Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c13.s2: Beads

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c13.s2

Language: English

v1.c13.s2.t1 Steatite Beads — 6 parts

Beads

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Next to metal, the most prominent object of interest at Chanhu-Daro is bead, Different types of beads have been unearthed from Chanhu-Daro in course of excavation. Among the numerous specimens of this type of bead, many were found unfinished, broken in boring of rejected on account of bad colour and the like, thus proving that these were actually made at Chanhu-Daro and not imported. (MCK, 199)

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Agate and carnelian were the materials most generally used in the manufacture of beads during this period, carnelian being decidedly the rarer. Somewhat less common were faience, vitreous paste, steatite and products made out of it. Beads made of other materials were copper or bronze, shell, lapis-lazuli, jasper, a variety of hornblend, crystal, quartz, Amazon stone, chalcedony, limestone, onyx, fuchsite-quartzite, haematite, breccia, plasma; no amethyst bead was found. (MCK, 208) Thus, it is proven from all the beads discovered at Chanhu-Daro, that the site was undoubtedly a great bead-making centre. Most of these beads came from the quarters of the craftsmen who made them, not only for themselves but also for distant cities. (MCK, 190)

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On a broader perspective, Horace Beck placed the Indus beads under the following three headings: (I) white on red, the most common type, (II) black on a white coloured base, (III) black on a red ground. Among these only two types, i.e., I and II have come to light at Chanhu-Daro.

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The patterns of the Type I beads were made by using as paint a coat of alkali, such as carbonate of soda and then fixing it by heat. The paint is left with a glossy white surface and adheres to the stone so firmly that it is almost impossible to remove it by simple means. The technique is still carried on in Persia, on the borders of China and sporadically in Sindh. In the last province, the juice of a plant is mixed with alkali, presumably to keep it from flaking off the stone before it has been made fast by heat.

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It is uncertain what medium was used to produce the black coloured patterns on the Type II beads. The white background was formed by flooding the red carnelian with the alkali, thus creating a white opaque surface. According to Horace Beck it is also possible that a copper solution was the paint used. Thus to apply fine and even lines and firing on the beads, the greatest skill must have been required. (MCK, 200-201)

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Two unfinished beads of lapis lazuli prove that this stone was actually worked upon at Chanhu-Daro; the finished specimens are not therefore likely to be importations. The source of this mineral is thought to be Badakshan, while new provenances for Amazonite is to be found in the pegmatites near Jhajha (Monghyr dist. Bihar), the Nellore district of Madras and Ahmedabad.

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The two beads of fuchsite-quartzite are particularly interesting, because this rare mineral was never used at Mohenjo-Daro. A large cup, carved in almost pure fuchsite was found there, together with a collection of copper and bronze tools and other objects. The colour of this stone is light green and its source is most probably Mysore.

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Four wafer-shaped mother-of-pearl beads were unearthed from Chanhu-Daro. Beads of this particular substance are very rare at Mohenjo-Daro. Jade seems to be never used at Chanhu-Daro, and this statement also applies to various other stones that were used for bead at Mohenjo-Daro. A large number of nodules of carnelian and agate were discovered from Chanhu-Daro the former being as a rule easily distinguishable from the latter by the darkness of its skin.

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The carnelian beads were made from roughly flaked stone blanks averaging 0.58 inch in diameter and 0.21 inch thick. Each of these beads has been bored with a chert drill. All the holes are splintered rather than cut and would have to smoothed down and polished later. Before this was done, however, the beads were shaped by grinding. A number of these were probably stung on a thread, or more likely on a piece of copper wire, and then rolled to and fro on grit-stones of various grades, each bead being allowed sufficient play for its rounded edge to be properly formed.

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The agate beads had first been severed from the parent nodule by sawing and then by splitting. The shaping of barrel-cylinder type was carried out entirely by careful flaking. When all depressions and irregularities had been smoothed away by grinding, the object was then polished. Before this final finish took place, the bead had to be bored, a process that was carried out from both ends by means of drill. (MCK, 210-11)

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Quite significantly, broken drills were found everywhere in Mound II and though these might have served again in the boring of the shorter hardstone beads, it is obvious that the drill-makers, if indeed the bead-makers did not manufacture their own tools, must have been hard put to supply the demand. Though unfinished beads of hard stones have been found on many Sumerian sites, only one stone drill has been found in that country. This was identified by Beck among some objects from Ur. Thus Mackay comments “indeed it is not at all unlikely that bead-making in Sumer was carried on by Indian craftsmen”. (MCK 212)

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The segmented beads have appeared over such a wide area in India, that it is quite impossible to say where the type originated. Indeed such a simple form of bead need not have had a particular region of origin at all. At Chanhu-Daro as well as Mohenjo-Daro, such beads were produced by a kind of mass production. These were made in long rods which after glazing were to be divided into segments of uniform length. The rods found at Chanhu-Daro were too long and too delicate to have been used for any other purpose than to be broken into convenient lengths. (MCK, 205)

Steatite Beads

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Small blocks of steatite in light yellow, dark-grey and black were not uncommon in various parts of Mound II. Many of them bear the marks of the saw which had cut them up into shapes suitable for both beads and seals. Pieces that could not be used for any other purpose were ground into powder and then compressed into blocks, from which beads and even occasionally seals were made. This made-up steatite is always white in colour and was probably calcined before compression. It is often very different to detect, especially as objects composed of it are more often than not coated with a glaze.

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Although Hoarce Beck was not disposed to agree that reformed steatite was used by the people of the Harappa culture, F.A. Bannister of the Mineral Department of British Museum reported that steatite paste would became indistinguishable from the natural material after being subjected to a very high temperature. In ancient India, the steatite beads were sometimes heated to a temperature exceeding 1200°C, and it has been proved that (the heap of) minute beads were treated to this degree of heat. These must have been composed of a paste which could be forced through fine tubular instruments. (MCK, 209-10)

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Among all the beads found from Chanhu-Daro, the pile of minute steatite beads was an exceptional find. The manner in which these beads lay in lines on the pile proved that these were originally strung together. F.A. Bannister and G.F. Claringbull of the Mineral Department of the British Museum who examined some of these beads, reported that the beads are small hollow cylinders which vary in external diameter 1/2 (.019 inch) to 1 mm and in length from 1/2 to 1-1/2 mm. When freed from loosely adherent soil, they are pure white and very hard. Nearly every bead is furrowed along its length spirally, always in a clockwise direction. It is not uncommon to find two beads joined together with the spiral furrowing running continuously and in perfect alignment from one to the other. The physical and chemical data are conclusive, as to the material from which these beads were made. Their specific gravity is 2.85 and the refractive index of crushed fragments is 1.60. The beads can be fused only in the electric arc, and then yield glassy spheres with a lower specific gravity 2.72. Except magnesium and silicon no other element could be detected with the quartz spectograph. X-ray powder photographs show that the beads are steatite that has been completely dehydrated and heated to a temperature exceeding 1200°C. (MCK-213)

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Recently, Hegde et al. have examined the Harappan microbeads made of steatite and obtained from Zekda, located in Banaskanta district in the northern part of the Gujarat State. The raw material was aluminium containing talcose steatite available in Ambaji near Zekda. The X-ray diffraction patterns in the finished beads revealed the presence of silica in the form of cristobalite and anhydrous magnesium silicate in the form of enstatite. When talc is heated around 900°C, it loses its water of crystallisation, forms cristobalite and enstatite, and improves its hardness from one to seven on the Moh Scale.

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The Harappans used steatite, a soft stone for making seals and beads and then hardened the same. A paste of finely ground talcose steatite was squeezed through one millimeter diameter perforations having 0.5 mm diameter copper or bronze wires in centre of the perforations to produce hollow tubes which were cut into small bits and then hardened by firing at 900°C. According to Hegde et al. this was the method of production of steatite beads.

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The majority of the beads found at Chanhu-Daro were unfinished, broken in boring which proves that these were actually made at Chanhu-Daro. This inference has been corroborated by the discovery of the bead factory with furnace here. To the north-west corner of the main street of the Mound II was a remarkable building with several unusual features. The main portion of this very intirguing building is some 33 feet long by 12 feet 6 inches in width on the outside; the varying thickness of its walls shows that these had been reconstructed. (MCK, 41-42)