Tin Road between Ashur-Kultepe and Meluhha hieroglyphs

“...the point of intersection between the two great trading networks of Mesopotamia and the Indus, along which the lapis lazuli and the chlorite vessels passed and which no doubt operated through various intermediary centres like Aratta and Tepe Yahya. This would explain the appearance at the same dates in central Asia of a host of fortified centres engaged in lapis lazuli and turquoise production, as in Dashly, where a palace showing traces of metal production and of contacts with Harappa and Mesopotamia through Iran was discovered. Leaving aside Tepe Yahya, Susa, the Indus and the Persian Gulf, it is certain that all this wealth flowed into Sumer and, in particular, to the city of Ur. The prosperous urban centre of Shar-i-Sokhta (or Shahr-Sokteh) sitting on the caravan route between Elam and Sumer bears witness to a high degree of specialisation in the working of semi-precious stones. The craftsmen of the place imported the stone raw – lapis lazuli, turquoise and cornelian – and worked and polished it for export.  Some Sumerian texts allude to the acquisition of lapis lazuli and gold in Meluhha (the Indus valley), which suggests simultaneous use of the sea route through the Persian Gulf. Many of these trans-regional routes must have been very ancient and left traces in the collective memory of Sumer and Akkad in the form of heroic myths with couriers who come and go and ‘carry lapis lazuli and silver from the mountains. In another Sumerian myth about Enki and Ninhursag, the country of Dilmun (the modern island of Bahrein) figures as the main transit point for merchandise from the Gulf and as a clear alternative to the overland route through Yahya and Susa. Dilmun-style seals have been discovered in Tepe Yahya, as have weights from the Indus in Bahrein. The Sumerian texts are unanimous in stressing timber as one of the principal commodities from Meluhha/Harappa and they allude to the existence of a ‘colony’ of merchants from Meluhha in the territory of Lagash. In Qala’at al Bahrein, a fortified town on the north coast of Bahrein with temples and a surrounding necropolis with tumuli, evidence of contacts with the Indus is seen in the presence of seals, systems of weights and pottery from Meluhha, with signs of the presence of a community of merchants from the Indus in Dilmun. Elsewhere, on the fortified site of Al-Maysar, local production of copper is combined with a local chlorite vessel industry and the importing of Mohenjo Daro-style seals. In exchange, Dilmun imported Mesopotamian cereals and textiles...karum at Kanesh in Cappadocia. The long stay of these colonists and merchants in Anatolia stimulated great creativity in the business sphere, in the drawing up of contracts and mercantile protocols...the Assyrian karu in Anatolia formed part of the provinces of the Assyrian empire, and in Landsberger’s opinion, they had functioned as colonies of merchants dependent on Assur.” (Aubet, Maria Eugenia, 2013, Commerce and colonization in the ancient near East, Cambridge University Press, p.191, 266, 268).

Clay find with impression of a cylinder seal and containing a tablet from Kanesh and a bulla from Acemhoyuk with impression of a seal (from Ozguc, 1969: 253).

“In the time of King Ziri-Lin of Mari (ca. 1780-1760BCE), the chief centres for the transit of tin to the West were the cities of Sippar, Eshnunna and Susa. Before that, however, the city of Assur was responsible for the supply of metal to the regions in the West and south. In the days of Hammurabi, the Babylonin merchants were still going north to buy tin. It is known that there were rich deposits of tin in the Kardagh Mountains in northeastern Iran, east of Tabriz, and also in Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. In a letter from the time of Samshi-Adad I, it is stated that large quantities of tin could be got in Susarra in the plain of Rania in Iran, an important commercial centre on the road from Tabriz to Assur…We only know that in the time of level Ib in Kanesh (ca. 1800-1776BCE), the export of tin to Kanesh was interrupted, probably because of the closure of the Zagros route when Susarra was destroyed and abandoned. The Kanesh correspondence reveals a considerable volume of tin dispatched to Anatolia during the second period of the karum. Veenhof has calculated that over a period of some sixty years, a total of 27,000 minas – that is some 450 talents – of tin, equivalent to 13.5 tons, was dispatched to Kanesh; this would be equivalent to some 80 tons during the whole of the colonial period and to some 200 caravans carrying tin on the backs of mules from Assur to Kanesh. However, a Old-Assyrian tablet preserved in Berlin would double that quantity because it mentions a lod of 410 talents of tin transported in a single caravan, the property of the merchant Imdilum.” (Aubet, opcit., p.292).

కాండము [ kāṇḍamu ] kānḍamu. [Skt.] n. Water. నీళ్లు (Telugu) kaṇṭhá -- : (b) ʻ water -- channel ʼ: Paš. kaṭāˊ ʻ irrigation channel ʼ, Shum. xãṭṭä. (CDIAL 14349). kāṇḍa ‘flowing water’ Rebus: kāṇḍā ‘metalware, tools, pots and pans’. lokhaṇḍ (overflowing pot) ‘metal tools, pots and pans, metalware’ lokhãḍ ‘overflowing pot’ Rebus: ʻtools, iron, ironwareʼ (Gujarati) Rebus: लोखंड lokhaṇḍ Iron tools, vessels, or articles in general. lo ‘pot to overflow’. Gu<loRa>(D)  {} ``^flowing strongly''.

Gudea’s link with Meluhha is clear from the elaborate texts on the two cylinders describing the construction of the Ninĝirsu temple in Lagash. An excerpt: 1143-1154. Along with copper, tin, slabs of lapis lazuli, refined silver and pure Meluḫa cornelian, he set up (?) huge copper cauldrons, huge …… of copper, shining copper goblets and shining copper jars worthy of An, for laying (?) a holy table in the open air …… at the place of regular offerings (?). Ninĝirsu gave his city, Lagaš 

“For some 200 years (ca. 1974-1776 BCE), the Kanesh karum was at once the main colony, the headquarters of the Anatolian branch of family firms in Assur and the administrative centre for the whole Old-Assyrian commercial circuit. Once the first tablets were known, we understood that one institution, the karum, had played a central part in managing Assyrian external trade. In Anatolia, the term karum has a dual meaning:  topographical – commercial colony and district where the merchant community resides – and organizational – organism that manages the activity of the merchants abroad. The Old-Assyrian texts make it quite clear that the lower city in Kanesh was a karum, inhabited by a permanent colony of merchants and managed by a corporate structure with executive, judicial and fiscal powers. In that sense, the karum represents the merchant community; in other words, that part of the population of Assur removed to Anatolia…the Old-Assyrian karu possessed a pyramidal and hierarchical organization because all the colonies depended on the authority of the central karum, situated in Kanesh…The Old-Assyrian karum was a multi-ethnic community. A large part of the Kanesh karum was inhabited by Anatolians. Their dwellings have been identified with their archives written in a Old-Assyrian dialect. According to the documentation, however, these residents did not acquire imported commodities but acted as moneylenders in the buying and selling of slaves and grain. They probably operated on the margins of the Assyrian commercial activity and we do not know the status of these native traders residing in the lower city…A common trading practice in Kanesh was to entrust batches of merchandise to employees of the commercial firm or to a commercial agent, the tamkarum, who sold it in distant parts of the country. The tamkarum acted as a kind of commission agent or commercial traveler who had to reimburse to the owner the value of the merchandise consigned to him on credit. For that, he signed – that is to say, sealed – a document in the form of an acknowledgement of debt, in which the quantity owed was specified in silver and also the terms of the payment or refund. This is the type of contract that figures most frequently in the Kanesh archives…Tin was a commodity of huge strategic value to the Anatolian kingdoms, whereas Assyrian priorities were silver and the security and stability of the routes, which only the local authorities could guarantee…(The two communities – Anatolian and Assyrian) certainly had the benefit of bilingual interpreters and, as some of the letters show, some of the Anatolians could write in cuneiform Assyrian, naturally with mistakes in translation. It is known that the Assyrians often called the Anatolians nu’aum, which means ‘silly, stupid’, an expression typical of people who think themselves superior.”(Aubet, Maria Eugenia, Commerce and colonization in the ancient Near East, p.331, 337, 344, 345).

Cylinder seal. Provenience: KhafajeKh. VII 256 Jemdet Nasr (ca. 3000 - 2800 BCE) Frankfort, Henri: Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region. Oriental Institute Publications 72. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, no. 34.

Bass, George F., Throckmorton, Peter, Taylor, Joan Du Plat, Hennessy, J. B., Shulman, Alan R., Buchholz, Hans-Günter, “Cape Gelidonya: A Bronze Age Shipwreck”, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, New Series 57 (8), 1967, pp. 1-177.