The 7 Rivers civilization was not an insular civilization. It exported, it imported, it wove commercial and cultural links over considerable distances — toward Mesopotamia, toward Bahrain, toward Oman, and toward Iran. And in this commercial geography, Iran occupied a particular place: not a final destination, but an intermediate space, a zone of transit and exchange, where fixed commercial trading posts allowed the circulation of goods between the Indus and the Euphrates.
In The Civilization of the 7 Rivers, I state it clearly: trade relations with Iran (Elam and other regions) were well established. Trading posts in this region served as transit points for goods en route to Mesopotamia and other western regions.
Elam and beyond: the geography of Iranian relations
The Iran of the time — third and second millennia BCE — was not a unified state. It was a mosaic of civilizations and regional kingdoms, the most important for our purposes being Elam — centred on the city of Susa (present-day Shush, in Iranian Khuzestan) — and the cultures of eastern Iran, geographically closer to the area of the 7 Rivers civilization.
In The Civilization of the 7 Rivers, I note that the 7 Rivers civilization and the Iranian civilizations had the same principal gods and spoke very similar languages. This cultural and linguistic community was not coincidental. It testifies to a deep kinship — both cultures descended from the same Indo-European substrate, and their commercial exchanges were inscribed in a relationship of cultural reciprocity that went beyond simple economic benefit.
Further east, in what is now northern Afghanistan, lay Shortugai — the 7 Rivers civilization’s “colony” in Bactrian territory, at the frontier of the Central Asian oasis civilizations. I note it in The Civilization of the 7 Rivers: Shortugai, isolated from the rest of the civilization, supplied it with copper and tin — two metals indispensable for the production of bronze.
The functions of the Iranian trading posts
In The Civilization of the 7 Rivers, I detail the two principal functions of the Iranian trading posts:
The first: storage and distribution of goods. Products were stored in these posts before being shipped further west — toward Susa, toward the Sumerian cities, toward the Arabian coast. These warehouses allowed the irregularities of maritime and caravan journeys to be smoothed: when a cargo arrived early or late, the trading post absorbed the delay.
The second: local exchanges. The posts also served as exchange points with local populations, allowing direct transactions without requiring the long journey back to the great cities of the Indus. An Elamite craftsman could obtain carnelian beads or lapis lazuli without crossing the entire commercial route.
This organization — intermediate trading posts, mixed functions of storage and local exchange — is what the Hanseatic League would reinvent in medieval Europe, centuries later. The 7 Rivers civilization invented it five thousand years ago.
What circulated: goods from Iran to the Indus
Trade was not one-directional. If the 7 Rivers civilization exported its manufactured goods to Iran — carnelian beads, gold jewellery, cotton textiles, carved ivory — it imported in return what Iran and its neighbours produced.
In The Civilization of the 7 Rivers, I list the precious stones from Afghanistan and beyond — notably lapis lazuli from the mines of Badakhshan, in north-eastern Afghanistan, which probably transited through intermediate trading posts before reaching the jewellery workshops of Mohenjo-Daro and Lothal.
Copper and tin — indispensable for bronze production — came partly from Iranian and Afghan regions. The Shortugai “colony,” in northern Afghanistan, was precisely an advanced post for the supply of these metals.
And horses — which the 7 Rivers civilization did not produce locally. In The Civilization of the 7 Rivers, I note that horses from Iran, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan — countries with which the 7 Rivers civilization had commercial posts and cultural relations from the beginning — were available through these exchange networks.
Diplomacy without an army
What makes the commercial network of the 7 Rivers civilization unique in the history of its time is that it functioned without an army, without conquest, without coercion.
In The Civilization of the 7 Rivers, I document it: this civilization was completely pacifist — no trace of violence in the excavations, regardless of their location. No depiction of warriors. No weapons of war. The trading posts in Iran were not military outposts. They were spaces of voluntary exchange, maintained by mutual trust and shared benefit.
This form of commercial presence abroad — merchants who settle in a foreign country, learn the local language, respect the customs, and maintain lasting relations on the basis of fair exchange — is a form of soft diplomacy avant la lettre. A diplomacy without titled ambassadors, without signed treaties, without military threat in the background.
The 7 Rivers civilization exported more than it imported. Its trade balance was positive. And this prosperity did not rest on the exploitation of weaker partners — it rested on the quality of its products, the regularity of its deliveries, and the trust that its commercial partners accorded it.
Cultural kinship with Iran
In The Civilization of the 7 Rivers, I underline a point that goes beyond the simple commercial relationship: the Indian and Iranian civilizations had the same principal gods and spoke very similar languages.
This community is not incidental. Iranian Zoroastrianism — which used the same sacred drink as Vedism, called haoma in Avestan against soma in Sanskrit — is a branch descended from the same trunk. The Vedic deva are the Iranian daeva. Some divine figures — Mitra notably — are found in both traditions.
Trade between the 7 Rivers civilization and Iran was therefore not a simple exchange of goods between strangers. It was a dialogue between cultural cousins — peoples who shared a language, gods, spiritual practices, and who also exchanged their material productions.
This may be the richest form of international exchange that has ever existed.
