Ports and Maritime Trade of India

Dr Sila Tripati was engaged in the maritime archaeological research of India at the CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, from 1988 to 2022. He is currently the General Manager (Museum and Exhibition) of the National Maritime Heritage Complex (NMHC) Lothal, a project of the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways (MoPSW) Government of India. Throughout his career, he has participated in the exploration and excavations of submerged settlements, ports and shipwrecks carried out by the CSIR-National Institute of Oceanography along the east and west coasts of India. He has dived to depths of 30 m in Indian waters and 45 m in the Mediterranean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, and in a manned submersible. He served as the Co-Guest Editor of the Special Section on “Shipwrecks” in Current Science, 2019, Vol. 117 (10). He has published more than 150 research papers as a single author and as a co-author in peer-reviewed international and national journals. He is also an Advisory Committee Member of the Centre for the Indian Ocean Studies at Tamil University, Thanjavur. Dr Sophie Hueglin is an archaeologist and holds Visiting Fellowships at the Universities of Tuebingen (Germany), Basel (Switzerland) and Newcastle (UK). She is a Member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists, UK, and specialises in medieval and early modern ceramics as well as medieval building technologies. Among other topics, she teaches the Archaeology of the Global Middle Ages with a focus on the maritime trade in the Indian Ocean. She is an author and co-author of more than 150 scientific publications. In 2021, she published the edited volume “Petrification Processes in Matter and Society” with Springer and authored the paper “From Basel Mission to Mangalore Tiles” in 2023 with Dr Sila Tripati and architect Dr Priya Joseph. 2014-2020, she has been Vice-President of the European Association of Archaeologists. From the 2024 Rome meeting onwards, she has organised sessions on Europe – South Asia relations together with Dr Sila Tripati and other renowned experts on maritime and South Asian archaeology.

• Chapter 1. Did the Dholavira Harappans participate in the long-distance trade with Mesopotamia? A Look into the Circumstantial Evidence.- Chapter 2. Maritime exchanges between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia through Oman in the third millennium BCE.- Chapter 3. Charting the deep-sea route of the 3rd Millennium Harappan sea trade with Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf.- Chapter 4. Indicators of Trade Activity at Kanmer, Kachchh, Gujarat.- Chapter 5. Khirsara: The Harappan trading post in Kachchh of Gujarat, West Coast of India.- Chapter 6. Salt Manufacturing in the Harappan Period and Its Use: A Case Study of the Harappan Site of Padri, Bhavnagar District, Gujarat.- Chapter 7. Musical aspects of Harappan maritime trade and Implications in Identification of Meluhhan woods and other trade objects in Mesopotamia.- Chapter 8. Varanasi: the trading centre on the bank of the River Ganges of India (3rd century BCE to 3rd century CE).- Chapter 9. Sravasti: The Riverine Port of Early Historic India.- Chapter 10. Food Trade in the Periplus: the Kamrej - Khor Rori connection between Western India and South Oman in the Arabian Sea Interaction Sphere.- Chapter 11. Torpedo Jars in South Asia: A Brief Survey.- Chapter 12. Ancient Trade in Ganga-Yamuna Valleys and their Ceramic Trails.- Chapter 13. Mode of Transport in Early India as evidenced by toy cart models found in excavations - A Further Study.- Chapter 14. Seafaring and seafarers in pre-colonial India.- Chapter 15. The Nexus of Buddhism with Trade and Traders.- Chapter 16. Coins as a conduit to India’s maritime past.- Chapter 17. South Indian Raft Designs indicate the evolution of Boat Designs.