Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c10.63

c10.63

Two of the mounds are formed of a whitish clay, kneaded so hard that it turned the edges of common digging tools, and when freshly cut glistens and has a bluish tint. The clay is foreign to the surrounding area and must have been brought from a distance for a definite purpose. In the burial hymn there is mention of the depositing of clods of earth (*Loya*) over the body of the dead, raising a pillar (*Sthūṇā*) and making it firm on the earth (*Prithivī-stambhana*, RV. X. 18.13). Bloch actually found a *repoussé* gold plaque depicting the earth goddess in the characteristic pose of the ancient Mother-Goddess figurines, also depicted on ancient small rectangular metallic pieces from Rajgir (now one in Bhārat Kalā Bhavan and one in Lucknow Museum). [Fig. 42]