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Meluhha

Meluhha refers to one of ancient Sumeria's prominent trading partners, but precisely which one remains an open question. The leading candidates are: the Indus valley civilization, India, or ancient Ethiopia. The word can be found in many Sumerian texts, particularly those documenting the exploits of King Assurbanipal.

A number of scholars suggest that "Meluhha" was the Sumerian name for either India or the Indus valley civilization. Asko Parpola , a Finnish Indologist, derives Meluhha from earlier Sumerian documents with the alternative value "Me-lah-ha", which he identifies with the Dravidian Met-akam "high abode/country". He further claims that Meluhha is the origin of the Sanskrit Mleccha, "barbarian", because the people of Sindh/Meluhha were considered barbarian by the people of the Ganga-Yamuna doab.

Meluhha, Dilmun and Magan

Sumerian texts repeatedly refer to three important centers with which they traded: Magan, Dilmun, and Meluhha. The location of the first two are well accepted. Magan is identified with Pharoahic Egypt. Dilmun was a trade distribution center for goods originating in the region of modern-day Bahrain and areas south of Bahrain including the Sultanate of Oman. The location of Meluhha, however is hotly debated.

Certain texts from the early 3rd millennium BC suggest Meluhha was a kingdom adjacent to Magan/Egypt. King Assurbanipal of Sumeria writes about his first march against Egypt, "In my first campaign I marched against Magan, Meluhha, Tarka , king of Egypt and Ethiopia, whom Esarhaddon, king of Assyria, the father who begot me, had defeated, and whose land he brought under his way...". Earlier, Sargon of Akkad was said to have "dismantled the cities, as far as the shore of the sea. At the wharf of Adage, he docked ships from Meluhha, ships from Magan."

However later texts (c.2200 BC) seem to indicate that Meluhha is to the east, which suggests either the Indus valley or India.

One theory suggests that the name Meluhha actually followed a migration of people from Ethiopia to Pakistan. It is now generally assumed that the Indus Valley civilization was a Dravidian civilization. Renowned researchers such as Bernard Sergant claim that Dravidians were a Afro-Uralic race from the African Sahel belt, which encompasses Senegal, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan and Ethiopia. The migration theory posits that these peoples migrated from the Sahel belt, known to pre third millennium BC Sumerians as Meluhha, to saurashtra or the India-Pakistan area of the Indus Valley, so both an early Ethiopian location and a later Indian location would apply. Alternately, perhaps the people did not move, but rather the identification did, when the Sumerians encountered the dark-skinned Dravidians of the declining Indus valley civilization. In this case, "Meluhha" would refer to a skin color or perceived race.

It is important to note that from the third millennium BC onwards, Ethiopia itself was never referred to as Meluhha, but as Kush.

There is no mention of Meluhha in any Sumerian text after about 1700 BC, which corresponds to the time of decline of the Indus Valley.

Last updated: 05-16-2005 14:09:32