History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c12.s1.t5.9

v1.c12.s1.t5.9

At Rajpura-Dariba ancient mines in the form of vertical shafts, inclines, underground galleries, underground open stopes and open trenches are found scattered all along the strike of lead-zinc orebody. Radio-carbon of pieces of mine timber, rope and bamboo basket from the ancient workings here indicates that these mines were in production approximately 3000 years ago. A piece of lead metal recovered from the slag dump was found to contain 97.5% lead and 150 ppm silver indicating thereby that the smelting technology was advanced.