[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [Reference works](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference) › [An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.ghosh-1989) › v1.c24.s3.4 # An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c24.s3.4 An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c24.s3.4 - **Language:** English ### [v1.c24.s3.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.ghosh-1989.v1.c24.s3.4) Without exception, all the iron arrowheads found at Taxila (Marshall, 1951, 2) were intended for shafts made of reeds, not of solid wood, and were provided accordingly with long tangs instead of hollow sockets. (Indian arrow-shafts were of reed, cf. \*śara\*, though those of bamboo, \*veṇu\*, and wooden sticks \*śalākā\*, are also mentioned in literature.) A peculiarity of nearly all the earlier specimens is that there is a considerable length of solid shank intervening between the head and the tang. Perhaps they were a compromise between the socketed and tanged varieties. Their users were perhaps accustomed to socketed piles designed for solid wooden shafts, and when reeds were substituted for solid wood, the old form of pile was retained and a thin tang added behind the shank for insertion into the reed, the shank itself being made solid instead of hollow. Since the reed arrow was in general use in Iran and C. Asia (Stein, 1928, 1, pp. 95-6) as well as India, it may reasonably be inferred that these ‘double-tanged’ arrowheads, as Marshall calls them, were an adaptation of a w. socketed type rather than an e. innovation, and this being so it seems probable that these were introduced in Taxila by the Bactrian Greeks (Marshall, 1951, 2, p. 608, 3, pl. 71). - [Previous: v1.c24.s3.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.ghosh-1989.v1.c24.s3.3) - [Next: v1.c24.s3.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.ghosh-1989.v1.c24.s3.5) - [Up: v1.c24.s3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.ghosh-1989.v1.c24.s3) --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.ghosh-1989.v1.c24.s3.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.reference.ghosh-1989.v1.c24.s3.4) · Pramāṇa