ANTIQUITY OF MAN SAYCE 525 



El-Obeid, which are dated to the period of the First Dynasty of 

 Ur (about 3100 B. C), whereas the earlier strata take us back to 

 the aeneolithic epoch and the painted pottery of Jemdet NasrJ 



But the tombs of Ur testify to something more than an advanced 

 art and human sacrifices. They indicate a wide international trade 

 and the working of mines. Gold, silver, and lapis-lazuli are all 

 found in them in profusion as well as copper. The gold probably 

 came from the shores of the Persian Gulf, but the silver, like that 

 of the Sixth Egyptian Dynasty, found by Sir Flinders Petrie at 

 Abydos, was probably brought from the mines of the Taurus, while 

 the lapis-lazuli, we are now assured by the geologists, was derived, 

 not from northern Persia, but from northwestern India.^ The 

 fact is in harmony with the discoveries recently made in China and 

 northwestern India itself. In China, Professor Anderson has found 

 painted and polished pottery of the neolithic and chalcolithic age, 

 which is related to the neolithic pottery discovered in Susa; similar 

 ware has been found in Babylonia and (by Professor Garstang) at 

 Sakche-gozii, north of the Gulf of Antioch, while the recent excava- 

 tions of Professor Li at Yin in Honan — the first official excavations 

 of a scientific character made in China — have shown not only that 

 the Shang Dynasty (1766-1154: B. C.) was historical but that the 

 account of its culture and script with the long preceding develop- 

 ment and commercial intercourse implied by them was based on fact. 



In India, both at Mohenjo-daro in Sind and at Harappa in the 

 Punjab, a prehistoric civilization has been brought to light which 

 was in close contact with that of El am and Sumerian Babylonia. 

 The painted pottery, the inlaid work in mother-of-pearl and ivory, 

 even the drains in the streets, all have their connections in Baby- 

 lonia, and hundreds of seals and sealings have been disinterred, 

 which prove that there was an active trade between northwestern 

 India and western Asia. The sealings have inscriptions in picto- 

 graphic script, often accompanied by representations of an Indian 

 bufi'alo or the like and of an altar of various forms. In shape and 

 size and general character the sealings resemble those found at 

 Susa, which also bear pictographic inscriptions as well as figures of 

 animals. Some of the Indian sealings have actually been found in 

 Babylonia, at Jokha, the ancient Umma, as well as in the early strata 

 of Kish. It is evident that a large and regular trade must liave 

 existed between the two countries; a good deal of it was doubtless 

 carried on by sea, but there must have been a land route as well. 

 Indeed, more than 80 years ago some antiquities were discovered 

 near Herat which included a Babylonian seal cylinder belonging to 



' Tile Animal of the Ann ricau Schools of Oriental Research, vol. !>, pp. 30-51. 



•According to a Babylonian tablet (W. A. I., vol. 2, 51.1.13), the source of the lapis- 

 lazuli was " Mount Dapara," called Tapara (Tcfreret) iu an Egyptian inscription of 

 Rameses II. But this may have been the Persian depot rather than the quarry itself. 



