An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c16.s14: 11.14 Painted Grey Ware (PGW) and Associated Wares
An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c16.s14
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11.14 Painted Grey Ware (PGW) and Associated Wares
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The PGW, with its uniform grey surface and painted designs in black, has been regarded as the hallmark of the culture to which it belongs and which has been named after it [4.15]. Its distribution is confined to a specific geographical horizon—Punjab, Haryana and the upper Ganga valley, the peripheral sites being ROPAR and MADHOPUR in the n., GILUND (surface finds only), Lakhiyopir in Sind [this has been doubted, Dhavalikar, 1977], CHOSLA near Ajmer and GONDI near Jaipur in the w., ŚRĀVASTĪ in the e. and UJJAIN in the s. KAYATHA, 40 km e. of Ujjain, has also yielded a dozen sherds. [A few sherds reported from KAUŚĀMBĪ and VAIŚĀLĪ may be of doubtful affiliation.] But the prominent sites are AHICCHATRĀ, ALAMGIRPUR, ALLAHAPUR, ATRANJIKHERA, HASTINĀPURA, KHALAUA, NOH, ROPAR and SARDARGARH, all excavated.
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The common shapes are the bowl and dish, though shapes like the basin and vase are not altogether wanting. The main types of the bowl are those with straight, tapering convex or concave sides or corrugated or ledged ones. There are some miniature bowls as well. The dish types have a more restricted variety—generally with vertical or in-turned featureless rim and rounded, straight or tapering sides, a convex body and a carination near the sagger base. They are fairly large with a diameter of about 30 cm. It has been suggested that they were used for dining purposes. A rare shape in the basin, with an externally grooved collared rim with rounded sides with painted strokes, is reported from HASTINĀPURA. The vase, including the miniature one, is uncommon, though specimens have been found at ATRANJIKHERA, NOH and AHICCHATRĀ. The exceptional shapes are the *loṭā*-shaped vase and spouted vessel with a ring-base.
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The decorative paintings occurring both on the inner and outer surface are in black or occasionally in deep chocolate and are pre-firing. In some cases the outline of the designs was first drawn in a thick deep black line [*AI*, 1954 and 1955, p., 32]. The multiple-brush technique might have also been prevalent (Saran, 1969, pp. 127-8). The designs consist of simple geometric patterns like bands and strokes of vertical and slanting lines, dots and dashes, chains, loops, etc. There are also more sophisticated patterns like lotuses, leaves, bunches of flowers and the sun.
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The ware was produced from well-levigated clay free from all impurities and was turned on a fast wheel. Its thin fabric has been regarded as the surest criterion to distinguish it from the degenerated form of the ware. Saran (*op. cit.*) observes that the egg-shell thickness of the ware was attained by first throwing the pot on the wheel itself—a process which would also explain the open-mouthed shape of the pots. An emulsion which could serve as a slip was applied at this stage.
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At all the excavated sites, the PGW forms only a small percentage of the total pottery yield from the respective levels. The other ceramic industries of the period are the black-and-red [11.6.3] ware, Black-slipped Ware [11.13] and red and grey wares.
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The red ware seems to be the common ware as against the *de luxe* PGW. When it is of fine fabric its shapes are comparable with those of the PGW, as the bowl and dish. But mostly the fabric is medium to coarse, in which the common shapes are the storage jar with husk and mica tempered in the clay, vase, basin and even miniature vessel. A noteworthy shape is the perforated bowl with three or four legs. Sometimes the vessels bear stamped and incised decorations, such as spirals and concentric circles on the entire surface, particularly in the SARASVATĪ valley (RER, CHAK 86) and at ROPAR. On the more sites like HASTINĀPURA, ALLAHAPUR and ATRANJIKHERA simple incised decorations are prevalent.
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The fine grey ware is so close to the PGW that if the paintings are removed from the latter the two would be indistinguishable from each other. Grey ware decorated with stamped spirals and concentric circles or incised with criss-cross and zigzag designs on the entire surface is also found.
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Stratigraphically the PGW is preceded by the OCW [11.5] at AHICCHATRĀ and HASTINĀPURA or with a definite intervening gap by the Harappa culture [4.9] at ROPAR and ALAMGIRPUR. At yet other sites the NOH and ATRANJIKHERA a brief phase of the black-and-red ware [4.13] intervenes between the OCW and PGW. An altogether different picture emerges from the excavation at BHAGWANPURA², where the PGW overlaps with late Harappan material [4.10]. Otherwise the PGW definitely belongs to the Iron Age. Towards its ends it overlaps with the NBPW [4.18.1] at many sites, though at HASTINĀPURA a gap intervenes between the end of the PGW and advent of the NBPW. The date of the NBPW is not uniform everywhere [11.16] and Sinha [1969, p. 179], believes that the NBPW of HASTINĀPURA belongs to a later phase, c. 350 B.C. If 100 or 200 years are assigned to the gap between the PGW and NBPW at HASTINĀPURA the former must have come to an end around 500 B C. Again, if a period of 300 years is assigned to the 2 m thick PGW deposit of HASTINĀPURA, the beginning of the PGW should be taken to have started around 9th-8th century B.C. ¹⁴C dates also support this: except for a solitary date of 1025±100 for ATRANJIKHERA no date goes beyond 820±225 B.C. (NOH). [A higher date for the advent of the PGW is advocated by others, Lal, 1954-5, and 4.15].
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Fig. 30. 1-3, 12, Painted Grey Ware; 4-8, Black-and red ware; 9-11, black-slipped ware
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The PGW, wheel-thrown, smooth and uniformly ash-grey in colour, represents a highly developed technique in ceramic manufacture and a specially elegant achievement of the Indian potter. In view of its importance in achaeology a small analytical programme was undertaken for its study, which has yielded some useful results. They enable us to discern the quality of the clay paste that was prepared to throw the ware, the identification of the pigment used in the decoration of the ware and the technique used in the baking of the ware.
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An examination of thin sections of the ware at 120 magnification revealed an insignificantly small number of particles of feldspars, quartz or limestone. This observation is not without significance, as it testifies to the painstaking process of prolonged sifting of the alluvial
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Dhavalikar, M.K., 1977 in *Ind. Hist. Review*, 4, 1, p. 112. Hedge, K.T.M., 1975, in *Antiquity*, 49, Lal, B.B., 1954 & 1955, in *AI*, 10 and 11. Saran, B., in Sinha, B.P., 1969, *Potteries in Ancient India*, Patna Sinha, K.K., 1969, in *ibid*. Tripathi, V, 1976, *Painted Grey Ware—an Iron Age Culture of n. India*, Delhi.—V. TRIPATHI clay that the potter carried out to elutriate it and prepare from it a fine plastic clay paste free from larger particles. The ash-grey colour of the pottery was estimated to be equivalent to N7 on the Munsell chart of ceramic colour designations. This colour on the pottery is invariably uniform suggesting that the pots were baked in an enclosed space where the effect of heat could be evently distributed. The hardness on its surface is 3·5 and on its core is 3 on the Mohs' scale. When freshly broken it gives a straight and sharp fracture. These qualities suggest that the pottery was very well baked.
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Chemical analysis of the black pigment used in the decoration of the ware revealed that the pigment was made up on iron oxide. It did not contain manganese dioxide or any carbonaceous matater (Hegde, 1975, pp. 187-90). When a sherd was heated in an open crucible at 600° C the black design slowly turned first yellow, then orange and finally red. The grey surfce attained a dull red colour. The scraped pigment was also found to be magnetic. It is therefore possible to identify the pigment as magnetite. This is interesting, revealing as it does that if magnetite was used as the pigment it would retain its black colour only if the ware had been baked in a reducing atmosphere. If on the other hand had red ochre, i.e. haematite, been used it would attain black colour and turn into magnetite only if the pot was baked under a reducing condition. In either case the experiment shows that the pottery was backed in a reducing atmosphere.
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Among the present day potters the practice of using magnetite to decorate pottery is not known. They use a suspension of finely ground red ochre in water. It is therefore possible that the PGW potter also, after wheel-throwing and sum-drying his pots, painted them with a suspension of ground red ochre in water. After painting he would bake the pots in an enclosed space under a reducing atmosphere on which red ochre turned into black magnetite on account of the following reaction taking place within the reducing atmosphere of the enclosed baking device: $3Fe₂O₃+CO-2Fe₃O₄+CO₂.Fe₃O₄$ is magnetic oxide of iron, i.e. magnetite. It is opaque, isometric and black with metallic lustre in reflected light.
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The ware was baked in an enclosed baking device under a reducing atmoshpere. What was this baking device like? There are groups of potters in the Ganga valley and elsewhere who have a simple device for baking pots in a reducing atmosphere by using a mouthed, thick-walled, well-baked strong jar in which they stack their ready-to-bake vessels. The space inside the vessels and between them and the jar is filled with cow-dung cake powder and goat droppings. They then seal the jar with several layers of clay and cloth to make it completely airtight. The pots in the jar are then baked in a *gajaputa*, which is a well-known ancient high temperature heating device, described by Vāgbhaṭa (Dharmanand, 1962, pp. 151-2) as consisting of a pit of about 1 cubic m. At the bottom it is closely packed with cowdung cakes up to a height of 20 to 30 cm. The sealed jar containing the pots is placed in the centre of the pit above the cow-dung cakes. It is then fully surrounded with cow-dung cakes and some more cakes are piled up above the pit. Thereafter it is set on fire and allowed to burn first for a few hours slowly and then with strong heat for 8 to 12 hours. Within the jar the pots are baked in the reducing atmosphere of carbon monoxide. Under this condition red haematite is reduced to black magnetite. It is likely that this baking device was used in the manufacture of the PGW.
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To prove the above analytical results we ground red ochre in water and used the pigment to decorate a few wheel-thrown and sun-dried bowls. The bowls were baked inside a sealed jar together with cow-dung cake powder in *gajputa* at 800 to 1000° C for 12 hours. In this experiment we reproduced specimens comparable with the PGW.
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Dharmanand, 1962, *Śrī-Vāgbhṭācārya-viracita Rasa-ratna-samuccaya*, Delhi. Hegde, K.T.M., 1975, in *Antiquity*, 49, pp. 187-90.—K.T.M. HEGDE