25 May 2024
2-4pm EST
Academic Lecture
North-West University in Potchefstroom
South Africa
Connections between the Indus and Aegean during the Bronze Age (3000-1177 BCE) have proven complex, multi-scalar, and deserving of extended, multidisciplinary study. Some of the strongest evidence for such far reaching exchange survives as Indus-style carnelian beads, double-spiral silver beads, the trade in lapis lazuli, as well as various textual sources and iconographic styles. Most of the surviving evidence is inorganic: stone, metal, ceramic, and lime plaster. A frequently-occurring questions arise, however, regarding the likely trade in organics: what organics goods and materials might have moved between the Aegean and Indus during the Bronze age?
By pairing Mesopotamian written documentation with iconography and archaeozoology, it becomes possible to begin tracing the movement of particular animals from the Indus, through Mesopotamia, and into the Aegean. These animals served a variety of roles, not least of which are indicators of status and/or cultic significance. From monkeys to water buffalo and amphibians to pheasants, this lecture will focus on distinguishing which of the many animals represented in Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Aegean art and texts likely hail from the Indus River Valley.
Comments