Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.169

c12.169

The axes produced by the Harappā metal-smiths in particular are of the simplest flat type which appears in the very earliest stages of the manufacture of metal tools in many parts of the Old World, and can indeed be cast from an open mould of the most primitive type (Fig. 24). Flat axes of precisely the Harappā forms appear in Sialk III, Hissar Ic, Giyan Vc, and Susa I - a period approximately contemporary with late Al 'Ubaid - early Uruk in Mesopotamia; they may be dated to the fourth if not the fifth millennium B.C. But rough shaft-hole adzes in copper or bronze were already being made in Sialk III and Susa I, side by side with the more primitive flat type, and in the Al 'Ubaid culture itself and in that of Jemdet Nasr there are models in pottery that appear to represent advanced types of metal shaft-hole axes. It is true that at Mohenjo-daro a similar clay model was found at a low level, which again seems to represent a form of shaft-hole axe, but the absence of the type among the abundant metal-work means that it was never adopted for practical use. In Sumer, however, the shaft-hole axe and the application of this principle of hafting to other tools and weapons were universal by Early Dynastic times.