Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c10.s4: Conclusion
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c10.s4
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Conclusion
v1.c10.s4.1
Aichinson (1960) believed that copper metallurgy was discovered around 4300 BC in the region between the Elburz mountains and the Caspian sea. Tal-i-Iblis in Mashiz Valley (Kirman Range) in Iran has yielded crucibles for smelting ores dated 4000 BC. (Caldwell, 1967) On this basis, D.P. Agarwal (1968, 1971) conceded that copper metallurgy came to India 2000 years later than Iran: ‘The metallurgical know-how had already diffused from Iran (by third millennium BC)’ and ‘any independent origins (of copper metallurgy in India) are precluded’. (D.P. Agrawal, 1971: 232 and 239)
v1.c10.s4.2
The discoveries at Mehargarh made by Jarrige (1979-84) have made the earlier conclusions redundant. Mehargarh has yielded a copper bead in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic context and a copper ring and a bead in the Pottery Neolithic Phase. The copper beads in Mehargarh and Tal-i-Iblis both belonging to the seventh millennium BC could have been native copper.
v1.c10.s4.3
Fragments of several crucibles, with traces of metals still adhering to them, have been found in Mehargarh III, confirming copper ore smelting. Thus it can be safely asserted that copper metallurgy was developed indigenously in the Indian sub-continent and well before 4000 BC. (Tal-i-Iblis Iran). The works of Ghosh (1964), Mughal (1970), Jarrige (1979-84) and Asthana (1985) have finally pulled down the curtain on the Irano-centric view that culture diffused from the west. As regards the raw materials, Mughal (1970:194) has shown that there had been sizeable copper ore deposits in the Zhob district, Robat, Shah Bellaul, Ziarat (Quetta) etc. for Mehargarhians to smelt. The initial phase of copper metallurgy at Mehargarh gradually spread to the different parts of Baluchistan and also to Mundigak etc. in Afghanistan, the latter site developing copper metallurgy still further (low grade bronze, adze, socketed axe etc.) and disseminating new techniques further west as well as back to Mehargarh (vide fig. 2.1).
v1.c10.s4.4
Evidences at Nal, Amri etc. indicate that use of silver and lead started in south Baluchistan. The raw material might have come from Afghanistan or Rajasthan. (Asthana, 1982) During the fourth millennium BC, the two major Pre-Harappan cultures which further developed mineral exploration and metallurgical practices in the Indian sub-continent were: Kot Dijian along the Indus valley and Sothian in the Sarasvati valley and Rajasthan area. Eventually, the Ganeshwar-Jodhpura area in Rajasthan became the major supplier of copper metal in the Indus-Sarasvati valley cultures.
v1.c10.s4.5
Agricultural traditions during seventh-fourth millennium BC needed extensive technology of stone artefacts, and this was developed in the Ganga-Vindhya complex, Bagor area in Rajasthan and the Mehargarh area in Baluchistan. Each centre produced a large variety of stone tools. (Sankalia, 1970, 1982) Blades and burins of flint, quartzite basalt, dyke basalt, chalcedony, obsidian (very sharp edge possible), jasper, chert etc. were produced in large scale around Mehargarh, Kile Gul Mohammad, Damb Sadaat, Balakot etc. Deposits of fine chert of Rohri and Sukkur might have been used for final polishing of agricultural tools. Pliable agricultural fields in the Indus valley could be easily tilled by copper hoes (narrow long axes and broad chisels) and, even before the chalcolithic period, by chert blades mounted on sticks. (Agrawal, 1971: 237) The Indus plain provided the ideal scenario-availability of hard stones and copper ore, semi-arid fertile land for agriculture, cattle (bull) power, agricultural surplus further triggering artisan activities, scope of riverine and marine trade etc. — all the factors promoting a smooth transition from the neolithic rural to the bronze urban age.
v1.c10.s4.6
The hard stone tools and pointed copper/bronze artefacts facilitated the processing of soft stone materials. A special reference may be made of the alabaster (or gypsum) bowls at Damb Sadaat and Mundigak. Around 5000 BC there was a workshop for soapstone beads at Mehargarh. The steatite-chlorite vases found in the Kulli and Mehi cemeteries in south Baluchistan might have been imported from the Kirman region in Iran-Tepe Yahya and Shahdad — or locally made using the large mines in the Zhob area such as the one 50 km north of Fort Sandeman. (Pithawala, 1952: 202) Small cups and toilet vessels of soft stone like alabaster were hewn or carved out with a tabular drill. These drills could be either a metal tube, or a hollow piece of reed or bamboo and worked with fine sand as the abrasive. (Mackay 1938, I: 323; Sankalia, 1970: 34)
v1.c10.s4.7
Shell bangles, rings, beads and pendants have been found widely in the Pre-Harappan sites in India and the Middle East. Most of the objects were prepared from either the Indian variety of *śaṅkha* (Turbinella pyrum Linn.) or another related genus (Fasciolaria trapezium Linn.) Hornell (1918) and Mackey (in Marshall, 1931, II: 564-66) have described how the walls or the hollow tubular piece could be sawed for producing bangles and the inner columella for making beads and inlays. Chisel or burin, saw and drill were used to produce diverse objects. The 4500 BC beads found at Tal-i-Iblis in Kirman (Caldwell: 1967; 408) and the 3500 BC ‘pig’ and ‘snake’ pendants found at Tepe Yahya Period VB could have been exported from India. The use of sea-shell belt in Baluchistan is dramatically attested in the seventh millennium BC establishment at Mehargarh I. Shell has been used there in all the successive periods and in almost all other Pre-Harappan sites. The remarkable work of Dales (1977 and 1979) has shown shell beads in Balakot (located near the sea-coast) Period I and working floors in Period II — covered with large quantities of shell bangles in all stages of manufacture. The Pre-Harappan sites in the northern Baluchistan show the use of ivory (in seals) as in Rehman Dheri and faience specimens as in Sarai Khola. The appearance of faience suggests early discovery of surface deposits of saltpetre (NaNO₃) or *sajji maṭṭi* (Na₂SO₄/Na₂CO₃) whose contents of sodium salt might have been useful in its reactivity with sand or quartz in a furnace and production of glass-like objects. Red ochre was successfully used at Mehargarh and Mundigak as pigments and making red and black potteries.
v1.c10.s4.8
Lapis lazuli has been in great demand in Mesopotamia and used for personal adornment and for the decoration of temples. Beads of the mineral have been found in most Pre-Harappan sites in India as well. Lapis bead factories have been found in Mehargarh III, Mundigak II, Shahr-i-Sokhta II etc. Although Chakrabarti (1978) considered the possibility of some Indian sources of lapis lazuli, it seems (Hermann, 1968: 21-57; Asthana, 1982: 273) that a group of four mines in the Kerano Munjan District of Badakshan Province in the northern Afghanistan was the major source of lapis during the Pre-Harappan Period. The Harappans took over the control of the lapis trade from the Iranians during the middle of the third millennium BC, and established a trading post at Shortugai on the Oxus river in north Afghanistan (Asthana, 1982: 273) which overlooked Turkemenia or the south of Soviet Asia. The Mundigak-Shortugai axis in Afghanistan also supplied silver and lead and ensured supply of turquoise to the Pre-Harappan sites in the Indian sub-continent. Most of the lapis collected by the Harappans used to be exported to Mesopotamia through the Makran coast. Cuneiform texts from Mesopotamia (Leemans 1960) lists lapis as one of the commodities apart from copper, ivory etc. coming from Meluhha (India).
v1.c10.s4.9
The discovery of about 70 lapis beads of three types — cylindrical, discoid and irregular hexagonal (made by joining two pieces) — and the find of unpolished, unpierced and roughly modelled specimens at Nal (Hargreaves, 1925) indicates that the beads were locally manufactured. It is quite plausible that the traditions of importing raw lapis from Afghanistan, making finished goods such as beads, and exporting them westward on sea-route was initiated at the south Baluchistan centres like Nal during the Pre- and Early-Harappan era. This tradition was continued at Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, Chanhu-Daro, Lothal etc. down to the historic eras and even the recent period by the Cambay workers in Gujarat. (Chakraborti, 1978)
v1.c10.s4.10
Turquoise was definitely an import item and that too in a limited number of Pre-Harappan sites like Mehargarh VI and Rahman Dheri. This gem mineral came mostly from the mountainous territory of the inner Kyzyl Kum in Soviet Asia as well as the Kirman range and Nishapur in Iran. Pliny refers to callaina (turquoise) from Carmania (Kirman). Mehargarh must have received finished beads of turquoise from the workshops of Shahr-i-Sokhta or Mundigak.
v1.c10.s4.11
Regarding the origin of the Indus civilization, Wheeler (1953: 93-94) suggested that there were stimuli from the west namely Mesopotamia and Iran. On the basis of the recent discoveries at Mehargarh however, Asthana (1985: 1-5) has ably argued that:
v1.c10.s4.12
Baluchistan was just not a land of refuge for the Iranians, people lived here continuously from the seventh millenniun BC, i.e., several millenia before Iran developed village cultures. The Indus civilization was conceived locally in the courtyard of one or more of the Pre-Harappan cultures . . . Baluchistan was not only a nuclear zone of several Pre-Harappan Cultures (Amri, Kot Diji, Sothi), it also served as a barrier to mass infiltration of the west Asian Cultures. Some feeble alien waves did come but soon got assimilated.
v1.c10.s4.13
Further work is necessary so that the following problems are resolved. What was the precise origin of the Pre-Harappan Sothi culture which thrived in the Sarasvati valley? Were there specific influences towards it from the Ganga-Vindhya and Bagor-Pushkar neolithic traditions? These influences must have worked, if at all, before the onset of the third millennium BC, when the Ganeshwar-Jodhpura complex started to feed the Pre-Harappan Sothi and Harappan Cultures with chalcolithic materials. Ghosh (1964), Mughal (1970) and Allchins (1983) have concluded that there has been ‘continuity from the Pre-Harappan (Amri, Kot Diji and Kalibangan or Sothi) traditions to the Harappan’. A.K. Biswas (1990) has argued that the hypothesis of the Rgvedic Aryans having been intruders to India is a myth. They were the original inhabitants in the Sarasvati Valley. Did they represent the Sothi sub-culture of the Mature-Harappan cultural complex?
v1.c10.s4.14
The model developed by Mughal (1970) and Asthana (1985) clearly shows that the Harappan culture was indeed synthetic, syncretistic and gradually evolved, and this permitted enough regional diversities and cultural interactions within and across its boundaries, without its central character being lost. We do not know yet how the concepts of planning the cities, trade infrastructure and central control emerged in the Early-Harappan milieu. We are seriously handicapped by our ignorance of the Harappan script. But in the technological sphere, we may well imagine that the emergent urban culture, based on indigenous Pre-Harappan traditions, triggered new innovations such as the lost wax process of casting and diverse uses of minerals and metals, some imported and most locally processed.
v1.c10.s4.15
During the next few chapters we would record the use of minerals and metals and their processing, in certain instances around specific Indus Valley or Harappan sites. Eventually, when we pass on to the Post-Harappan Period, we would notice that the Harappan civilization did not disappear instantly. The decay of the civilization on account of a multiplicity of factors such as flood, drought, changes in the course of the river, migration of people, loss of international trade etc. was gradual. The traditions persisted in the south and in the north-east for several centuries. Its overlaps with chalcolithic cultures in the south and the PGW culture in the north-east have been recently documented. The 2000-1000 BC period in India is no longer as dark and unknown as before. We would be able to provide some data regarding the use of minerals and metals during the period intermediate between the first (Harappan) phase and the second (historic period) phase of urbanisation in India. To us the Indus Valley Civilization is no longer ‘a book whose first and last chapters are missing’.