Abstract
There is not much evidence of regular commerce by sea between India and the Near East previous to about 700 b.c. The Bible (1 Kings x, 11; 2 Chron. ix, 21) speaks of Solomon (c. 1000 b.c.) as importing by sea gold and wood of almuggim or algummim trees from Ophir, likewise peacocks, the Hebrew name for which, tukki, comes from the Tamil tōgai, together with other things that were brought by the fleet of Tarshish. But Ophir cannot be located with certainty in India; almuggim or algummim are an unknown quantity (2 Chron. ii, 8, speaks of algum trees in Lebanon!); so perhaps these statements may be anachronisms. There is better evidence for an overland trade route. On the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser II (b.c. 860–825) are the figures of an Indian elephant and a rhinoceros brought as tribute to him by an Armenian tribe; and the Rig-veda (VIII, lxxviii, 2) mentions a golden manā, possibly the Assyrian maneh.
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