gems, ancient history, India, Rome, Greece, Alexander the Great, archaeology, trade, South Asia, lapis lazuli, carnelian, Afghanistan

Before proceeding farther we should give some thought to the question of how cities emerged. Their reappearance in the archaeological sequence seems dramatic, especially in respect to the still unexplained disappearance of the Indus cities. As indicated in chapter 3 it appears that a number of specifically urban traits were lost in the subcontinent after c. BC 1700. However, as Shaffer has pointed out, most of these are again present in the ensuing Early Historic period after c. BC 700 (Shaffer 1993, 59). This re-emergence or ‘re-urbanization’ is more confusing because it occurred after a period during which it has been argued in chapter 4 that there is evidence of complex ethnic, linguistic and cultural change. So as to examine the question of how reurbanization occurred we shall concentrate our analysis on the archaeological material from this intervening period and from the earliest re-emerged urban forms.