The discoveries of archæological relics made by the De Morgan Expedition in Elam (western Persia), and by the Pumpelly Expedition in Russian Turkestan, have provided further evidence that Sumero-Babylonian civilization [[199]]exercised great influence over wide areas in ancient times. Unfortunately no such records as those made by the Egyptians who visited Mine-Land have been discovered either in Babylonia or beside the mineral workings exploited by the Sumerians or Akkadians. The Egyptian Pharaohs, as we have seen, had to send military forces to protect their miners, and on one occasion found it necessary to conduct mining operations in the hot season instead of in the cool season, a fact which suggests that the opposition shown by rivals was at times very formidable. It does not follow that the Babylonians had to contend with similar opposition in Armenia and Persia. They appear to have won the co-operation of the native peoples in the mid-Asian mining districts, and to have made it worth their while to keep up the supply of gold, and copper, and tin. Babylonia had corn and manufactured articles to sell, and they made it possible for native chiefs to organize their countries and to acquire wealth and a degree of luxury. Nomadic pastoral peoples became traders, and communities of them adopted Babylonian modes of life. Mr. W. J. Perry has shown that in districts where minerals were anciently worked, the system of irrigation, which brought wealth and comfort in Babylonia and the Nile valley, was adopted, and that megalithic monuments were erected.[16]
The early searchers for metals and pearls and precious stones were apparently the pioneers of civilization in many a district occupied by backward peoples.
The mineral area to the south-east of the Caspian Sea appears to have been exploited as early as the third millennium B.C., as was also the mineral area stretching from the Caspian to the eastern coast of the Black Sea. [[200]]New trade routes were opened up and connections established, not only with Elam and Babylonia in the south, but with Egypt, through Palestine, and with Crete and with the whole Ægean area. Troy became the “clearing-house” of this early trade flowing from western Asia into Europe. The enterprising sea-kings of Crete appear to have penetrated the Dardanelles and reached the eastern shores of the Black Sea, where they tapped the overland trade routes.[17] Dr. Hubert Schmidt, who accompanied the Pumpelly expedition to Russian Turkestan in 1903–4, found Cretan Vasiliki pottery in one of the excavated mounds, and, in another, “three-sided seal-stones of Middle Minoan type (c. 2000 B.C.), engraved with Minoan designs”.[18] There is evidence which suggests that this trade in metals between western Asia and the Ægean area was in existence long before 2500 B.C., and not long after 3000 B.C.
Copyright H. G. Ponting. F.R.G.S.
AN OFFERING TO THE GODS, PEKING
One of the great centres of Mesopotamian culture in the south-eastern Caspian area was Anau, near Askabad, on the Merve-Caspian railway route. Another was Meshed, which lies to the south-east of Anau in a rich metalliferous mountain region. One of the “Kurgans” (mounds) excavated at Anau yielded archæological relics that indicated an early connection between Turkestan and Elam in south-western Persia. In another “Kurgan” were found traces of a copper-culture. The early searchers for metals were evidently the originators or introducers of this culture, and as the stratum contained baked clay figurines of the Sumerian mother-goddess, the prototype of Ishtar, little doubt can remain whence came the earliest miners. This region of desolate sand-dunes was in ancient times irrigated by the Mesopotamian colonists who sowed not only the seeds of barley, wheat, and millet, but also the [[201]]seeds of civilization, and stimulated progress among the native tribes. The settlers built houses of bricks which had been sun-dried in accordance with the prevailing Babylonian fashion. The Egyptian potter’s wheel was introduced—another indication that regular trading relations between Babylonia and Egypt were maintained at a very early period.
Mr. Pumpelly, in the first flush of enthusiasm aroused by the mid-Asia revelations, urged the claim that the agricultural mode of life originated in the Transcaspian Oases, and that it passed thence to Babylonia and Egypt. But the discovery of husks of barley in the stomachs of naturally mummified bodies found in the hot dry sands of Upper Egypt affords proof that cannot be overlooked in this connection.[19] Agriculture was practised in the Nile valley long centuries before the Transcaspian Copper Age was inaugurated. Besides, barley and millet grow wild in the Delta area.
The early Mesopotamian searchers for metals, and their pupils from the Transcaspian region, continued the explorations towards the east. They appear to have wandered to the north-west of the Oxus and the south-east of the Lake Balkash and apparently to the very borders of China. This eastward drift must have been in progress long before the introduction of bronze into central Europe, which had a Stone Age culture for three or four centuries after bronze implements had become common in Troy and Crete. The traders who carried bronze into Hungary carried jade too, and the beliefs which had been connected with jade in Asia. The earliest supplies of European jade objects must have come, as will be shown, from Chinese Turkestan.
There was good reason for the early gold rush towards [[202]]the east. Gold can still be easily found “everywhere and in every form” in Siberia. The Altai means “gold mountains”, and these yield silver and copper as well as gold. Indeed, eastern Siberia is a much richer metalliferous area than western Siberia, and this fact appears to have been ascertained at a very remote period. The searchers for metals not only collected gold, copper, and silver on the Altai Mountains and the area of the upper reaches of the Yenesei River, but also penetrated into Chinese Turkestan, where, as in Russian Turkestan, trading colonies were founded, the metals were worked, and the agricultural mode of life, including the system of irrigation, adopted with undoubted success.[20] Important archæological excavations, conducted by Dr. Stein in Chinese Turkestan, “on behalf of the Indian Government”, have revealed traces of the far-reaching influences exercised by Mesopotamian culture in a region now covered by the vast and confusing sand-dunes of the Taklamakan Desert. At Khotan the discoveries made were of similar character to those at Anau.