The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

by Sanjeev Sanyal

We have some idea of what the Harappans exported—carnelian beads, weights and measures, different types of wood, pots of ghee (clarified butter) and, most importantly, cotton textiles. The cotton plant was domesticated in India and cotton textiles would remain a major export throughout history. Oddly, we are not sure what the Harappans imported in exchange. Nothing of obvious Persian Gulf origin has ever been found in any Harappan site. Perhaps they imported perishables like dates and wine. Another possibility is that they imported copper from Oman as the remains of several ancient copper mines have been found there. The Harappans had their own copper sources such as Khetri near the Haryana–Rajasthan border, but the Gujarati Harappans may have preferred Omani copper.