This is an addendum to:
Exports of wealth products from Meluhha to Ancient Near East documented on Indus Script Inscriptions https://tinyurl.com/y49387n3
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The tributes from Musri are clearly Indus Script hypertexts related to wealth-creation in metalwork and lapidary work with gems and stones.
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The tributes from Musri are clearly Indus Script hypertexts related to wealth-creation in metalwork and lapidary work with gems and stones.I have suggested that the reference to Musri is to a region in Kurdistan.
"Musri (Assyrian: Mu-us-ri), or Muzri, was a small ancient kingdom, in northern areas of Iraqi Kurdistan. The area is now inhabited by Muzuri (Mussouri) Kurds.
inscriptions and referring to Egypt, and not to a country in northern Arabia as once believed. Compare Hebrew Mizraim." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musri)
Could the reference to Musri on the Black Obelisk of Shalamaneser II be a reference to Muciri port in India's west coast, Kerala?
मुचिर mfn. liberal , munificent , Un2. , i , 52 Sch.; charity, virtue; wind; a deity (Monier-Williams) முசிரம் muciram வள்ளன்மை . (W .)
[quote] Muziris (Tamil: Muchiri, (A. Sreedhara Menon (1967). "Muchiri - A Survey of Kerala History") roughly identified with medieval Muyirikode,[1] or Mahodaya/Makotai Puram) was an ancient harbour - possible[2] seaport and urban centre - on the Malabar Coast (modern-day Indian state of Kerala) that dates from at least the 1st century BCE, if not earlier. Muziris, or Muchiri, found mention in the bardic Tamilpoems and a number of classical sources. [unquote] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muziris
"The important known commodities "exported" from Muziris were spices (such as black pepper and malabathron), semi-precious stones (such as beryl), pearls, diamonds, sapphires, ivory, Chinese silk, Gangetic spikenard and tortoise shells. The Roman navigators brought gold coins, peridots, thin clothing, figured linens, multicoloured textiles, sulfide of antimony, copper, tin, lead, coral, raw glass, wine, realgar and orpiment." (Steven E. Sidebotham. Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route, pp 191. University of California Press 2011; George Gheverghese Joseph (2009). A Passage to Infinity. New Delhi: SAGE Publications Pvt. Ltd. p. 13.)
"the city where the beautiful vessels, the masterpieces of the Yavanas [Ionians], stir white foam on the Culli [Periyar], river of the Chera, arriving with gold and departing with pepper-when that Muciri, brimming with prosperity, was besieged by the din of war." (Akanaṉūṟu Eṭṭuttokai 149.7-11; loc.cit.Kulke, Hermann; Dietmar Rothermund (2004). A History of India. Routledge. I).
Purananuru described Muziris as a bustling port city where interior goods were exchanged for imported gold. (Peter Francis. Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present, pp . 120 University of Hawaii Press,) "With its streets, its houses, its covered fishing boats, where they sell fish, where they pile up rice-with the shifting and mingling crowd of a boisterous river-bank were the sacks of pepper are heaped up-with its gold deliveries, carried by the ocean-going ships and brought to the river bank by local boats, the city of the gold-collared Kuttuvan (Chera chief), the city that bestows wealth to its visitors indiscriminately, and the merchants of the mountains, and the merchants of the sea, the city where liquor abounds, yes, this Muciri, were the rumbling ocean roars, is give to me like a marvel, a treasure. " (Raoul McLaughlin. Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India and China. pp 48-50, Continuum (2010)).
Periplus describes Muziris as a main trade port of Chera chiefdom.
Pliny also refers to this port town. "To those who are bound for India, Ocelis (on the Red Sea) is the best place for embarkation. If the wind, called Hippalus (south-west Monsoon), happens to be blowing it is possible to arrive in forty days at the nearest market in India, Muziris by name. This, however, is not a very desirable place for disembarkation, on account of the pirates which frequent its vicinity, where they occupy a place called Nitrias; nor, in fact, is it very rich in articles of merchandise. Besides, the road stead for shipping is a considerable distance from the shore, and the cargoes have to be conveyed in boats, either for loading or discharging. At the moment that I am writing these pages, the name of the King of this place is Celebothras." (Pliny's Natural History. In Thirty-seven Books, Volumes 1-3 by Pliny (the Elder.) p.135.)
Ilango Adigal described the port town in Cilapadikaram and refers to Greek traders arriving in their ships to barter their gold to buy pepper and since barter trade is time-consuming, they lived in homes living a lifestyle that he termed as "exotic" and a source of "local wonder". The text refers to spice trade with Romans, "When the broadrayed sun ascends from the south and white clouds start to form in the early cool season, it is time to cross the dark, bellowing ocean. The rulers of Tyndis dispatch vessels loaded with eaglewood, silk, sandalwood, spices and all sorts of camphor." (McLaughlin, Raoul (11 September 2014). The Roman Empire and the Indian Ocean: The Ancient World Economy and the Kingdoms of Africa, Arabia and India. Pen and Sword.)
A Misnomer in Political Economy
Classical Indo-Roman Trade
An independent evaluation of the latest archaeological data unearthed at ancient port-sites of the Egyptian desert and Indian west coast confirms that the classical overseas trade, celebrated in ancient Indian historiography as the "Indo-Roman trade", was an exchange of serious imbalance, because of its being between an empire and a region of uneven chiefdoms. The Tamil south was a region characterised by the interactive coexistence of several unevenly evolved and kinship-based redistributive economies structured by the dominance of agro-pastoral means of subsistence and predatory politics. It was distinct for its semi-tribal political economy that precluded any demand for Mediterranean luxury goods. Even the presumption that the chieftain had shipped his goods only up to the Red Sea coast, and had depended on intermediaries for the remaining jobs, is difficult to accept.