An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s15: 4.15 Painted Grey Ware (PGW)
An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s15
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4.15 Painted Grey Ware (PGW)
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This culture has been christened after its very distinctive ceramic industry, viz. the Painted Grey Ware (PGW) [11.14]. Made of fine-granied and well-levigated clay, the ware is grey in colour, having been fired under reducing conditions in the kiln [16.12]. Its distinctive shapes are the dish, bowl and a *loṭā*-like vase, together making the typical Indian dinner set used even today. The pots are often painted in black colour with designs which include dots and dashes, vertical, oblique and criss-cross lines, concentric circles and semicircles, a chain of short spirals, sigmas, *svastikas*, etc. But the ware accounts for hardly 10% of the entire pottery of the culture. There are other pottery fabrics occurring with it [11.14], viz. the Black-slipped Ware [11.13], black-and-red ware [11.6.3] and red ware, the last being in fact the most prolific.
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The PGW culture was essentially a village culture with an agricultural-cum-pastoral base. No signs of urbanization—such as town-planning, large-scale trade and commerce, coinage, writing, etc.—had as yet emerged. People lived in houses made of wattle-and-daub or mud or mud-bricks. The settlements were of moderate size. Amongst the agricultural produce rice deserves to be specially mentioned. Likewise, amongst the domesticated animals particular reference may be made to the horse, a favourite animal of the Aryans. The other domesticated animals include the cattle, buffalo, pig and sheep. The occurrence of cut and charred bones of animals indicate the inclusion of meat in the dietary. The deer was also hunted for food and its antlers utilized for making thin pointed tools. A debate has ranged around these objects: some regard them as styli [20.5], but, as already stated, there is no evidence of writing; it is more likely that at least some of them were used as arrow-heads [19.3.1].
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Whether the PGW culture was exclusively an Iron Age culture or had a pre-iron stage as well has been somewhat uncertain. However it now appears that there may well have been a time when the PGW people were without iron. This is suggested by the evidence from BHAGWANPURA², Dt Kurukshetra, where the culture overlapped with another pre-iron culture derivable from an amalgam of a pre-Harappa [4.8] and the Harappa [4.9]. Likewise no iron is reported from the PGW levels at ROPAR, nor from CHAK 86 and SARDARGARH, both in Dt Ganganagar. At the same time the PGW sites in w. Uttar Pradesh, e.g. HASTINĀPURA and ATRANJIKHERA and in e. Rajasthan, e.g. NOH and JODHPURA, have yielded iron alongside copper. While the tools in the latter metal are the more delicate ones (for example at HASTINĀPURA were found a nail-parer, an antimony rod, a borer and a small arrowhead), those in iron include nails, sickles, arrowheads, spearheads, daggers and the like (evidence from ATRANJIKHERA, etc.)
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Large-scale horizontal excavations have not yet been carried out at any PGW site. Thus one cannot get a detailed picture of the everyday life of the people. However from whatever little is known, it appears that these people played the game of *chaupar* or *chausar*. This is indicated by the discovery of the typical gamesmen and dice [6.7] used in this game: from NOH comes a painted plano-convex gamesman in the PGW fabric and from ALAMGIRPUR a typical oblong die in bone, bearing on its four faces the markings 1, 2, 3 and 4. The children perhaps played hopscotch with terracotta discs [6.7.3]. The terracotta toys included the bull and the horse [6.7.4]. Women bedecked their persons with necklaces of beads of agate, carnelian, jasper, etc. They also used reel-shaped ear studs of jasper and agate [10.2.2]. But most notable is the use of glass bangles [10.2.1], the earliest specimens so far found in India.
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The PGW culture falls very broadly between the end of the Harappa culture [4.9], as evidenced at ROPAR and the beginning of the NBPW culture [4.18.1] as at ROPAR and HASTINĀPURA. The evidence from BHAGWAN-PURA² however suggests that it overlapped with a late amalgam of a pre-Harappa and Harappa cultures. This would indicate the lower limit, which unfortunately is not yet ¹⁴C-dated. Evidence also has it, e.g. at ŚRĀVASTĪ, MATHURA, etc., that towards its upper end the PGW overlapped with the NBPW. Three ¹⁴C dated from MATHURA place the PGW-NBPW overlap to 610 ± 150, 670 ± 100 and 730 ± 150 B.C.; MASCA-corrected, these dates go back to 750, 790 and 810 B.C. HASTINĀPURA, however, has given late dates, e.g. 570 ± 125 or even 335 ± 110 B.C. for the upper PGW levels, but it was also duly noted by the laboratory that the samples contained rootlets; there is thus every possibility of contamination resulting in the lateness of the dates. Amongst the earliest dates so far obtained for the PGW are: 725 ± 150 and 820 ± 225 B.C. for the middle levels of the culture at NOH, and 1025 ± 100 B.C., again for a middle level of the culture at ATRANJIKHERA. With the application of MASCA corrections the corresponding dates would be 805, 900 and 1155 B.C. Thus though the HASTINĀPURA ¹⁴C dates have created some confusion, there is little doubt that the beginning of the PGW culture at NOH and ATRANJIKHERA would be well before 1000 B.C. At these places the culture is associated with iron. Thus when duly established after further fieldwork the pre-iron stage may turn out to be still earlier.
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The PGW occurs practically in entire Punjab and Haryana and in n. Rajasthan and w. Uttar Pradesh. In a late form, in which the fabric becomes coarser and the paintings very fugitive, it occurs as far s. as UJJAIN and as far e. as VAIŚĀLĪ. It may well turn out that there were three stages of the spread of the culture. The earliest would be that in n. Rajasthan along the SARASVATĪ and parts of Punjab and Haryana, in which iron had perhaps not yet come into use. The second would be the stage of w. Uttar Pradesh, when sites like HASTINĀPURA, MATHURĀ, AHICCHATRĀ, etc., were occupied. And the third would be that in which the degenerated PGW, overlapped by the NBPW, trickled e. ward up to n.-w. Bihar (VAIŚĀLĪ) and s. ward into Madhya Pradesh UJJAIN). In terms of ethnic history, it is tempting to associate these stages with the three stages of Aryan movement in India: the Rajasthan-Punjab-Haryana stage coinciding with the middle Vedic period of the 3rd and more particularly the last quarter of the 2nd millennium B.C.; the w. Uttar Pradesh stage corresponding to the late Vedic-cum-Brāhmaṇic period falling around 1000 B.C., and the degenerate n.-w. Bihar and Madhya Pradesh stage, being the one of Aryan diffusion e.wards and s.wards around the middle of the first millennium B.C. This correlation is no doubt tentative but does not lack plausibility.
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B.B. Lal, 1954 and 1955, in *AI*, 10 and 11, pp 4-153 (mainly for Hastināpura but also for other sites and the culture as a whole). Tripathi, V., *Painted Grey Ware—an Iron Age Culture of n. India*, Delhi. For other sites, see respective entries in vol. II.—B.B. LAL (Prof.)