Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c11.s2.17

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)