History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c12.s1.t13.7

v1.c12.s1.t13.7

For the extraction of ore, metal tools were used in India from an early date. India had iron available for the tools about 2900 years ago (Hegde, 1981) and though a copper based tool has been reported for another area (Allchin, 1962) iron seems to have predominated as wedge tipped chisels, pointed ‘gads’ hammer pestles and draw-hoes. In hard competent rocks firesetting was widely used first to create a system of cracks which were exploited to extract the ore by chisels or ‘gads’.