History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c13.s2.t4.17

v1.c13.s2.t4.17

India has been bestowed with one of the largest and richest deposits of Hematite, Magnetite and their hydrated forms like limonite etc. and these deposits are spread all over India. These deposits have been worked all over India to produce sponge iron or wrought iron using variety of furnaces and archaeological remains of a number of furnaces have been found at Nalanda, Naikund, Khairadih, Ujjain and many other sites. Fig. 19 shows a sketch of the reconstructed furnace dating back to 700 B.C. As can be seen this furnace has been constructed from prefabricated refractory clay blocks or bricks, whereas the furnaces used in Western Asia and Europe in the same period were either made by digging a hole in the earth or by arranging stone pieces to give the desired shape. These furnaces were generally used only once and then discarded after taking out the hot bloom. That is the [Figure: Iron Weapons : Period III: 1-8, Arrow heads; Spearhead; 10. shaft 1/2 Fig. 12. Some of the iron objects excavated at Atranjikhera (~1000 + 200 B.C.)]