472 ANNUAL RErORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



Mallowan has postulated "a link which will bridge the gulf between 

 the end of the Tell Halaf period and the pottery of India and Baluchi- 

 stan," and he suggests that the early potters of Assyria and Syria 

 moved eastward. There seems no doubt that the pottery of the 

 Jhukar culture had been influenced by the later wares of the Tell 

 Halaf culture, and we must look to the Iranian Highlands for the 

 region whence it was brought to India. The fact that the Tell Halaf 

 pottery is considerably earlier in date than the Jhukar ware is no 

 matter for concern; some time had necessarily to elapse before an 

 influence from Syria could have had effect in northwest India, and 

 many long halts were doubtless made before the end of the journey. 

 The people who introduced the Jhukar culture into the Indus valley 

 appear to have left but few traces in Baluchistan; but a great deal of 

 systematic excavation needs to be done in that country, for one 

 notable sherd with red and black chevrons found by Sir Aurel Stein 

 at Zayak might equally well have come from the Halnir region or 

 from India.* The presence on some of the potteiy of ancient Baluchi- 

 stan of wide red lines between the registers is a feature shared both 

 with the north Mesopotamian pottery of Tell Ilalaf and the Jliukar 

 ware of the Indus valley. 



There is a considerable body of evidence that the people of this 

 Jhukar culture occupied the principal mound at Chanhu-daro com- 

 paratively soon after its desertion b}^ the people of the Harappa 

 culture, and I would date this occupation to about 2000 B. C. It 

 was only a small settlement and, judging from the number of rough 

 pavements and fii-cplaces found, the people lived in houses of matting, 

 all other traces of which had disappeared. The head-man had a 

 plain, rougldy built house of bricks, taken either from the lower part 

 of the moimd or from other buildings of the Harappa culture m the 

 vicinity. One very interesting feature hi a room of his house was a 

 fireplace in a recess in the wall with tliree bricks still in it which 

 served to support a cooking vessel (pi. 3, fig. 1). 



Not only does their pottery, of which a surprismg amount was 

 made and used, distinguish these people from their predecessors of 

 the Harappa culture, but they wore seal-amulets, mostly pottery, 

 which in their shapes and ornamentation are totally unlike the square 

 and rectangular seal-amulets of the Hai'appa culture. Some are round 

 stamp seals with roughly shaped perforated handles at the back, 

 and others lentoid with designs on both faces and perforated laterallj'" 

 (pi. 2, fig. 4), These Jliukar amulets are with one or two exceptions 

 very roughly made, and none bears any inscription; in fact, we are 

 as yet uncertain whether their owners knew how to write. Many of 

 them resemble certain seal-amulets of early Elamite date, and one 

 exceptionally well made lentoid amulet with an endless rope pattern 

 on one side recalls both in shape and the design certain Hittite seals; 



* Qedrosla, p. 33, pi. 1, z. n. 7. 



