Cotton from prehistoric Indus Valley found in 7,200 year old village in Israel

Cotton fibers have been found in Tel Tsaf, a site in the Near East, dating back to around 7,000 years ago. The researchers believe that the cotton originated from the Indus Valley (present day Sindh, Pakistan), though they do not rule out the possibility of an African origin. The researchers suggest that the cotton may have been brought to Tel Tsaf through trading. The earliest known evidence of cotton’s use is from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic period at the Mehrgarh burial site in Pakistan, where cotton threads were used to string copper beads around 8,500 to 7,500 years ago. The earliest known cotton fabric is a fragment of cloth found at Mohenjo-Daro, also in Sindh, Pakistan, dating back to around 5,000 to 4,750 years ago.

Karachi – Sindh at the End of the British Raj between 1942 and 1947

Sindh: Karachi as seen by a British soldier sometime between 1942 and 1947: lively street scenes, animals, buildings, life in the Karachi Cantonment, followed by the journey back towards Britain on a troop ship through the Suez Canal. A Movie recorded by British solider Stephen in 1942. The author of the film obviously developed a liking of Karachi – Sindh and its people. A few of the shots at the end of the film may be of Bombay/ Mumbai.

via – Globeistan –You Tube

The Silk route & the ancient Indus Valley

By Aftab Kazi, PhD

Silk was among the items exported from the ancient Indus Valley emporiums to Mesopotamian city-states approximately 4000 years ago through both land and sea-borne silk-routes. Historically China has maintained cross-continental trade through the port cities of the Indus Basin River state, i.e. Sindh, Ind, Hind, Al-Hind respectively, the land areas that are now called Pakistan. Most recent early medieval example is that of the Kushan Empire (included land areas comprising modern Central Asia, Pakistan with a thin inland incursion into Bharat up to Mathura) which also had an excellent relationship with China. Both empires traded silk, spices, malmal (cotton cloth made in Sindh), indigo, etc all the way to Roman Empire through the Indus port city of Barbarikon (ruins of Barbarikon are likely to be that of Bhambhore located approximately 50 klometers from modern Karachi. This was the sea-borne silk-route link. Suez Canal did not exist then.

Ships sailed from Barbarikon via the coast of modern Oman and Arabia, entered Red Sea, from where they used the delta canals of River Niles to enter Mediterranean, hence traveled to Greece and Rome. There were two routes to sail. One for winter and the other for summer. I have cited this sea-borne Silk-route in my chapter on Pakistan in SF Starr (ed.) New Silk Roads:…, (Washington, DC: Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, 2007). Earliest records of ancient Silk-routes are available in the travel accounts of Sindhbad, an inhabitant of Sindh (modern Pakistan) under the title of “Sindhbad’s travels”, also spelled as “Sindbad”. Although somewhat fictionalized, this book is the most earliest treatise available on ancient Silk Roads. This book was translated from ancient Sindhi to Persian in medieval times and has been further translated into several modern languages including the English language…

Source – http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/inside/staff/staff_ web/aftab_kazi.htm

http://www.aftabkazi.com