Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c13.53

c13.53

Another find suggesting western contacts of rather later date is that of a bronze sword from Rajanpur in the Punjab, a remarkable weapon with an elaborate hilt of a type well known in the Luristan graves of Persia, which are likely to be about 1400-1200 B.C., and similar to others from the Caucasus of approximately the same date (Fig. 30). This sword stands alone in India, though there are two hoards of swords of different types, one from Fathgarh in the Upper Ganges Valley and the other from Kullur in Hyderabad State, Deccan. The Fathgarh hoard contained no less than thirteen swords, said to be of copper, and with slight mid-ribs; all but one had characteristic hilts cast in one with the blade and spreading out into ‘antennae,’ and this was the type of the four swords from Kullur. Swords with hilts of the Rajanpur type occur in the Late Bronze Age Talish graves of the Caucasus, again about 1350-1200 B.C. and representing a school of metal-work closely in touch with that of Luristan. It is then just possible that all the swords in question may be related to Caucaso-Persian styles of the late second millennium B.C.