Indian Art: A History of Indian Art from the Earliest Times up to the Third Century A.D. c6.46

c6.46

Chronologically the latest phase of the stone age culture was drifting towards the historic period with a two-fold intervening cultural sequence, viz. the chalcolithic phase of the Indus Valley and the Aryan phase, mainly of the Gangetic Valley. The Indus Valley culture by itself presents an extensive phenomenon both in space and time, in which a higher type of material civilisation was fully developed with all the main types of arts and crafts evolved in a high degree. The evidence about the Aryan cultural remains is yet uncertain, but the copper implements specially from the Gangetic Valley from Bithur in Kanpur, Sartholi in Shahjahanpur, Rajpur Parsu near Hastinapur etc., point to some cultural sequence. A new type of pottery also forces itself on our attention. The Northern Black Polished Ware known as N. B. P. with widely scattered find-places punctuating the limits of the Mauryan empire has been rightly assigned to a period from 600 B. C. to 200 B. C. This was preceded by another kind of pottery known as the Painted Grey Ware. This type has been found both at Ahichchhatra and Hastinapur from the earliest levels. The pottery is wheel-made and decorated with groups of vertical lines, bands of sigmas, concentric circles, pot-hook spirals and arrangements of dots and dashes. Mostly the designs are painted on the outside of the bowls and dishes. In the case of the open flat bottomed dishes the inner surface also is painted with elaborate patterns. In the post-Harappan occupation levels at Rupar this pottery was found. The area between the Sutlej and the Jumna is full of sites producing the Painted Grey Ware. Like the N. B. P. ware the Painted Grey Ware and the Ochre Washed Ware also have a glossy finish. Most probably they belong to the blank period between the Indus Valley and the historical beginnings and thus may be assigned to the Vedic and post-Vedic ages.