia will more conveniently be considered in relation to chronology (below, p. 84). Whether the whole of this traffic was overland or whether some part of it was by sea is matter for conjecture. Direct evidence for Harappan shipping is confined to a seal and a potsherd-graffito from Mohenjo-daro,¹ both of which show a craft with sharply upturned bow and stern of a kind paralleled in Crete, Egypt and Sumer. One of the representations shows a mast and yard, the other a central cabin and a man at the steering-oar. These may be river-craft, but there is no reason to suppose that similar small ships were less venturesome than the Arab dhows of to-day, and coastal traffic up the Persian Gulf would give a context for a near-coastal Harappan site such as Sutkāgen-dor, 300 miles west of Karachi (above, p. 45).²