So many of the items found at Mari and now housed in Aleppo’s museum seemed to have had their origins in India. How did all the cowries and beads in the museums get to Mari – when the Maldives are deep in the Indian Ocean? From their base in Tell el Dab’a; could the Minoans have got to India? We also discover that a considerable number of hoards of bronze goods, deliberately hidden underground, have been found over much of northern India. There have been 129 of them to date, most frequently found near the Ganges – in the Jumna catchment area.
Was there evidence of trade between India, Egypt, and the Minoans in the 2nd millennium BC?
Using the Red Sea–Nile Canal
Work began on this wonder in the 4th millennium BC. After the Scorpion King, King Menes, who lived around 3000 BC dammed the Nile some 12 miles (19 kilometres) south of Memphis and directed the waters to form a new lake, linked to the Nile by a canal. Some time during the Middle Kingdom (2040–1640) a canal was dug between the Red Sea and the eastern branch of the Nile at the Delta. Using captured enemies as slave labour, Egypt set off on an orgy of water channel making, so much so that the face of the nation was completely changed.
Further reading:
Hall of Mari: http://www.oocities.org/encyclopedia_damascena/ancientsyria/mari.htm
Canals for shipping in Ancient Egypt: http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/timelines/topics/canals.htm
Egypt’s Nile Red Sea Canals: a chronology:
https://eric.exeter.ac.uk/repository/bitstream/handle/10036/90806/CooperRS4Canal%5B1%5D.pdf?sequence=1
Herodotus, History II:
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.2.ii.html
Yemeni megaliths:
http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/yemen.html
