History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c17.s4.t1.4

v1.c17.s4.t1.4

So far as the occurrence of metallic artifacts in the ancient sites are concerned, the existence or absence of mines in the neighbourhood areas in the modern age hardly establishes any truth. On the one hand, the currently known mines might have been unknown to the ancient people, and on the other, some small near-surface reserves might have been thoroughly exploited by the ancient miners, so that we do not know them at present. Certain impurities such as arsenic might have been eliminated through certain simple pre-smelting operations such as roasting. Thus we are not sure whether arsenic-free copper ingots of Lothal were made at Oman as claimed by S.R. Rao (1979 & 1985) or made out of Indian arsenic-bearing ore after a pre-smelting roast.