CHEESE GRATERS, JARS AND CHEESE DRAINERS : production and trade of dairy products in the Indus Valley in the 3rd millenium
Article published in French in 1990
Paléorient 1990, vol. 16/2, pp. 37-54" Reconnaître un objet usuel consistesurtout à savoir s'en servir. "H. Bergson
ABSTRACT
The excavations at Nausharo in Pakistan, like all of the sites of the Indus Civilization, yielded a large number of ceramic vessels, the functions of which are reinterpreted here in the light of recent ethnoarchaeological observations. It is thus possible to identify some of the vases which may have been used for the storage, conservation, transformation and transport of dairy products. The presence of specific forms such as graters, cheese-drainers and jars reflects the technology of a large-scale craft industry. Their discovery on sites at great distance from the Indus, such as in southeastern Arabia and in Bactria, indicates the possible geographical boundaries of Harappan trade and export in the 3rd millennium BC. In the Indus itself, they suggest that urban society was strongly oriented towards the rural and nomadic worlds.
INTRODUCTION1
Ceramics, the raw material for the typological studies, that are essential to any modern publication, would surely benefit from being examined more often in a less abstract way. We would then undoubtedly see that domestic activities, apparently secondary according to our current criteria, may have been at the origin of important relations and exchanges between the oriental peoples of Protohistory.
The use of some of the vases produced by the Indus Civilization, for example, can receive a new interpretation through comparisons with current pottery vessels and domestic activities. These include vessels intended for processing milk and dairy products, which give us a slightly different view of the Indus economy and trade in the 3rd millennium BC2.
1 - QURUT OR KASHK : A BRONZE AGE CHEESE ?
Among the dairy products of the current rural economy of the East, there is one that can particularly attract the attention of the archaeologist. It is the “dried cheese”3, obtained from sheep's milk and a by-product of butter, called qurut in Turkish-speaking Central Asia4 as well as in the Pakistani-Indian world and kashk in the Iranian world.
Some of archaeological evidence suggests that this product could have been consumed as early as the Bronze Age, when livestock farming became widespread and that it may have been marketed and even exported to regions that had frequent trade relations with the Indus Civilization.
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| Fig. 1 - Map of sites of the Great Indus Valley and of the Harappan trade. The Oman sea and the Persian Gulf facilitated long-distance trade from the Great Indus Valley to Arabia, Mesopotamia and Persia. (Drawing Ph. Gouin) |
2 - SHEEP'S MILK AND THE OPERATING CHAIN OF TRANSFORMATION OF BUTTER AND CHEESE5.
The methods used to produce fresh or preservable products6 from sheep's milk which could be consumed in the Bronze Age, are relatively simple.
Several products can be obtained through cold or hot chain operations. The two main ones are butter and cheese. The operations that result in these products form two chains from milk and are summarized in the following chart (fig. 2).
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| Fig. 2 - Butter and cheese production chains in Pakistani-Iranian regions. (Chart Ph. GOUIN) |
a) The raw material : milk7
We will talk here mainly about sheep's milk8.
Fresh milk is slightly acidic, its pH is 6.5 to 6.6. At room temperature it separates, after a while, into two liquids of different densities. The cream globules, lighter, rise to the surface. They are made of fat and casein. Heavier skimmed milk still contains casein but also lactose, albumin and minerals.
The milk production period of animals in mountain regions is mainly during the warm season. It extends, with the birth of lambs, from the last winter quarter to the last summer quarter, i.e. about four months. In warm lowland regions, the production period is a little longer, with births starting earlier.
Nomads and semi-nomads9 process milk produced during the first two months of milking into fresh cheese. This milk also feeds the young lambs before they are weaned or sacrificed. Indeed, milk, at this time, does not contain much fat and the production of butter is not very profitable. In addition, it is sometimes difficult for nomadic sheperds to collect large quantities of firewood in their winter quarters. Dry cheese being a by-product of buttermilk, it is necessarily obtained during the production of butter, clarified or not, therefore during the summer period.
Milk processing is a women's task in the regions that concern us here10.
b) Fresh or cooked cheeses
Left in the open air, the milk comes into contact with ferments that develop there. These ferments produce lactic acid, which determines its coagulation. Other mineral or organic acids coagulate milk, such as citric acid in the form of lemon juice for example which is used in India for the family production of fresh white cheese, called paneer.
There are many ferments that can curdle milk11. The best-known coagulant used to prepare cheese is rennet.
Casein12, one of the nutritious parts of milk, is present in it, in the form of soluble calcium. Rennet contains a ferment, also soluble, casease, that transforms this salt into insoluble calcium paracaseinate. Cheese is therefore mainly composed of coagulated casein.
Rennet generally comes from the abomasum taken from a young lamb or a suckling kid13. This abomasum then undergoes appropriate treatment and is reduced to powder14. This powder is added to fairly hot milk. The resulting mixture curdles in 15 to 30 minutes. The mass is then drained in a cloth or into a special vase pierced with holes also called cheese-drainer (fig. 6). The cheese is obtained in a few hours. It can then be cooked (e.g. Comté15, which is curd, heated and compressed) or raw and salted (e.g. the Roquefort) or unsalted (e.g. Camembert) or refined thanks to different moistures that develop there (Penicilium Glaucum, Aspergillus Niger, etc.)16.
c) Yogurt
Yogurt or mâst is obtained by boiling fresh milk to which yogurt from the day before is added when it is cool enough to dip the little finger in without burning. The preparation is mixed and coagulation occurs after about 10 hours. The container is covered to allow the proliferation of transforming microorganisms. Mâst can be consumed as is or added to cooking to make sauces or it can become the raw material to make butter.
d) Butter and clarified butter
To make butter, water is added to mâst in a variable proportion (from a third to a half) and it is this diluted yogurt that will be stirred in a churn until butter is obtained.
Oriental churns contain 10 to 12 kilograms of yogurt17, which requires the use of a vase that can hold around 20 liters for mixing. This quantity of mâst corresponds to the daily milk production of 20 to 25 ewes or goats. It takes a woman 2 hours to churn this quantity of product. A woman can therefore churn per day, at most and until the limit of exhaustion, the milk production of a herd of about a hundred females18.
In traditional manual churning, the butter rises to the surface of the liquid and is collected using a skimmer. A quarter of the milk fat cannot be recovered and therefore remains in the buttermilk.
Butter is rarely used in the Orient in the semi-solid form known in Europe, because it quickly goes rancid in these hot climates. Clarified butter is therefore preferred. This butter, which is liquid, is called roghân in Persian and ghî in Urdu or Hindi.
Clarified butter, also called butter oil, has many advantages. It keeps well, it does not go rancid19 and it can withstand high temperatures (higher than those of olive oil or mustard oil) used for frying foods. It is very easy to get : simply melt ordinary butter in a container as gently as possible (1 to 2 hours of cooking), then pass the liquid through a fine cloth which retains the impurities formed largely of milk casein. The quantity of clarified butter obtained is 25% less than the initial quantity of butter.
Like qurut, described below, roghân is easy to preserve. It can therefore be transported easily. It has always been the subject of intensive trade throughout the Orient which does not produce vegetable oils (sesame, olive, etc.). It is essential for culinary preparations, due to the absence of another fat that is resistant to high temperatures. It is a food that may have been the subject of exchanges or trade since the Bronze Age. However, it is difficult, for the moment, to find material evidence of the distribution and circulation of this product, because roghân is transported in a very ordinary vase, which has a fairly narrow and well-closed opening and is slipped inside.
e) Buttermilk20
Buttermilk or dûgh is the liquid that results from the making of butter. This liquid is consumed as is or drained in a fabric. It is then processed into a kind of fresh cheese called mâstinah in Iran.
Dûgh (or its equivalent lassi in the Indo-Pakistani region) and mâstinah, very popular in many regions, do not keep well and are difficult to transport. They quickly become sour and inedible. Also, nomads or semi-nomads, who cannot sell their production quickly, prefer to transform dûgh into a more durable product, qurut or kashk.
e) Dried cheese or qurut
Qurut is made by heating dûgh, obtained from sheep's milk, in a large open container, until most of the water it contains has evaporated. The resulting product is then placed in a canvas bag or in a ceramic cheese drainer to drain. Once this is done, the paste is salted at a rate of 50 to 70 grams of salt per kilogram of cheese. The paste is then divided into small white or lightly tinted balls, with a diameter of about 3 to 4 centimeters. They are finally completely dried in the sun, where they become hard as stone.
Qurut is an easily marketable and easily transportable product due to its small ball shape. It keeps very well for a whole year, protected from humidity and rodents. It is the ideal product for export, even over long distances. This is currently the case since qurut is often marketed by peddlers who come to buy it in the fall, at the end of the lactation period, in the camps of nomad-pastoralists to resell it in the towns21, or even abroad22. This is probably how qurut is sometimes found in the souks of the Persian Gulf (in Bahrain, in Buraïmi in the United Arab Emirates, etc.).
This cheese is eaten reduced to powder and diluted in water, either raw or integrated into many culinary preparations ranging from simple soup to the most elaborate stews. It can be the main element of the recipe or a simple condiment23. Today's Iranians, for example, would find it difficult to do without it and, if it is found less and less in artisanal form in the souks of Iran24, it is because it is now produced industrially.
With the whey flowing from the qurut, a black paste called qaraqurut (black qurut) or talf is obtained by evaporation. It is a product that keeps quite well and is still sold in certain regions of Iran. It is used as a condiment25.
3 - FUEL EXPENSES
It goes without saying that a large quantity of caloric energy is required to gradually evaporate all the water contained in the milk, in order to produce qurut. This is provided by wood or wild brushwood collected in the surrounding, sometimes far away, of the camps. There are often one or two men (or women) and a pack animal devoted to this task alone. Estimates and surveys26 in Iran show that 1.4 kg of wood are needed to process 1 litre of milk up to qaraqurut. Deforestation due to the processing of dairy products would, in our time, be greater than that due to overgrazing in the region in question. Dried cow dung is also used as fuel, but it does not heat much and gives off smokes which give the products an unpleasant taste.
4 - ARCHEAOLOGICAL EVIDENCE: NEW INTERPRETATIONS
Some material remains support the theory of a trade in dairy by-products. These are fairly frequent and regular discoveries of archaeological objects that could have been used in the preparation, trade, conservation or consumption of qurut and other dairy products.
a) Dish-shaped cheese grater
The most characteristic and remarkable utensil encountered in the Indus excavations is certainly the large “dish-on-stand” or "pedestaled" dish, formerly called "compotier", "offering stand" or "censer"27. These latter names are, in my opinion, far from corresponding to the real function of the vase in question. Certain clues show, as we will see later, that it is rather a vase used as a grater, a qurut grater of course! This rather extraordinary vase exists in small numbers”28 in all the excavations of the Indus Civilization and on the fairly numerous sites which began with them. This vase looks like a large, shallow, very open dish, with a curved or flared lip, on a very flared foot (fig. 3, g). This object generally measures about 40 centimeters in total height and around 30 centimeters in diameter. The dish is decorated, inside and on the foot, with horizontal and wavy lines painted in black. A fine slip, whose color varies from brown to brick red, covers the visible parts. The bottom of the dishes, left unpainted, presents a series of impressions made in the paste before firing and arranged in a regular manner, which has led archaeologists to think until now that it was a decorative motif29. These impressions are of very diverse types and made using very disparate tools. We indeed find imprints of the edges of marine shells, “fingernail-like marks”, semicircles made using a small pipe (a reed or perhaps a small sawn bone), various striations and radiating or concentric incisions, etc.30 (PI. I). All this gives a feeling of improvisation: apparently, the first object that came to hand was used. However, the main purpose of these imprints is not to achieve a decorative effect, even if they are arranged in a harmonious way.
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| Fig. 3. – a to c, unfooted dish-shaped cheese graters from Mehrgarh VII. – c-d, unfooted dish-shaped cheese graters from Nausharo II. – e, f, g, footed dish-shaped cheese graters from Nausharo III. –h and i, dish-shaped cheese graters from Nausharo III. – j, dish-shaped cheese graters from Mehrgarh VIII and Nausharo IV (Drawings Ph. Gouin, G. Quivron (g) and E.R. 316 (a-b).
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In fact, the aim is to roughen the bottom of the dish. We also notice that the roughness is perfectly visible and perceptible, as on a grater, on the new and unfired vases discovered in a potters' workshop on the site of Nausharo in the Great Indus Valley31. On the other hand, all the vases of the same phase (periods II-III) discovered on that site, present a more or less great degree of wear of these roughness due to the more or less long use of the vase before it is abandoned or broken and thrown away (PI. II).
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Pl. II – a-c- Macrophotographs of bottoms of footed dish-shaped cheese graters with impressions of shell edges showing the different degrees of wear
due to use : -
a has only
been used a little, -
b has an
average wear, -
c
impressions have almost disappeared (Photographs Ph . Gouin), Pl. II - d- Impressions on the bottom of a raw dish-shaped cheese grater from
the pottery workshop of Nausharo II (Photograph S. Merry). |
 |
Fig. 4. - Specimens of bowl-shaped cheese grater currently used in Pakistan for the preparation of qurut . a - Bowl-shaped cheese grater from Sindh (South-East of Pakistan). The interior is lined with abrasive grits. b - Bowl-shaped cheese grater from Punjab (North-East of Pakistan). Fragments of pottery sherds forming a grater are embedded in the bottom of the vase before firing. (Drawings Ph. Gouin) |
The use of these footed dish-shaped cheese-graters is quite simple: the ball of dried cheese, previously moistened by soaking, is vigorously rubbed on the striated bottom of the vase33. Once the ball is grated, the resulting powder is diluted. The product is ready to be consumed. During these operations, the vase must offer very good stability: this is why the foot of these vessels is so widely flared. Perhaps this foot also made it possible to present the dish directly to the guests, seated around it in oriental manner.
It should be noted that the painted decoration does not interfere in any way with the preparation of the qurut. The decoration, most often consisting of alternating horizontal or wavy black lines, is peripheral and does not undergo friction when grating cheese (fig. 3). The striated bottom is left raw, perhaps with a light slip.
From the period of Mehrgarh VII and during those of Nausharo I to III, there are also unfooted dishes which have the same impressed bottoms (fig. 3, a to d). Similarly, there are footed dishes with a smooth bottom (fig. 3, h to i). These vessels could be complementary to each other and, in that case, were used successively during the preparation and consumption of the qurut.
The footed dishes from the late period, which have a bulb at the junction of the bowl and the foot, do not have, on the examples that I was able to observe, a striated bottom like a grater (fig. 3, h). The lip of these vessels is very flared. The dish-shaped cheese graters also sometimes have a flat edge34 but most often, they have a lip curved inwards which prevents the liquid from overflowing when grating the qurut (fig. 3, c to g). The late dishes, with a bulbous foot and a smooth bottom, are rather complementary vases used as display vessels. The two types of dishes, with a striated bottom or a smooth bottom, coexisted during the Late Indus period (Period III of Nausharo). We also find, in the Late Harappan period of Nausharo, small footed dishes with smooth bottoms, often decorated in their center with a black round (fig. 3, i). The contacts of the Indus with other regions did not stop at this time and it will probably be necessary to examine more closely the large footed dishes discovered during the period corresponding to Mehrgarh VIII and Nausharo IV, in the sites of Margiana35, Bactria36 and Baluchistan37, from North and South38, as well as the so-called Jhukar ceramics39. We will perhaps see there the last avatar of these footed dishes which then disappeared completely with the other dairy utensils (fig. 3, j).
Fragments of dishes with striated bottoms, with or without a foot, have been discovered in all the sites that had close relations with the Indus. So much so that we can speak of these vases as true “diagnostic artifacts”. They were discovered in Mundigak40 and Shortughaï41. There are also some at Hili 842 (fig. 5, с and d) and at Maysar 143. They are dated to around 2300 BC44, according to the accepted chronology, that is to say at a time corresponding to the period of expansion of the Indus Civilization.
b) Cheese drainers
Another type of object is frequently encountered in excavations of Indus Civilization sites or sites with close affinities with them45. These are cheese drainers intended to drain coagulated dairy products for the cold preparation of white cheese or paneer (fig. 5). These vases, sometimes interpreted as stoves46 or colanders, can be of quite variable dimensions: from about 10 to about 50 centimeters in height for a diameter two and a half times smaller. The straight, cylindrical wall of these vases is pierced with numerous small holes, more or less tight, and regularly dispersed, from the base to a certain distance from the neck. The base is slightly narrowed to allow inclined holes to be drilled and thus facilitate draining. The bottom of the vase is always pierced with a fairly larger hole in the middle, which allows the curdled milk to drain. This hole also and above all allows the curdled cheese to be removed from the cheese drainer, perhaps by pushing it from bottom to top with a stick. The walls of the vase are in fact very rough because of the holes and the cheese cannot slide out on its own. This wide opening could not let the still liquid cheese pass through, because, for draining, the cheese drainer was placed on a flat plate that closed the hole at the bottom. The discovery of a complete cheese drainer placed on its saucer at the site of Nausharo supports this hypothesis (fig. 5, a1 and a2).
The cheese drainer is the typical and essential utensil of a well-equipped dairy.
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| Fig. 5 - Cheese drainer of Nausharo II, III (a to c), and Mehrgarh VIII (d). The cheese drainer a1 was discovered still placed on its saucer a2. (Drawings Ph. Gouin) |
c) Jars
If we admit that qurut was consumed in the Arabian Peninsula at that time, we must also accept that it was imported, since the local economy hardly allowed the production of this type of product, which was expensive in terms of fuel. This raises the question of the conditions of its transport. The means of transport from the Indus to Arabia has only recently become known. They were small boats made of reeds and caulked with bitumen, which crossed, perhaps directly, the Arabian Sea. The excavations of Ras al-Junaisz have yielded fragments whose identification is beyond doubt47. But the transport of cheese across the Arabian sea on a boat made of reeds must have presented serious risks for the cargo. Water-resistant and durable packaging was absolutely necessary. The only one available at the time was, I believe, ceramics. Very frequently found in sites of the Oman peninsula, associated with the footed dishes, are fragments of large jars48 (fig. 6, 8, b and f), which are now proven to come from the Indus Valley49. These large vessels are also well known in the middle and recent archaeological levels of all Indus sites50.
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| Fig. 6 - Fragments of indigenous or imported vases of Indus-type discovered at Hili (a to e), in the Emirate of Abu-Dhabi and at Ras al-Junaiz (f) on the coast of the Arabian Sea. (Drawings Ph. Gouin (a-e) and after H. David (f)) |
They very often bear a graffiti in Harappan script incised on the shoulder or on the neck. These inscriptions are currently indecipherable, but they most probably correspond to the name of the owner, to the content or the quantity, or all three at at once which, in all cases, indicates a particular commercial use of this vase (fig. 7).
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| Fig. 7 - Ceramic material discovered at Mohenjo Daro which may have been used for processing, transport or storage of dairy products in the Indus of the 3rd millenium. (Drawings after Dales and Kenoyer, 1986, fig. 102 : summary chart of Mohenjo-Daro pottery) |
These jars have an elongated shape, with a high shoulder and a very narrow base. They measure between 0.60 cm and 1 m in height. The opening is wide, with a thickened, flared, hook-shaped lip. They are made with a very particular paste51 and are covered with a very characteristic thick dark brown slip, which is unique to them. This slip is not only internal, but also and above all external, which is quite surprising if they were to contain a liquid. It is therefore rather a question here of preventing the migration of liquid from the outside to the inside and not the opposite, as is the case when the contents of the vase are liquid. The small cheeses could therefore remain dry, in their ceramic packaging, for the entire duration of the journey.
d) Cooking wares
The series of vessels used for processing milk is completed by vases intended for cooking and boiling. Indeed, at that time, "cakes", a kind of fired clay puck in a triangular or ovoid shape52, were used to heat liquids in vases that could not be placed directly on a fire. These "cakes" are collected by the thousands on all the sites of the Indus. Once they had turned red, they were immersed in the liquid to be heated, to which they transmitted their heat. This process could not be used here. The milk would have carbonized without boiling on contact with these hot objects and would have been inedible. Only a pot that could be placed directly on the flame of a hearth was therefore suitable.
Perhaps, the pots of type 26 from G. Dales at Mohenjo-Daro53 were used for this purpose. These vases, whose shape (fig. 7, g and h) is still very common in the Pakistani-Indian regions, where they are used to cook butter or cheese54, are made in a very particular way. Their convex base is modeled with a paste containing a coarse temper which can, therefore, expand without breaking and withstand strong variations in temperature. The neck of the vase, which is assembled, is quite wide and made of a fairly fine and micaceous wheel-shaped paste, often painted black and, sometimes, red. A fairly marked rib indicates the neck-body connection on the shoulder of the vase. These vessels could be placed directly on the fire, as evidenced by the obvious traces of black smoke. It is quite possible that these vases were used for the hot processing of dairy products.
In addition, we find in the pottery assemblages of the Mature Indus period a series of coarse wares clearly intended for culinary uses55.
e) Other vessels and objects
The large tanks with vertical walls and narrow bases (fig. 7, i) are also very common in the Indus sites56. They are often decorated with horizontal painted bands. They could be used for curdling milk (mâst making) because large vases were necessary for this operation. They are also very suitable for this purpose, because they can contain the quantity of mâst to fill a churn57. The open shape with vertical walls also allows the liquid to be easily stirred during preparation. The width of the opening finally allows the ferments, in contact with the air, to proliferate. They could also be used to let the beaten mâst rest after churning, so as to bring the butter to the surface of the liquid.
There are many other objects, among those published by the different authors, which could well have had been used in the artisanal processing of dairy products, such as cups58 (fig. 7, j), strainers, spoons59, cakes, etc. widely distributed in the Indus and in the world in contact with it.
5 - THE SPREAD OF DAIRY PRODUCTS FROM THE INDUS VALLEY TO THE EAST IN THE 3RD MILLENIUM
a) The West: the Gulf, the Arabian Peninsula, savannah and desert regions, Mesopotamia
In arid and fuel-poor areas such as the Arabian Peninsula, the production of hot-processed dairy products, such as qurut, would be difficult to achieve. These by-products of milk, which were energy-intensive for the reasons discussed above, were certainly rare. Dairy products were probably mostly consumed raw, in the form of curds and pressed fresh cheeses and perhaps sometimes salted for longer preservation. The addition of dry cheese, which was difficult to spoil and had a strong taste, could have added relative luxury to the diet of the coastal and oasis populations of the peninsula during the Bronze Age60. This could be an additional reason why trade relations were established between the Indus and the Oman Peninsula around 2300 BC61.
We do not have found, for the moment, any trace of ceramics imported from the Pakistani-Indian region to Mesopotamia. There is no doubt that one day, when we will pay attention to it, we will find sherds of the Indus in the local archaeological context62.
b) The North: South Central Asia, the region of mountains and steppes
Since the discovery and excavation of the site of Shortughai63, located on the banks of the Amu-Darya, in northern Afghanistan, we know that the Indus peoples had established close and frequent cultural and commercial relations with the steppes peoples. According to the excavators, the village of Shortughaï was a trading post and also a center for processing raw materials, apparently especially minerals64. Unfortunately, we are not told what the Indus settlers could offer the steppes peoples, in exchange for what they received from them. In any case, the Shortughai plain was inhabited and a large enough number of animals were raised there that a significant portion of milk production was processed for conservation. The objects discovered during the excavations and which are related to this craft, are numerous enough for us to be able to affirm today without too much risk that Shortughaï could have a significant production of dairy products like the other sites of the Indus or Baluchistan. The excavation of the site of Mundigak, as discussed above65, also revealed a very interesting fragment of an unfoot dish-shaped cheese grater. This piece of vase shows that the regions of southern Afghanistan, like those of the North, had a dairy craft producing qurut.
c) The East: The Pakistani-Indian subcontinent
Many archaeological sites in India66 have yielded Indus ceramics. They are of less interest in this study because of their proximity and cultural identity with the Indus Valley.
6 - CHRONOLOGICAL INFORMATION
It is not appropriate to repeat the chronology of the Bronze Age of the Indus here. However, if we accept that the Harappan-type ceramic assemblages (footed dishes and large jars with brown slip) discovered at Hili are contemporary with those of the Indus, which in my opinion is hardly doubtful, we will have to find a common date for them. The date of 2300 BC that I propose is provided by the chronology of Hili 8 and Ras al-Junaiz67. It should also be possible to date the production of these objects between 2300 and 1800 BC68. This latter date corresponds, in my opinion, to the end of the great Indus period69. At this time a new period begins corresponding to the phase VIII of Mehrgarh in which we still find wide dishes, but of a significantly different model (cf. § 4a); after that, with the Pirak culture, ceramics change completely and, if the processing of dairy products continues, but perhaps on a smaller scale, the wide dishes disappear70.
7 - CONCLUSION
I am afraid that it is difficult, for the moment, to find evidence to confirm the hypotheses. This is despite the constant progress of fine physico-chemical analyses71. However, the above observations now present, with great probability, the Indus Civilization as the major dairy producer of the moment. They also help, along with other factors, to explain its development at a certain time. What may have contributed to its flourishing could just as well have been, with others, one of the possible causes of its decline, for simple reasons such as that put forward above: deforestation and, consequently, the shortage of pastures and fuel72.
We can also deduce, contrary to what many authors, who were inspired by the medieval model, have written, that the townspeople and peasants of the Indus did not form two distinct worlds surrounded by hostile nomads. The image that is increasingly emerging from recent archaeological work shows a well-urbanized city inhabited by the power (central or not), merchants and artisans, probably surrounded by villages and a large ring of cultivation and livestock that lives in osmosis with the city.
These herders of heavy and sedentary livestock, such as the zebu, had to supply the city with dairy products, perhaps in exchange for manufactured goods. This society, more homogeneous than one might imagine, was probably in close contact with nomads73 or semi-sedentary people, who had to provide it with refined products such as qurut. If, in fact, it is possible to produce butter, yogurt and fresh cheese from cow's or zebu's milk74, only sheep's milk can produce quality qurut. Since it is obviously quite impossible to raise sheep in large numbers in cities or intensively cultivated regions, only sheperds could produce qurut in quantity. First collected by villages, non-perishable dairy products could then be exported from cities to regions as far from the Indus as the Oman peninsula and the Gulf.
This image of the Indus cities seems more in keeping with local reality, than the medieval image of a power and inhabitants walled up in their fortresses and ramparts. It should, in any case, allow us to consider the study of the Indus Civilization in a new light.
Footnotes
