Building stones, skins, gold, emerald, ropes and dry goods had been brought from Egypt to Indus Valley. In exchange of these goods utensils, wool and wood had been exported to Egypt.
When we think of IVC, we tend to limit our geography to the blue spots — Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa along the river Indus of Sindhu. But in the times of the IVC, there was another mighty river flowing parallel to Indus, a few hundred kilometres to the east. We now know it as much desiccated Ghaggar-Hakra river. In its glory days, it was called Sarsvati.
There are very large concentrations of IVC sites along the riverbed of ancient Sarasvati, marked in purple. Down south from Mohenjo-Daro there are more of these concentrations. The outer limits of the civilisation found so far are marked with red spots.
Among them Lothal near Dholka features a large dockyard and Shortugai near Rostaq is assumed to be a trading outpost of a town. Sutkagan Dor near Gwadar was almost at the borders of the next civilisation, while Alamgirpur was an outpost on the verge of the Ganges River Valley. The southern parts of IVC was know as Meluhha to westerners.
Having set the geographies of IVC, let’s take a look at the world around it.
There was very little in the east apart from nomadic Aryan tribes and forest dwelling Dravidian tribes, but the west was civilised. Elam was right next door, which ran into the Mesopotamian civilisations of Akkadia, Sumeria, Babylonia and Assyria, extending into the Caucasus, Egypt and the Levant.
In the north there was the Oxus Valley Civilisation along river Amu-Darya. Concentrations of Oxus Valley artefacts were found in northern Pakistan and near Mohenjo-Daro. Along the Persian Gulf there were Dilmun and Magan civilisations.
Throughout these areas Indus valley seals and Sumerian tablets were found, along with artefacts originating in one place were found in another.