Page 229 - Four Thousand Years Ago by Geoffrey Bibby

-rpo 1 he Argosies [1580-1510 b.c.]
river, a river the size of the Nile, pours its waters into the Indian
Ocean. The Egyptian merchants nod; they have heard of
Meluhha.

From this rich land, went on the Mesopotamians, cargoes of
precious goods had long been brought by the merchant adven­
turers of Ur and Dilmun, cargoes of gold and ivory, of teak and
cotton and lapis lazuli. And of carnelian. Within the memory
of man it had been a peaceful land, ruled by its great kings from

the mighty capitals of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Far to the
southeast its colonies spread, five hundred miles along the coast
as far as the hills and jungles of the Kathiawar peninsula, and
in the northeast new towns had been built by the upper waters

of another river which was said to flow eastward for hundreds
of miles to another sea. It had looked as though Meluhha could
expand indefinitely, in size and wealth and power.
But in the time of their grandfathers an enemy had come
over the northern mountains, mountains so high that they were
thought to be the roof of the world. Like the Hurrians and the

Kassites of north Mesopotamia, these newcomers—they called
themselves Aryans—were nomads, with herds of cattle and of
horses, and with squadrons of swift horse chariots. They were
fierce warriors, great eaters of beef, and singers of songs. And

since they appeared they had been pressing south.
Over a generation ago great Harappa had fallen, far to the
north along the Indus, and since that time no lapis lazuli had
come out of the mountains of Afghanistan. But Harappa was
five hundred miles from Mohenjo-daro, and the length of Egypt
away from the coast. The king in Mohenjo-daro had not been

unduly troubled, perhaps not as troubled as he should have
been, for he did not appreciate, as the Mesopotamians from long
experience tried to warn him, the swiftness with which chariot­
eers could move. Anyway, year by year the Aryans had moved

southward, sacking and burning the townships of the Punjab, and
recently they had been joined by kinsfolk coming from Persia
into the hill country of Baluchistan. The ruler of Mohenjo-daro
had realized his danger too late, when a coalition of Aryans and
Asuras had swept in from west and north. The army of Meluhha

had been shattered; the hastily improvised defenses of Mohenjo-