Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.62

c14.62

Specialized crafts within the community include that of the metal-smith, who may make metal vessels as well as tools or be an armourer. No direct mention of a potter occurs, but the carpenter has an important and honoured trade, working with an axe or adze, and making fine carved work for chariots or to enrich the door-posts of a house. His equipment presumably included the bow-drill, the use of which is implied in the fire-making appliance with which the sacred (and presumably the ordinary) fire was kindled. Bronze seems to have been the only metal worked; it follows that copper must also have been used, although the word for this metal occurs only later than the Rigveda, as does that for tin.