History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c11.s3.21

v1.c11.s3.21

We would divide the Copper Hoards into two zones: the main doab (Uttar Pradesh) types are specialized tools: the anthropomorph, the antennae sword, the harpoon, and the hooked sword; the main eastern (Bihar) type is the barcelt. Flat and shouldered celts are common to both zones. The barcelt, from sites in copper-rich Bihar, is about 60cm long with a bevelled edge and a thick body. Its sturdiness and length suggests its use as crowbar for digging copper ores, and the use marks on barcells do indicate their use against hard surfaces. The barcelt is the only specialized type in the eastern group; if typology is any clue, the simpler types of Bihar may have preceded the more specialized types of Uttar Pradesh. Except for a reported harpoon from Mitathal, no doab types have been discovered from Haryana or Rajasthan. The parasu seems to be a type of this area and has been reported from Mitathal (Suraj Bhan 1975) and Kurada (Fig. 6) in Rajasthan (Agrawala 1980).