The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c17.57

c17.57

A vitreous glaze was used in a remarkable fashion upon a certain category of pottery found at Mohenjo-daro in some of the earliest known levels.⁵ These sherds are of a light grey ware covered with a dark purplish slip which had then been carefully burnished; to this, glaze was applied but, before firing, a portion of both glaze and slip was removed with a comb to form straight or wavy lines as a decorative pattern. Nothing like this ware has yet been found in Mesopotamia, and it would appear to be a local and relatively short-lived invention, dating perhaps from the middle of the third millennium B.C.