Symbols at war. The impact of corallium rubrum in the Indo-Pakistani Subcontinent

Whereas the implications of the limited inventory of classical sources on the trade in Mediterranean corals to India has been thoroughly and proficiently explored (De Romanis 2000), the much longer history of the exploitation and transformation of corals in the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent is not (Vidale 2005; Del Mare and Vidale 2000). Without considering the common emphasis on Mediterranean corals as a reflection of “colonial indology” (over-emphasised nationalist views in Chakrabarti 1997, critical review in Vidale 2000), it is clear that the historical role of Indo-Pacific corals in the prehistoric and early historic periods of the Subcontinent has been grossly overlooked.