Mesopotamia was a vital link on Roman-Indian trade routes
Norman Hammond
Archaeology Correspondent
The Times
December 17, 2007

More than 60 years ago Sir Mortimer Wheeler proved that Roman pottery
had made it all the way from Italy to India: the characteristic bright
red of Samian ware, bearing the stamp of the Vibieni of Arezzo, showed
up in his trenches at the ancient port of Arikamedu, on the
southeastern coast near Pondicherry. Numerous other finds across India
have since strengthened the connection, including many wine jars or
amphorae.

A new study now suggests that many of these came from Mesopotamia, not
the Mediterranean, and that the triangular trade between India, the
Persian Gulf and the ports of Roman Egypt on the Red Sea was much more
complex than hitherto thought.

"Roman amphorae, together with Roman coinage, are the most important
artefacts for documenting exchange between the Roman Empire and
India," Dr Roberta Tomber says in Antiquity. "Since many Roman
amphorae are well-dated and well-provenanced, they represent an
untapped resource for the understanding of Indian Ocean contact."

More than 10,000 Roman coins are known from southern India alone, and
although there are growing numbers of amphorae reported,
identification is more problematic, Tomber says. Her survey has
confirmed the presence of such wine jars from 31 sites, but at about
half these sites it was also discovered that amphora sherds thought to
be Roman were actually Mesopotamian in origin.

In ten cases there were only Mesopotamian sherds present. These were
in the form of "torpedo jars", tall cylindrical peg-footed amphorae,
common in Mesopotamia and the Gulf but not hitherto noted in India.
Fragments of the rims and bodies could be mistaken for Roman wares
made in Syria and Anatolia, as indeed they have been, and their dates
span the Roman period from around the time of Christ onwards, although
they also continue into early Islamic times in the seventh century.

Torpedo jars are lined with bitumen to keep their liquid contents from
evaporating, and may have been the dequre of Sasanian texts: if so,
this suggests a wine-drinking clientele in contemporary India. They
are found mainly between Karachi and Bombay in areas under Sasanian
influence, and inland towards Delhi, and seem to have been imported
into India throughout their period of manufacture in Mesopotamia.

Some got as far as Sri Lanka and the east coast near Chennai (Madras),
and others were found at ports on the coasts of Yemen and Somalia.
Roman amphorae are found in a similar pattern, though rarely on the
same sites: it would be interesting to know if they travelled in the
same ships, Tomber notes.

The port of Qana, on the coast of Yemen and an important point in the
frankincense trade, may have been an entrepôt for both Roman and
Mesopotamian goods arriving from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf
respectively. It has not yielded the full range of Late Roman amphorae
found in India, however, and other places may have played an equal
role. The overall distribution of Roman amphorae and torpedo jars
suggests three seaborne routes to India, Dr Tomber proposes. One ran
direct from the Gulf, one direct from ports such as Berenike on the
Red Sea coast of Egypt, and one via Qana.

Western India was influenced by wave upon wave of invaders, from the
Greeks to the Parthians, Scythians, Kushanas and Sasanians, and was at
a nexus of trade routes. The recognition of Mesopotamian jars for
finds formerly thought to be Roman has made the picture both clearer
and more complicated.