The Indus Civilization c7.15

c7.15

The fine girdle mentioned above deserves a detailed description. It consists of six rows of barrel-cylinder, translucent, red carnelian beads, each bead being about five inches long and separated from the one following by spherical bronze beads and a bronze spacer pierced with six holes for the strings. The girdle, which is about three feet four inches long, has at each end a flattened hemispherical terminal of bronze, originally gilded, and through these terminals the strings were carried and fastened (Pl. L.). Some of the female figurines wear girdles of this type, the beads and spacers being represented by strips of clay. The holes in the carnelian beads are as well polished as the outer surface, and it must have required great skill to bore such hard stones. Each bead had been drilled from both ends, in many cases with such accuracy that the holes meet exactly in the centre. It is difficult to say what apparatus was used for this boring, but the drill was probably of copper, and a very fine emery must have been used as an abrasive. The care taken to polish the interior of each bead so that no white marks should mar the semi-transparent stone marks a very high stage of craftsmanship.