Of this route we have a trace in the land animals engraved upon the well-known Black Obelisk, where the combination of the small-eared or Indian elephant and the rhinoceros with the two-humped Bactrian camel, sufficiently marks the line by which the productions of India, occasionally at, any rate, reached Assyria.
The animals themselves were, we may be sure, very rarely transported.
Indeed, it is not till the very close of the Persian empire that we find elephants possessed--and even then in scanty numbers--by the western Asiatic monarchs.

But the more portable products of the Indus region, elephants' tusks, gold, and perhaps shawls and muslins, are likely to have passed to the west by this route with far greater frequency.
The Assyrians were connoisseurs in hard stones and gems, which they seem to have imported from all quarters.

The lapis lazuli, which is found frequently among the remains as the material of seals, combs, rings, jars, and other small objects, probably came from Bactria or the adjacent regions, whence alone it is procurable at the present day.

The cornelian used for cylinders may have come from Babylonia, which, according to Pliny furnished it of the best quality in the more ancient times.

The agates or onyxes may have been imported from Susiana, where they were found in the bed of the Choaspes (_Kerkhah_), or they may possibly have been brought from India.