Hubungan India dengan Mesopotamia

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India–Mesopotamia relations

Rute perdagangan antara Mesopotamia dan India akan jauh lebih pendek karena permukaan air laut yang lebih rendah pada milenium ke-3 SM.

Kesan segel silinder Kekaisaran Akkadia, dengan label: “Sang Ilahi Sharkalisharri Pangeran Akkad, Ibni-Sharrum sang Juru Tulis pelayannya”. Kerbau bertanduk panjang Kerbau India yang digambarkan dalam segel tersebut diperkirakan berasal dari Lembah Indus, dan menjadi bukti adanya pertukaran dengan Meluhha, Peradaban Lembah Indus. Sekitar tahun 2217-2193 Sebelum Masehi. Museum Louvre, referensi AO 22303.^[1][2][3][4]

Hubungan India-Mesopotamia' diperkirakan telah berkembang selama paruh kedua milenium ke-3 SM, hingga terhenti dengan punahnya peradaban lembah Indus setelah sekitar tahun 1900 SM.^[5][6][7] Mesopotamia telah menjadi perantara dalam perdagangan lapis lazuli antara anak benua India dan Mesir setidaknya sejak sekitar tahun 3200 SM, dalam konteks hubungan Mesir-Mesopotamia.^[8][9]

Perluasan Neolitikum (9000-6500 SM)

Neolithic fertility figurines

Patung kesuburan dari budaya Halaf, Mesopotamia, 6000-5100 SM. Louvre.^[10]

Patung kesuburan dari Mehrgarh, Lembah Indus, 7000-3100 SM.^[11]

Dewi kesuburan Neolitikum di Mehrgarh mirip dengan dewi kesuburan di Timur Dekat.^[12] Mereka semua adalah bagian dari tradisi 'Patung Venus Neolitikum, payudara dan pinggul yang melimpah dari patung-patung ini menunjukkan hubungan dengan kesuburan dan prokreasi.

Periode pertama kontak tidak langsung tampaknya terjadi sebagai konsekuensi dari Revolusi Neolitik dan penyebaran pertanian setelah 9000 SM. ^[a] Pertanian prasejarah di anak benua India diperkirakan telah menggabungkan sumber daya lokal, seperti sapi berpunuk, dengan sumber daya pertanian dari Timur Dekat sebagai langkah pertama pada milenium ke-8 hingga ke-7 SM, yang kemudian ditambahkan sumber daya dari Afrika dan Asia Timur pada milenium ke-3 SM.^[12] Mehrgarh adalah salah satu situs paling awal dengan bukti pertanian dan penggembalaan di anak benua tersebut.^[14][15][b] Di Mehrgarh, sekitar tahun 7000 SM, rangkaian lengkap produk pertanian Timur Dekat yang baru jadi dapat ditemukan: gandum, jelai, serta kambing, domba, dan sapi.^[12] The rectangular houses of Mehrgarh as well as the female figurines are essentially identical with those of the Near East.^[12]

Asal-usul pertanian Asia Selatan dari Timur Dekat sudah diterima secara umum, dan telah menjadi “dogma arkeologi virtual selama beberapa dekade”.^[25] Namun, Gregory Possehl berpendapat untuk model yang lebih bernuansa, di mana domestikasi awal spesies tanaman dan hewan mungkin terjadi di wilayah yang luas dari Mediterania ke Indus, di mana teknologi dan ide baru beredar dengan cepat dan dibagikan secara luas.^[26] Saat ini, keberatan utama terhadap model ini terletak pada fakta bahwa gandum liar tidak pernah ditemukan di Asia Selatan, menunjukkan bahwa gandum pertama kali didomestikasi di Timur Dekat dari spesies liar domestik yang terkenal dan kemudian dibawa ke Asia Selatan, atau bahwa gandum liar pernah ada di masa lalu di Asia Selatan tetapi entah bagaimana punah tanpa meninggalkan jejak.^[26]

Jean-François Jarrige berpendapat bahwa Mehrgarh berasal dari tempat yang berbeda. Jarrige mencatat “asumsi bahwa ekonomi pertanian diperkenalkan secara penuh dari Timur Dekat ke Asia Selatan”,^[27][c] dan kesamaan antara situs-situs Neolitikum dari Mesopotamia timur dan lembah Indus barat, yang merupakan bukti “kontinum budaya” di antara situs-situs tersebut. Namun mengingat keaslian Mehrgarh, Jarrige menyimpulkan bahwa Mehrgarh memiliki latar belakang lokal yang lebih awal, dan bukan merupakan backwater dari budaya Neolitikum Timur Dekat”. ^[27]

Referensi

1. ↑ "Cylinder Seal of Ibni-Sharrum". Louvre Museum. Diarsipkan dari asli tanggal 2023-02-09. Diakses tanggal 2019-03-26.
2. ↑ "Site officiel du musée du Louvre". cartelfr.louvre.fr.
3. ↑ Brown, Brian A.; Feldman, Marian H. (2013). Critical Approaches to Ancient Near Eastern Art (dalam bahasa Inggris). Walter de Gruyter. hlm. 187. ISBN 9781614510352.
4. ↑ Robinson, Andrew (2015). The Indus: Lost Civilizations (dalam bahasa Inggris). Reaktion Books. hlm. 100. ISBN 9781780235417.
5. ↑ Stiebing, William H. (2016). Ancient Near Eastern History and Culture (dalam bahasa Inggris). Routledge. hlm. 85. ISBN 9781315511160.
6. ↑ Burton, James H.; Price, T. Douglas; Kenoyer, J. Mark (2013). "A new approach to tracking connections between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia: initial results of strontium isotope analyses from Harappa and Ur". Journal of Archaeological Science (dalam bahasa Inggris). 40 (5): 2286–2297. Bibcode:2013JArSc..40.2286K. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.12.040. ISSN 0305-4403.
7. ↑ "The wide distribution of lower Indus Valley seals and other artifacts from the Persian Gulf to Shortughaï in the Amu Darya/ Oxus River valley in Badakhshan (northeastern Afghanistan) demonstrates long-distance maritime and overland trade connections until ca. 1800 BCE." in Neelis, Jason (2011). Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks: Mobility and Exchange within and beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia (dalam bahasa Inggris). Brill. hlm. 94–95. ISBN 9789004194588.
8. ↑ Demand, Nancy H. (2011). The Mediterranean Context of Early Greek History (dalam bahasa Inggris). John Wiley & Sons. hlm. 71–72. ISBN 9781444342345.
9. ↑ Rowlands, Michael J. (1987). Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World (dalam bahasa Inggris). Cambridge University Press. hlm. 37. ISBN 9780521251037.
10. ↑ "Site officiel du musée du Louvre". cartelfr.louvre.fr.
11. ↑ "Figure féminine – Les Musées Barbier-Mueller". www.musee-barbier-mueller.org.
12. 1 2 3 4 Tauger, Mark B. (2013). Agriculture in World History (dalam bahasa Inggris). Routledge. hlm. 8. ISBN 978-1-136-94161-0.
13. ↑ Chandler, Graham (September–Oktober 1999). "Traders of the Plain". Saudi Aramco World: 34–42. Diarsipkan dari asli tanggal 18 Februari 2007. Diakses tanggal 11 Februari 2007.
14. ↑ UNESCO World Heritage. 2004. ". Archaeological Site of Mehrgarh
15. ↑ Hirst, K. Kris. 2005. "Mehrgarh" Diarsipkan 2017-01-18 di Wayback Machine.. Guide to Archaeology
16. ↑ "Archeologists confirm Indian civilization is 2000 years older than previously believed, Jason Overdorf, Globalpost, 28 November 2012".
17. ↑ "Indus Valley 2,000 years older than thought". 2012-11-04. Diarsipkan dari asli tanggal February 9, 2015.
18. ↑ "Archeologists confirm Indian civilization is 8000 years old, Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey, Times of India, 29 May 2016". The Times of India. 29 May 2016.
19. ↑ "History What their lives reveal". 2013-01-04.
20. ↑ "Haryana's Bhirrana oldest Harappan site, Rakhigarhi Asia's largest: ASI". The Times of India. 15 April 2015.
21. ↑ Dikshit 2013, hlm. 132, 131.
22. ↑ Mani 2008, hlm. 237.
23. 1 2 Dikshit 2013, hlm. 129.
24. ↑ Dikshit 2013, hlm. 130.
25. ↑ "It has been virtual archaeological dogma for decades that Braidwood's constellation of potentially domesticable plants... were first domesticated in the Near East... early in the Holocene (c. 8,000 to 10,000 years ago). [...] The usual story is that domestic plants and animals, and the techniques of food production, then somehow 'diffused' to other parts of the Old World, including South Asia." in Possehl, Gregory L. (2002). The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective (dalam bahasa Inggris). Rowman Altamira. hlm. 24. ISBN 978-0-7591-0172-2.
26. 1 2 Possehl, Gregory L. (2002). The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective (dalam bahasa Inggris). Rowman Altamira. hlm. 23–28. ISBN 978-0-7591-0172-2.
27. 1 2 Jean-Francois Jarrige Mehrgarh Neolithic Diarsipkan 3 March 2016 di Wayback Machine., Paper presented in the International Seminar on the "First Farmers in Global Perspective", Lucknow, India, 18–20 January 2006
28. 1 2 Gangal, Sarson & Shukurov 2014.
29. ↑ Singh 2016.
30. ↑ Possehl GL (1999) Indus Age: The Beginnings. Philadelphia: Univ. Pennsylvania Press.
31. 1 2 Jarrige JF (2008) Mehrgarh Neolithic. Pragdhara 18: 136–154
32. ↑ Costantini L (2008) The first farmers in Western Pakistan: the evidence of the Neolithic agropastoral settlement of Mehrgarh. Pragdhara 18: 167–178
33. ↑ Fuller DQ (2006) Agricultural origins and frontiers in South Asia: a working synthesis. J World Prehistory 20: 1–86
34. ↑ Petrie, CA; Thomas, KD (2012). "The topographic and environmental context of the earliest village sites in western South Asia". Antiquity. 86 (334): 1055–1067. doi:10.1017/s0003598x00048249. S2CID 131732322.
35. ↑ Goring-Morris, AN; Belfer-Cohen, A (2011). "Neolithization processes in the Levant: the outer envelope". Curr Anthropol. 52: S195 – S208. doi:10.1086/658860. S2CID 142928528.
36. ↑ Jarrige C (2008) The figurines of the first farmers at Mehrgarh and their offshoots. Pragdhara 18: 155–166
37. 1 2 Harris DR (2010) Origins of Agriculture in Western Central Asia: An Environmental-Archaeological Study. Philadelphia: Univ. Pennsylvania Press.
38. 1 2 Hiebert FT, Dyson RH (2002) Prehistoric Nishapur and frontier between Central Asia and Iran. Iranica Antiqua XXXVII: 113–149
39. ↑ Kuzmina EE, Mair VH (2008) The Prehistory of the Silk Road. Philadelphia: Univ. Pennsylvania Press
40. ↑ Alizadeh A (2003) Excavations at the prehistoric mound of Chogha Bonut, Khuzestan, Iran. Technical report, University of Chicago, Illinois.
41. ↑ Dolukhanov P (1994) Environment and Ethnicity in the Ancient Middle East. Aldershot: Ashgate.
42. ↑ Quintana-Murci, L; Krausz, C; Zerjal, T; Sayar, SH; Hammer, MF; et al. (2001). "Y-chromosome lineages trace diffusion of people and languages in Southwestern Asia". Am J Hum Genet. 68 (2): 537–542. doi:10.1086/318200. PMC 1235289. PMID 11133362.
43. ↑ Quintana-Murci, L; Chaix, R; Spencer Wells, R; Behar, DM; Sayar, H; et al. (2004). "Where West meets East: the complex mtDNA landscape of the Southwest and Central Asian corridor". Am J Hum Genet. 74 (5): 827–845. doi:10.1086/383236. PMC 1181978. PMID 15077202.

1. ↑ According to Ahmad Hasan Dani, professor emeritus at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad, the discovery of Mehrgarh "changed the entire concept of the Indus civilisation [...] There we have the whole sequence, right from the beginning of settled village life."^[13]
2. ↑ Excavations at Bhirrana, Haryana, in India between 2006 and 2009, by archaeologist K.N. Dikshit, provided six artefacts, including "relatively advanced pottery", so-called Hakra ware, which were dated at a time bracket between 7380 and 6201 BCE.^{[16][17][18][19]} These dates compete with Mehrgarh for being the oldest site for cultural remains in the area.^[20]
   Yet, Dikshit and Mani clarify that this time-bracket concerns only charcoal samples, which were radio-carbon dated at respectively 7570–7180 BCE (sample 2481) and 6689–6201 BCE (sample 2333).^[21][22] Dikshit further writes that the earliest phase concerns 14 shallow dwelling-pits which "could accommodate about 3–4 people".^[23] According to Dikshit, in the lowest level of these pits wheel-made Hakra Ware was found which was "not well finished",^[23] together with other wares.^[24]
3. ↑ According to Gangal et al. (2014), there is strong archeological and geographical evidence that neolithic farming spread from the Near East into north-west India.^[28][29] Gangal et al. (2014):^[28] "There are several lines of evidence that support the idea of connection between the Neolithic in the Near East and in the Indian subcontinent. The prehistoric site of Mehrgarh in Baluchistan (modern Pakistan) is the earliest Neolithic site in the north-west Indian subcontinent, dated as early as 8500 BCE.[18]^[30]
   Neolithic domesticated crops in Mehrgarh include more than 90% barley and a small amount of wheat. There is good evidence for the local domestication of barley and the zebu cattle at Mehrgarh [19],^[31] [20],^[32] but the wheat varieties are suggested to be of Near-Eastern origin, as the modern distribution of wild varieties of wheat is limited to Northern Levant and Southern Turkey [21].^[33] A detailed satellite map study of a few archaeological sites in the Baluchistan and Khybar Pakhtunkhwa regions also suggests similarities in early phases of farming with sites in Western Asia [22].^[34] Pottery prepared by sequential slab construction, circular fire pits filled with burnt pebbles, and large granaries are common to both Mehrgarh and many Mesopotamian sites [23].^[35] The postures of the skeletal remains in graves at Mehrgarh bear strong resemblance to those at Ali Kosh in the Zagros Mountains of southern Iran [19].^[31] Clay figurines found in Mehrgarh resemble those discovered at Teppe Zagheh on the Qazvin plain south of the Elburz range in Iran (the 7th millennium BCE) and Jeitun in Turkmenistan (the 6th millennium BCE) [24].^[36] Strong arguments have been made for the Near-Eastern origin of some domesticated plants and herd animals at Jeitun in Turkmenistan (pp. 225–227 in [25]).^[37]
   The Near East is separated from the Indus Valley by the arid plateaus, ridges and deserts of Iran and Afghanistan, where rainfall agriculture is possible only in the foothills and cul-de-sac valleys [26].^[38] Nevertheless, this area was not an insurmountable obstacle for the dispersal of the Neolithic. The route south of the Caspian sea is a part of the Silk Road, some sections of which were in use from at least 3,000 BCE, connecting Badakhshan (north-eastern Afghanistan and south-eastern Tajikistan) with Western Asia, Egypt and India [27].^[39] Similarly, the section from Badakhshan to the Mesopotamian plains (the Great Khorasan Road) was apparently functioning by 4,000 BCE and numerous prehistoric sites are located along it, whose assemblages are dominated by the Cheshmeh-Ali (Tehran Plain) ceramic technology, forms and designs [26].^[38] Striking similarities in figurines and pottery styles, and mud-brick shapes, between widely separated early Neolithic sites in the Zagros Mountains of north-western Iran (Jarmo and Sarab), the Deh Luran Plain in southwestern Iran (Tappeh Ali Kosh and Chogha Sefid), Susiana (Chogha Bonut and Chogha Mish), the Iranian Central Plateau (Tappeh-Sang-e Chakhmaq), and Turkmenistan (Jeitun) suggest a common incipient culture [28].^[40] The Neolithic dispersal across South Asia plausibly involved migration of the population ([29]^[41] and [25], pp. 231–233).^[37] This possibility is also supported by Y-chromosome and mtDNA analyses [30],^[42] [31]."^[43]