Archaeological Tour to Gedrosia

It has been recognized almost from the first that there were unmistakable links between what is now conveniently designated as the early Indus Civilization and the remains brought to light from certain pre-historic sites of Iran and Mesopotamia. Apparent similarities noticed between the characters, as yet undeciphered, on seals form Mohenjodaro and Harappa and those of the earliest Sumerian script would necessarily help to direct attention to the possibility fo a line of closer relations having lain through the territories which stretch from the terminal course of the Indus to the head of the Persian Gulf. Of these territories, the easternmost extending from the Indus upwards towards the Persian border formed part of ancient Gedrosia. Foremost among he reasons for the author, a trained Orientalist and archaeologist, to undertake this archeological tour was the special interest and attraction to this wide and an antiquarian sites as yet little known region through important discoveries attending the excavations carried out under Sir John Marshall’s direction at the sites off Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. The area off the prehistoric civilization thus revealed on the lower Indus has extended also into the hill tracts adjoining west-wards at NAL in the territory of the KALAT state. Apart from the archeological interest there were considerations of a geographical and historic order. This ground of ancient Gedrosia, however small its importance economically and pokitically has been ever since the Archaemenidian empire, the scene of a notable historical episode, Alexander’s famous march through its torrid wastes his return from India. It was into that far-stretched position of Gedrosia which comprises the territories of KHARAN. MAKRAN, and JHALAWN, between the Arabian sea in the south and the deserts adjoining. Afghanistan in the north, that Sir Stein extended the investigations far away in the north near the confines of ancient GANDHARA. Another masterpiece brought out by Cosmo.