The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c20.41

c20.41

Recently, renewed attention has been drawn to the potential chronological value of certain "segmented" beads from Harappan sites.² The formal identity of these beads with others from the Mediterranean and even as far afield as England has long been recognized (p. 74), but has now been reinforced by spectrographic analysis which demonstrates identity of composition between a bead from Harappā and another from Knossos. The significance of this material identity is stressed by differences between other beads of the same type which have also been analysed: a slight difference between those from Harappā and Knossos on the one hand and one from Tell el Amarna on the other, and a major difference between the former and one from Ur. The conclusion which has been drawn is that "this identity of composition of specimens from Harappā and Knossos can mean only one thing: that they were derived from the same source. Also that Sumer was not implicated other than possibly having acted as a trade or other route over which the beads were passed." Now the Knossos bead came from the Temple Repositories of Middle Minoan III, and, if the relative popularity of these beads in Egypt under the XVIIIth Dynasty be allowed a certain pull in the matter, a date about 1600 B.C. may be indicated. Admittedly the evidence of single beads is far too slight a document in itself: its value is rather as an index to the need for further spectrographic research than as a substantive contribution to chronology. So far as it goes, it is consistent with the trend of the later Harappan evidence. But it is only necessary to recall that at Tell Brak in the Khabur valley of northern Syria segmented beads of glazed steatite go back to *c.* 3200 B.C.¹ to realize the complexity of the problem in the present state of knowledge.