Terqa (Tell Ashara) on the right bank of middle Euphrates, Syria
See: http://bharatkalyan97.blogspot.in/2013/09/genetic-links-between-india-and.htmlGenetic links between India and Mesopotamia in Bronze Age Ancient Neast East
Meluhha may mean the lands of the Indian ocean. [J Reade "Commerce or Conquest"]
"Meluhha was certainly the most distant of the countries beyond the sea the list of its products which were embarked there is among the richest and most varied and comprises precious stones, (chalcedony, cornelian and lapis luzuli) copper, gold and other prized metals, ebony, the wood of sissoo, the gis-ab-be 'sea wood' (maybe mangrove) cane, peacocks and roosters. The texts also speak of ships, skilled sailors and sophisticated inlaid furniture." [G Weisgerber "Dilmun a Trading Entrepot]
"...seafaring merchants from the distant lands of Dilmun, Meluhha and Maakan tied up at Akkads quay during Sargon's reign 2334-2279 BC. Copper was shipped directly from Maakan. During the reign of Gudea of Lagas, copper diorite and wood were delivered from Maakan and Meluhha delivered rare woods, gold *Tin* lapis Lazuli and carnelian to Lagas.There are no records indicating that ships from Meluhha docked in Sumeror that Sumerian seamen were themselves in Meluhha.""Tukulti-Ninurta refers to himself as 'King of the Upper and Lower Seas and ruler over Dilmun and Meluhha."
[G Weisgerber "Dilmun a Trading Entrepot]
Mesopotamian carnelian, lapis lazuli, and gold beads, restored as a necklace, l. 14.3 cm, mid-third millennium BCE from Iraq, Kish, Mound A, Burial A51. Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History, inv. no. 228533.
The gold 'Bactrian' did not originate in that region, but further east, possibly from the mountains of Dardistan (Vogelsang 1989: 169) to the north of Peshawar.
Examples of long-barrel carnelian cylinder beads from Chanhu-daro (after Mackay 1943: Pl. LXXXI) were discovered in Tello in contexts datable to the time of Gudea or the Ur III period.
Amongst the earliest evidence of Harappan carnelian in Mesopotamia15 are four 14-15-cm-long barrel-cylinder beads (Fig. XII. 7) from the Royal Cemetery at Ur ( Tosi 1980:450).
Indus valley seals have been found in East Arabia. A ceramic tripod which made Bronze in Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam starting in the 3rd millenium BC. Could the tin of Meluhha have come from Indonesia? “The Indonesians were sailors, crossing the Indian Ocean to settle Madagascar in the Bronze Age. The Persian Gulf, Gulf of Aden, Bay of Bengal, and Red Sea, along with the Indian Ocean were all together called the Erythrian Sea and people from the Erythrian Sea settled Sideon and Tyre; eventually becoming Phoenicans. Meanwhile, people from Indonesia moved through Melanesia to the Pacific and became Polynesians, so the two cultures Phoenicians and Polynesians are related.” (Steve Glines, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/sci.archaeology/9KwZXeEJ_Bs)
Map showing the locations of the Molucca islands, a traditional center of clove cultivation, and Terqa, where cloves have been discovered in an Old Babylonian context, ca. 1700 BCE.
Tin is listed as coming with the copper from Meluhha in the south.
Meluhha in ancient cuneiform texts may be a reference for areas along the north coast of the Persian Gulf and extending east, possibly as far as Baluchistan. Magan was located near the straits of Hormuz and the peninsula of Ras Hamra (near present-day Muscat in Oman). In mid first millennium BCE, the location changes direction because Magan was designated as an area the other side of the Gulf upto Oman and Meluhha got a new reference to Egypt and Nubia. The ships of Meluhha moored at the quay of Agade would have perhaps come to meet on the horn of Africa with Egyptian ships heading for Punt. The rediscovery of this Bronze Age thalassocracy over the Indian Ocean and its long development toward the Arabian coastlands perhaps represents one of the most exciting perspectives to be opened up by archaeology, as M. Tosi notes.
"The text may date back to 2300 BC and has come to us in a bilingual version in Summerian and Akkadian probably compiled 600 years later in Old Babylonian times Here is the Akkadian version according to H Hirsch"
MA Mw-lukh-kha MA
ma qan
Ma Dilmun
in gar-ri-im
si a-ga-de
ir-ku-us [M. Tosi "Early Maritime Cultures"]
ma qan
Ma Dilmun
in gar-ri-im
si a-ga-de
ir-ku-us [M. Tosi "Early Maritime Cultures"]
"Dilun emerges as the trading power par excellence in the Gulf securing direct lines of supply from Meluhha and Maakan."
[C C Lamberg-Karlovsky "Death in Dilmun"]
"Sumers foremost copper producer now definitely associated with the rich copper bearing regions of Oman and to Meluhha."
"The acceptance of a possible pre-Akkadian date for at least some of the Meluhha trade with Mesopotamia"
"Appears to suggest a possible Meluhha trade through the Arabian Gulf in pre- Akkadian times"
[E C I During Caspers "Animal Designs and Gulf Chronology"]
"Agum-kakrime II, the ninth king of the kasserites in Babylon, dated after 1600 BC speaks of importing eye stones from the land of Meluhha"
Terqa structures on a mound.
“5 August 2011
Chambered tomb unearthed in Terqa, Syria
Team leader Jacek Tomczyk of Poland's Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University reports on two Bronze Age burials in a tomb from the ancient trade town of Terqa, a Mesopotamian archeological site in modern-day Syria.
"The middle Euphrates valley was inhabited by the 'dimorphic society' of the nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists, who lived in the steppe, and by the agriculturalists who inhabited the river valley," Tomcyzk writes. "The nomads were identified (as) 'the wild and uncivilised peoples' - they came from the desert." "The tomb from Terqa consisted of two chambers with stone domes. The smaller chamber contained many luxury grave goods, including jars, plates and pieces of ancient jewellery. The artefacts were placed in an orderly manner, one upon another. Small animal bones and crushed ostrich eggshells indicate that this part was visited by people who left there some offerings. The other chamber was bigger and contained human skeletons," says the study. The twin-domed tomb is about 5 metres long, 3.5m wide and 1.8m high, and contained two skeletons - one of a woman and one of a man. "The man's skeleton is extremely heavy and large," says the study, which estimates the man died around the age of 45. Shoulder, back and upper arm bones look unusually thick, while his forearms and leg bones were "massive," says the study, all signs of a thickly-muscled fellow. He stood about 1.8m - quite tall for the Bronze Age. "Bronze parts of a coat and belt together with bronze weapon-blades were found on the right side of the hip." The dead man bore two healed cuts on his right upper arm. "The wounds are deep and long," says the study. "... the blow[s] must have been strong." The woman, who lived to at least 40, "was neither slim nor lightly built," says the study, showing signs of leg bone wear caused by long periods of squatting. She was about 1.6m - more typical for the time. The researchers succeeded in studying the maternal DNA of the man, finding he belonged to the "K" grouping, a family traced to the Near East from about 14,000 years ago, and South Asia even further back, about 53,000 years ago.” http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/004452.html
"The middle Euphrates valley was inhabited by the 'dimorphic society' of the nomadic and semi-nomadic pastoralists, who lived in the steppe, and by the agriculturalists who inhabited the river valley," Tomcyzk writes. "The nomads were identified (as) 'the wild and uncivilised peoples' - they came from the desert." "The tomb from Terqa consisted of two chambers with stone domes. The smaller chamber contained many luxury grave goods, including jars, plates and pieces of ancient jewellery. The artefacts were placed in an orderly manner, one upon another. Small animal bones and crushed ostrich eggshells indicate that this part was visited by people who left there some offerings. The other chamber was bigger and contained human skeletons," says the study. The twin-domed tomb is about 5 metres long, 3.5m wide and 1.8m high, and contained two skeletons - one of a woman and one of a man. "The man's skeleton is extremely heavy and large," says the study, which estimates the man died around the age of 45. Shoulder, back and upper arm bones look unusually thick, while his forearms and leg bones were "massive," says the study, all signs of a thickly-muscled fellow. He stood about 1.8m - quite tall for the Bronze Age. "Bronze parts of a coat and belt together with bronze weapon-blades were found on the right side of the hip." The dead man bore two healed cuts on his right upper arm. "The wounds are deep and long," says the study. "... the blow[s] must have been strong." The woman, who lived to at least 40, "was neither slim nor lightly built," says the study, showing signs of leg bone wear caused by long periods of squatting. She was about 1.6m - more typical for the time. The researchers succeeded in studying the maternal DNA of the man, finding he belonged to the "K" grouping, a family traced to the Near East from about 14,000 years ago, and South Asia even further back, about 53,000 years ago.” http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/004452.html
Third millennium city wall remains - Area B Terqa.
Map of modern Syria, showing location of Terqa along Euphrates trade route.
Hematite duck weight (ca. 2 cm)
Carbonized spices found in a jar in the pantry room. These second millennium sices included cloves which were possibly traded from the Moluccas.
"In the pantry of a house belonging to an individual named Puzurum, dated by tablets to c. 1700 BCE or slightly thereafter, were found 'a handful of cloves...well preserved in a partly overturned jar of a medium size' (Buccellati 1983:19; cf. Buccellati and Kelly-Buccellati 1983:54)...cloves are native to Molucca islands off the coast of Indonesia and whether or not it was via India that they arrives in Mesopotamia, from which they were transhipped up the Euphrates to Syria, they are almost certainly of Moluccan origin (Reade 1986: 331)...no consensus exist on whether the word is of Sumerian (Hempel 1993: 53) or non-Sumerian (Parpola and Parpola 1975: 205-38) origin...Terqa cloves bear witness to the extroardinary range of Mesopotamia's contacts in the second millennium, even if they reached Syria via Harappan, Dilmunite, and/or Babylonian middle men." (Potts, Daniel T., 1996, Mesopotamian civilization: the material foundations, Cambridge University Press, p.270).
“Since 1976, the middle Euphrates site of Ashara, Syria, ancient Terqa, has been excavated by a team of archaeologists under the co -direction of Dr. Giorgio Buccellati and Dr. Marilyn Kelly-Buccellati. IIMAS – The International Institute for Mesopotamian Area Studies has been the catalyst…Ancient Terqa, modern Ashara, is located along the banks of the Middle Euphrates river. Bounded to the north by the Khabur plains and on the south by the flat, alluvial plains of Mesopotamia, the region surrounding the city is at the heart of the Fertile Crescent, and a natural bridge between the desert and the mountains, between the north and south…After the first ten seasons, the site has revealed indications of occupation dating back to the Fifth and Fourth Millennia, with a major sequence of cities occupying the tell in the Third and Second Millennia as well as a reduced occupation during the First Millennium…(The Ancient Citystate of Terqa, ca. 3000 BCE was) dominated by massive defensive rings surrounding the city – 60 acres of land surrounded by three concentric, solid masonry walls, 60 feet thick,with an additional 60 foot wide moat encircling the outer ring: these are extraordinary dimensions by any standard... Immediately inside the walls, excavations have revealed industrial installations such as large ovens, kilns and storage facilities, and along one area, a number of Third Millennium burials…The Fifth Season at Terqa uncovered not one but four superimposed temples dedicateed to the Goddess of Good Health, Ninkarrak (the end of the 18th century BCE)…A surprising find was an elephant rib – not a tusk – lying on the floor of one of the service rooms, possibly implying the presence of live animals. Tablets were found near the cella inscribed with lists of offerings brought to the Temple, seal impressions which had been used to close the lids of jars bore inscriptions of her name, and one clay tablet preserved an ancient hymn to the “Mistress of the Abyss.” Finally, at the very end of the season, within a few feet of the altar, a small bag yielded the ancient Goddess’ jewels, her healing talismans. Thousands of precious stones-carnelians, agates, lapis lazuli, serpentine rock crystals and frit, shells and hematites, shaped into beads. Mostly geometrical in form, in an infinity of sizes and shapes. Some had been styled into little animals, ducks, frogs and dogs. After cleaning and stringing, the more than ten pounds of beads numbered over 6700, and stretched for meters. Along with this impressive array, eight Egyptian scarabs were found, indicating early Egyptian influence at the site…Tablets of his financial activities, mostly contracts of purchases and sales of land, include some involving loans from the Temple Treasury (relate to) Puzurum and give us insights into the administrative and banking procedures of the economy and the Temple…Contracts were signed at the left of each line by the witnesses to the contract, and they read like the “social registry” of Second Millennium Terqa, signifying that Puzurum had some pretigious associates during the reign of King Yadikh-Abu.
The tablets themselves were small, pillow-like in shape and easily held in one hand. They were normally enclosed in an envelope of clay, sealed with cylinder impressions and additional inscriptions.Broken only in the case of a dispute over the terms of the agreement, or upon repayment of the loans due, the tablets were “supervised” by the Temple. When all terms had been completed, the “cashier” would purposely break the tablet and its envelope with a special tool which has left its mark clearly visible, and return the fragments to Puzurum… Since (Terqa) was at the hub of a large communication network which linked the arms of the civilized world, it was identifiably in contact with distant lands…A Hittite stamp seal was found next to an unpretentious child burial in the higher levels of Puzurum’s house. It represents a stylized hare, characteristic of Old Hittite seals from Anatolia, and may have been left behind by Hittite troops as they passed on their way to sack Babylon in 1595 BCE… A small but very important find reflecting the scope of Terqa’s international trade connections was indicated by the contents of a jar in the pantry of Puzurum-a few kernels of cloves. This spice was not known in the west before Romah times, and more significantly, is known to have been grown only in the distant far East on the Molucca Islands. Long distance trade routes to the Indian sub-continent probably followed the coastline to the East. That a middleclass private individual like Puzurum not only possessed this spice but used it for cooking indicates a high degree of trans-cultural absorption. ” http://www.iimas.org/Terqa.html
The tablets themselves were small, pillow-like in shape and easily held in one hand. They were normally enclosed in an envelope of clay, sealed with cylinder impressions and additional inscriptions.Broken only in the case of a dispute over the terms of the agreement, or upon repayment of the loans due, the tablets were “supervised” by the Temple. When all terms had been completed, the “cashier” would purposely break the tablet and its envelope with a special tool which has left its mark clearly visible, and return the fragments to Puzurum… Since (Terqa) was at the hub of a large communication network which linked the arms of the civilized world, it was identifiably in contact with distant lands…A Hittite stamp seal was found next to an unpretentious child burial in the higher levels of Puzurum’s house. It represents a stylized hare, characteristic of Old Hittite seals from Anatolia, and may have been left behind by Hittite troops as they passed on their way to sack Babylon in 1595 BCE… A small but very important find reflecting the scope of Terqa’s international trade connections was indicated by the contents of a jar in the pantry of Puzurum-a few kernels of cloves. This spice was not known in the west before Romah times, and more significantly, is known to have been grown only in the distant far East on the Molucca Islands. Long distance trade routes to the Indian sub-continent probably followed the coastline to the East. That a middleclass private individual like Puzurum not only possessed this spice but used it for cooking indicates a high degree of trans-cultural absorption. ” http://www.iimas.org/Terqa.html
There are 550 cuneiform tablets from Terqa held at the Deir ez-Zor Museum.
The entire bead cache of the altar room. Here, the thousands of carved, semi-precious stones are strung for recording ease. They were, most likely, strung and buried in a cloth bag beneath the cella floor as a hiding place.
The undersides of several Egyptian-type scarabs found among the cache of beads.
Bronze saw with antler handle found in second millennium rubble shows the Phase I abandoned rooms of the Temple service quarter.
An inscribed sealed bulla and another dated tablet place the building to the reign of Shamshi-Adad (ca. 18th century BCE). The temple quarter was in the southern Khana period city.
The ancillary chamber in the service quarter during excavation. The two tables and stationary vessel are at center. The arched passage obstructed by a bench and damaged by pitting is at the top. The oven is partially visible at the far right. The brick platform was perhaps the place where the scribes knelt to shape tablets from the clay stored in an adjacent jar.
1. Styone, tripodic offering bowl from the Temple of Ninkarrak. 2. Shallow, ceramic offering bowls of The temple to Dagan, the god of grain and Ninkarrak, the goddess of good health.
“Dagan appears rarely in Mesopotamian mythology, he is mentioned in connection with the senior deity An in the Old Babylonian (early 2nd millennium BCE) versions of the myth of Anzu, and in the Neo-Assyrian (early 1st millennium BCE) version he makes a speech recounting the deeds of Ninurta (Crowell 2001: 39-40). In other cases Dagan is said to keep with him the seven children of the underworld god Enmešarra, and this netherworld aspect to Dagan is possibly supported by the temple built by Šamši-Adad I (ca. 1808-1776 BCE) at Terqa called the é-kisiga "temple of the funerary offerings" (Black and Green 1998: 56)… A possible etymology of the name Dagan from the West Semitic/Ugaritic root dgn, which can be translated as 'grain', and the Hebrew dāgōn, an archaic word for 'grain' (Black and Green 1998: 56), has tempted some scholars to assume that he played a role in vegetation/fertility, which might be confirmed by his son's, the West Semitic deity Ba'al, role as a vegetation deity (Black and Green 1998: 56)… While Dagan is recorded as the father of the west Semitic deity Ba'al at Ugarit, Ba'al is also known as the son of El, and some scholars, therefore, have suggested a syncretism of Dagan and El (Dietrich 1976: 1.2 I 18-19 and 1.3 IV 48-53). Others have suggested a link in function and syncretism between Dagan and Ba'al - both having the attributes of a 'storm god' or a link to vegetation (Crowell 2001: 64). Pantheons should not be viewed as static or monolithic; the city of Ugarit was cosmopolitan, complex and interactive, and the Ugaritic pantheon necessarily should be understood as highly complex with multiple and competing rituals, myths and comprehensions (Crowell 2001: 63-64)… In Mesopotamia the earliest textual references to Dagan come from the Royal Inscriptions of Sargon (2334-2279 BCE) and Naram-Sin (2254-2218 BCE). From this period Dagan also appears as atheophoric element TT in personal names, e.g., Pu-Dagan, on the Maništušu (2269-2255 BCE) Obelisk (Crowell 2001: 35). In the Ur III period (2112-2004 BCE), the personal name evidence increases across Mesopotamia, and is prevalent in the Middle Euphrates region (Singer 2000: 221; Crowell 2001: 63-64). Dagan was an important deity in this period, he appears in the contemporary god and offering lists, and is commonly attested in the records from Puzriš-Dagan (the administrative hub of the Ur III period located near Nippur) and at Nippur itself (Crowell 2001: 36)… Dagan's relevance to the middle Euphrates is found throughout the 2nd millennium. The Code of Hammurabi (1792-50 BCE) names him as the protector of the people of Tuttul, and many of the individuals known from this area have names involving the element Dagan (Crowell 2001: 37-39). At Mari in the early second millennium, Dagan appears in a variety of texts, such as in the letters, god and offering lists, and administrative tablets. Yahdun-Lim (ca. 19th century BCE) declares Dagan as the deity who gave him kingship, while Yasmah-Addu (ca. 1795-1776 BCE) describes himself as the "Governor of Dagan" (Crowell 2001: 56)… From later periods of Mesopotamia Dagan is less well attested, but he continues to appear in personal names, god and offering lists, and in connection with An, e.g. Aššurbanipal (668-627 BCE) describes himself as 'beloved of Anu and Dagan', but the latter may have become a fossilised literary phrase (Crowell 2001: 40 and 47). He is still a deity of some consequence, however, for, Dagan makes a speech recounting the deeds of Ninurta in the Neo-Assyrian Mytho of Anzu, and within the temple ofAššur there was a chapel to Dagan built by Shalmanser V (726-722 BCE) (Crowell 2001: 46-47)… The prominence of Dagan on the eastern Mediterranean of the first millennium BCE comes mainly from the Hebrew Bible and the Second Temple literature, which associate Dagan (Heb. Dāgōn) with the temples of the Philistines. Recent work, however, has suggested that the role and position of Dagan may not be so definite. While Dagan is mentioned in the pantheon and sacrificial lists from Ugarit (Ras Shamra) and he does occur as a theophoric element in some local personal names, he is not well attested in the Levantine mythological literature…A statue of Dagan is mentioned in the zukru festival at Emar (Crowell 2001: 44-45)… In syllabic texts the name of Dagan is usually spelled dDa-gan, but other attested spellings includedDa-ga-an. There have been some suggestions that there may have been logographic writings for the name of this deity, e.g. dKUR, and dBE, but the reading of these as Dagan is not certain (Crowell 2001: 32). ” http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/dagan/
Dagan in Online Corpora
- The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Royal Inscriptions
- The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature
- The Corpus of Ancient Mesopotamian Scholarship
Flowers that Have Changed the World of Food # 3: Cloves
“And somewhere near India is the island containing the Valley of the Cloves. No merchants or sailors have ever been to the valley or have seen the kind of tree that produces cloves: its fruit, they say, is sold by genies . . . the islanders feed on them, and they never fall ill or grow old.”
Summary of Marvels (Ibrahim ibn Wasif-Shah, ca. 1000 CE)
From Indonesia’s Moluccas (Maluku) Islands to the rest of the world come the tiny but powerful flowerbuds we know as cloves. More accurately, cloves are flowerbuds from theSyzygium aromaticum tree that are picked before opening and dried in the sun until they resemble the little reddish-brown batons used in most of the world’s cuisines. Mentioned in the Indian Ramayana by the 5th or 4th century BCE (but possibly as early as the 10th Century BCE) and in later Sanskrit medical texts (Charaka Samhita) from the 1st Century BCE wherein they were recommended along with nutmeg to freshen the breath, these little blasts of bittersweet peppery flavor that we know today for their ability to energize other spices was first used for its aroma and as a medicinal ingredient.* **
Cloves Dried and in Flower
Maluku natives and other Indonesians smoked cloves and used them to treat stomach ailments, but did not use cloves in cooking. These medicinal and aromatic uses were exported as the clove trade began in antiquity. The Han Chinese used it as a breath freshener to mask the scent of tooth decay and halitosis and used cloves in perfumes and incense. Additional medicinal uses in China and India included chewing cloves as a dental anesthetic or using an external rub of clove oil as a general analgesic or to lessen the pain of rheumatism.
Aromatic and Medicial Uses of Cloves
It is unclear when cloves started to be used as a culinary spice. It is used in modern five-spice powders and garam-masalas, but there is little but unreferenced and contradictory information about the antiquity of its use in these culinary mixtures. In the west, by the time of Pliny the Elder, the clove was still used as an aromatic perfume (NH 12.15), and there is also no mention of the culinary use of cloves in the 4thcentury ACE Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome. In the 6th and 7thcentury Byzantine writings of Kosmas Indicopleustes and Paulus Aegineta, cloves are still used for their scent and clove oil used topically as medicine.
There are intermediate uses of cloves as both medicine and culinary spice in 9th Century Europe at the Carolingian monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland, where monks used cloves to season their fasting fish (Pharmaceutical Journal and Transactions, 1877; viii, 121) along with pepper and cinnamon and several other indigenous plants and herbs. In the 10thCentury, Andalusian traveller Ibrâhîm ibn Ya`qûb notes that the burghers of Mainz (Germany) used cloves to season their food.
Ingredients for Baharat
Also in the 10th Century, it appears in The Book of Dishes by Ibn Nasr ibn Sayyar al-Warraq, listed as an aromatic along with musk, ambergris, and rosewater. In this 10th Century tome, it is used along with purslane in a peach drink and in a relish of crumbs, raisins, vinegar and spices.
By the 13th Century, the acceptance of cloves as a culinary spice is widespread. In the 13th Century Andalusian Cookbook translated by Charles Perry, cloves are used inAhrash, a type of lamb-burger,Mirkâs a cheese-based sausage; Sweetened Mukhallal a meat stew topped with beaten eggs; Madhûna, a baked chicken dish, a stuffed lamb breast; and an egg-based sausage, as well as several other dishes.
Also in the 13th Century, in the Book of Dishes by al-Baghdadi, cloves are used in the recipeHummadiyya to flavor meatballs and the broth they cook in along with cinnamon, coriander, ginger, and pepper.
Although I cannot yet prove my suspicions, my intuition tells me that that Arabs might have been the first to use cloves as a culinary spice and that this was spread to Europe with the conquest of Andalusia and Catalonia in 711 and throughout the known Islamic World during the Abbasid Caliphate, beginning in 750.
Called kutakaphalah in Sanskrit, qaranful in Arabic or karyphyllon in ancient Greek (as well as cengkeh in North Moluccan Malay), it is now hard to imagine the culinary world without cloves. What would any of the eastern Asian five-spice powders be without cloves, or the subcontinental garam-masalas, not to mention Arab baharat, Moroccan Ras-el-hanout, Tunisian gâlat dagga and Ethiopian berbere? Thailand’s Massuman Curry is also clove laden as are the many spice rubs used on kebabs in central and western Asia, and cloves are a major constituent in my favorite Central Asian spice tea bal.
- Crowell 2001, "The development of Dagan".
- Feliu 2003, The god Dagan in Bronze Age Syria.
- Gelb, J., 1987, "Makkan and Meluhha in Early Mesopotamian Sources," Revue d'Assyriologie 64 (1979) 1ff.
- Heimpel, W. 1987, "Das Untere Meer," Zeitschrift fur Assyriologie 77
(1987) 22-91 - Hilgert 1994, "Erubbatum im Tempel des Dagan".
- Michalowski, Piotr, 1988, "Magan and Meluhha Once Again,"
Journal of Cuneiform Studies 40 (1988) 156-64 - Parpola, A. and Parpola, S., 1975, On the relationship of the Sumerian toponym Meluhha and Sanskrit mleccha. StOr 46 (1975): 205-38.
- Pettinato and Waetzoldt 1985, "Dagan in Ebla und Mesopotamien".
- Singer 2000, "Semitic Dagān and Indo-European *Dhheĝhhom".
Adam Stone, 'Dagan (god)', Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Oracc and the UK Higher Education Academy, 2013 [http://oracc.museum.upenn.edu/amgg/listofdeities/dagan/]
Source: Liggett, Renata M., 1982, Ancient Terqa and its temple of Ninkarrak: the excavations of the Fifth and sixth seasons. http://128.97.6.202/tq/EL-TQ%5CLigett_1982_Ancient_Terqa_and_Its_Temple_-_NEASB_19.pdf