Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c11.78

c11.78

Beads were found in some abundance in the Nal cemetery, biconical or barrel-shaped and made of agate or carnelian, and an agate bead was found at Ghazi Shah in Sind. Lapis lazuli was also used for beads at Nal, and a bead of this stone was also found in Sind, at Pandi Wahi. Lapis, as we shall see in Chapter V, is an exotic substance much valued in the ancient Orient, and probably obtained mostly from Persia or Afghanistan. It was used by the Harappā folk, and there are lapis beads from other sites in Baluchistan. An important substance used at Nal for making beads, especially tiny discs, was the artificial paste with glass frit known as faience - a substance well known in the Harappā Culture but not elsewhere in prehistoric Western India, and fitting in with the evidence of the whitened steatite seal. Another point of contact may be afforded by a perforated stone weight from Nal and two others from a site probably of the same culture at Nichara, all of which are very similar in shape to weights from Mohenjo-daro. As we shall see, the system of weights in the Harappā Culture is curious and distinctive, but the Nal weight does not fit into the known series, though the type is distinctly similar to the Mohenjo-daro specimen.