Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c11.s2: Summary Statements on Metals/Minerals
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c11.s2
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Summary Statements on Metals/Minerals
v1.c11.s2.1
In courc of the excavations, it was amply evident that the Indus people were familiar with gold, silver, copper, tin and lead. The metals may have been mined within the confines of India itself where all of them including even tin are obtainable, or they may have been imported from the neighbouring countries to the north and west viz. Persia, Afghanistan, Arabia or from western Tibet. (MS-I, 29)
v1.c11.s2.2
According to Edwin Pascoe, gold is likely to have come from south of India rather than from other quarters, since from early historic times it has always been the south of the Peninsula (Hyderabad, Mysore and the Madras Presidency) that has supplied the bulk of India’s gold and in some of the mines the workings of ancient date are still to be seen. Much of the gold from Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa is alloyed with a substantial percentage of silver, and this alloy (electrum, as it is commonly known) is found in the Kolar gold fields of Mysore and at Anantapur in Madras. Gold was used for the manufacture of personal ornaments of all kinds and for the high finish given to the surface of the metal, though finer examples of gold work inlaid with faience have been found at Harappa. (MS-I, 30)
v1.c11.s2.3
Silver, like gold, was fashioned into articles of jewellery, but unlike gold it was made into relatively large and heavy vessels and it is evident from this that in Sind, it must have been much less precious than the other metal.
v1.c11.s2.4
Lead, which may have come from Ajmer or from silver mines of Afghanistan or Persia, does not seem to have been widely used. A lamp of it, which may have served as net-sinker, was found in L area and a small lead ornament with a disc of faience was found in VS area, but these are the only pieces recovered. (MS-I, 30)
v1.c11.s2.5
Copper which was imported in large quantities was obtainable either from Rājputana or Baluchistan or further afield from Kashmir, Afganistan, Persia or Madras. The presence of an appreciable amount of lead in the copper artefacts indicates that the metal came either from Rajputana or Baluchistan or Persia—
v1.c11.s2.6
in all these areas lead is generally found in association with the copper ore. Copper had already to a large extent taken the place of stone for the manufacture of weapons, implements and domestic utensils, such as lance-heads, daggers, knives, axes, chisels and vessels, and was employed also for the cheaper kinds of ornaments like bangles, ear-rings, finger-rings and girdles as well as for figurines, wire, etc.
v1.c11.s2.7
Tin, which occurs in the form of cassiterite in the Western Presidency as well as in Bihar and Orissa, has not been found as a separate metal at Mohenjo-Daro, but only as an alloy with copper, the two together forming bronze, in which the percentage of tin averages from 6 to 13 per cent. (MS-I, 30)
v1.c11.s2.8
Bronze was used in preference to copper for the manufacture of weapons and implements requiring an extra sharp cutting edge, and for ornaments, figurines and other such articles in which a specially fine finish was desired. It was used for making virtually all the same objects as of copper, including vases, and would probably have superseded the pure metal for the scarcity of tin. It was certainly not due to any lack of skill in the working of this metal that bronze objects are rarer than copper ones at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.
v1.c11.s2.9
In addition to bronze there is another alloy of copper at Mohenjo-Daro in which the tin is replaced by arsenic varying in content from 3-4.5 per cent. This alloy is about equal in hardness to a low-grade bronze. Whether the arsenic moiety came from the copper ore itself or resulted due to the use of another arsenic-containing mineral such as löllingite is debatable. Evidently, both the possibilities exist. (MS-I, 31)
v1.c11.s2.10
Stone of any kind was a rarity, for none occurs in the alluvium of the Indus plain, so whatever stone might have been required, was brought from more or less distant places. The three kinds of stones which were easily obtained were (1) a white or pale-coloured nummulitic limestone which occurs as an outcrop on the banks of the Indus at Sukkur and could be brought down stream by boat on raft, (2) gypsum (sulphate of lime) and (3) alabaster (a refined form of gypsum), which could be quarried a hundred miles or so away in the Kithar mountains or brought by boat, if that was more economical, from Kathiawar. Other stones in use both at Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were: the fine-grained yellow Jaisalmer stone, steatite or soapstone and a dark grey slate, all three of which almost certainly coming from Rajputana; gneiss and basalt which are found commonly in many of the neighbouring regions; red, grey, and dark brown limestones, grey sandstone and chert, the provenance of which has yet to be established.
v1.c11.s2.11
Gypsum went mainly to the making of Plaster of Paris, which was freely used as a mortar. Sukkur limestone does not seem to have been introduced much before the late period, and was then employed principally in the form of rough hammer-dressed blocks as a covering for drains where the traffic was more than usually heavy, or where for other reasons, brick would not serve adequately. Alabaster which is a soft ornamental kind of stone was found effective for objects such as lattice screens, vessels and small statues. The green amazon stone almost certainly came from the Nilgiri hills.
v1.c11.s2.12
The harder stones, like gneiss and basalt and some varieties of limestone, were employed for saddle querns and mullers, door sockets, weights and sometimes also for dishes and other vessels, the manufacture of which was done perhaps mainly for the ritual purposes. From these hard stones were also made the figure of eight grinders with which the interiors of the stone dishes and saucers were hollowed out. Chert was chipped and ground into weights and polishers, or flaxed for use as knives, just as obsidian was flaked in the Western countries. Steatite was fashioned into statuettes and seals and finished off with a coating of hard white paste. The yellow Jaisalmer stone was evidently much prized and used, among other things for statues and cult objects such as lingas and yoni rings, though grey limestone was more commonly employed for the last mentioned. For the rest, sandstone, slate, and limestone were made into mace-heads and slate into vessels and barrel-shaped weights. (MS-I, 31)
v1.c11.s2.13
Semi-precious stones were used with fine colour effects for beads and other ornaments. Of these, the majority, including rock-crystal, haematite, agate, chalcedony, onyx, carnelian, jasper, riband jasper, bloodstone, plasma, tachylite and the exquisite azure-blue nepheline, sodalite, were obtained from Kishangarh, Rajputana, the Punjab, Kathiawar or Central India. Haematite which is found up the Persian gulf as well as in Rajputana, the Punjab, the Central Provinces and Bihar, and plasma, which is found in the beds of Krishna and Godavari might have come to Mohenjo-Daro from the nearer regions. On the other hand, the nearest spot from which the beautiful green amazon stone (a variety of microcline feldspar) could be obtained is Doddabetta in the Nilgiris, far away in southern India, and it is probable that amethyst was collected from the Deccan trap. Lapis lazuli, turquoise and jadeite ‘were not obtainable in India at all’. The first is believed to have come from Badakshan, a province of Northern Afghanistan; the second from the Persian Province of Khorasan — through it is found in the other parts of Persia also, as well as in Sistan — and jadeite, a hard form of jade, from either the Pamirs, Eastern Turkestan or Tibet.
v1.c11.s2.14
Other materials found at Mohenjo-Daro that deserve notice are bitumen used for water-proofing and other purposes which was probably brought from Isa Khel on the right bank of the Indus or from Mari hills or Sanni in Baluchistan, but might have also come by water from Hit on the Euphrates; red ochre, which is common in Cutch, Central India and Central Provinces, but is also shipped to India in large quantities from Hormuz and other islands on the Persian gulf which produce a specially brilliant variety; green earth (glauconite), which probably came from Baluchistan, though there are many other possible sources, and löllingite, an arsenic mineral which probably came from the Punjab, but is found also in Kashmir, Afghanistan, Persia and Asia Minor. (MS-I, 32)
v1.c11.s2.15
Besides these metals and minerals, several other materials (bone, ivory, shell faience and vitrified paste) were in use for ornamental purposes, as well as for making various small articles. Bone must have been easily obtainable in the locality, and ivory is a commodity of which there has always been an abundant supply in India. Shells of many kinds, and in large quantities, were brought from the coasts of India as well as from the Persian gulf and the Red Sea, and the shell industry played a hardly less important part in the Indus Valley than it did in Sumer, though shell-inlay work does not seem to have been elaborated to quite the same degree as in the latter country. Faience, which resembled the faience of Mesopotamia, Minoan Greece and Egypt, but has preserved its colourless brilliantly than in Egypt, was a soft and friable paste, sometimes made of powdered steatite, usally white in colour and coated with a blue, green or white vitreous glaze. The widespread manufacture of faience, which is not likely to have been invented independently in different countries is one of the many striking illustrations of the homogeneity of culture in the chalcolithic times.
v1.c11.s2.16
That spinning was common in the houses of Mohenjo-Daro is evident from the numerous spindle-whorls in the houses; that it was practised by the well-to-do and poor alike is indicated by the fact that the whorls are made of the more expensive faience as well as of the cheaper pottery and shell. (MS-I, 32)
v1.c11.s2.17
Ornaments were freely worn by all classes alike: necklaces, fillets, armlets, and finger rings by both men and women; girdles, ear-rings and anklets by women alone. These various ornaments comprised of girdles, necklaces, bracelets and bangles, fillets for hair, finger rings and perhaps nose rings, ear studs and ornamental pins and buttons. Those for the rich were of gold, silver, faience, ivory and the many semi-precious stones enumerated above; for the poor they were mainly of shell, bone, copper and terracotta. Even in the ornaments, the application of bead were also marked. Besides the long tubular beads, large number of small beads have been found. The beads are of great variety: barrel-shaped globular, segmented, cog wheel. Some are of metal; gold, silver, copper or bronze; others of faience, glazed steatite, shell, bone, paste etc. but the vast majority are of one or other of the brightly coloured stones menticned above. (MS-I, 34)
v1.c11.s2.18
Weapons of war or the chase comprised of axes, spears, daggers, bows and arrows, maces, slings and possibly, though not probably, catapults. These are weapons of offence only. Of shields, helmets, greaves or other defensive armour, there is no trace: nor has the sword, which was to become one of the characteristic weapons of the later copper age in the Jamuna-Ganges in the valley, yet made its appearance. The blade-axes or celts which were usually of copper, more rarely of bronze, were of two types: one lay and narrow and the other short and broad. The lay bar celts which are found in the Jamuna-Ganges Valley and the barbed harpoon heads and swords associated with them are entirely absent at Mohenjo-Daro. The spearheads in use among the Indus folk were, according to Mackay, spoils taken from some inferior jungle tribe not manufactured on the spot. (MS-I, 35)
v1.c11.s2.19
Vessels of copper and bronze were relatively rare, of silver still rarer, and faience was used only for small ornamental vases intended for cosmetics and the like. Of the ordinary domestic vessels, 99 per cent were earthenware. These exhibit a great variety of shapes. Among them are offering stands, beakers, bowls, goblets, with pointed bases, dishes, basins, pans, saucers, cups and ladles etc.