"This river [the
Indus] has seven mouths, very shallow and marshy, so that they are not navigable, except the one in the middle; at which by the shore, is the market-town, Barbaricum. Before it there lies a small island, and inland behind it is the metropolis of
Scythia,
Minnagara; it is subject to
Parthian princes who are constantly driving each other out."
"The ships lie at anchor at Barbaricum, but all their cargoes are carried up to the metropolis by the river, to the King. There are imported into this market a great deal of thin clothing, and a little spurious; figured
linens,
topaz,
coral,
storax,
frankincense, vessels of glass,
silver and
gold plate, and a little wine. On the other hand there are exported
costus,
bdellium,
lycium,
nard,
turquoise,
lapis lazuli,
Seric skins,
cotton cloth, silk yarn, and
indigo. And sailors set out thither with the Indian Etesian winds, about the, month of July, that is Epiphi: it is more dangerous then, but through these winds the voyage is more direct, and sooner completed."
Its principal function beyond supplying its immediate hinterland was as a
transshipment port for supplies of Persian turquoise and
Afghan lapis lazuli, to be carried overland to
Egypt.[2]