Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c13.s3.2

v1.c13.s3.2

A possible clue to its use is presented by the number of beads, many unfinished, that lay scattered about on the earthen floor of room 215. Among them was a concreted mass of minute steatite beads. It had evidently been intended to glaze these and this curious arrangement might have been built for this purpose and then never used. Among the beads found in room 215 there were three copper or bronze knives, a copper pin, a seal, a flake drill, a faience gamesman, a queer shell object and some carnelian nodules. All these were found at a level of 10.4 feet. About a foot lower and in the same room was a shell feeding cup, the copper canister, a shell cone and the flint core which had been used as a rubber. Two large shells appear to indicate that shell-working was also practised in this workshop. On the floor of the passage 286 was a brown steatite seal, which from its colour was apparently unfinished. (MCK, 42-43)