Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c14.s3: Bead

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c14.s3

Language: English

v1.c14.s3.t1 Manufacture of Beads — 5 parts

Bead

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The Harappans used every conceivable material ranging from baked clay to gem stone and gold for making beads and pendants. The refined taste and selectivity of the lapidaries of Lothal are explicit from the unique shapes and variegated colours of the beads produced by them; much of the raw material, especially semi-precious stones, were probably imported from outside. The bead-factories at Lothal produced beads not only for domestic use but also for export.

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Among the materials used for making beads mention may be made in the order of priority: steatite, faience, semi-gems such as carnelian, agate, chalcedony, jasper, opal, onyx, chrysoprase, lapis lazuli, plasma etc., besides terracotta, copper, gold, shell, ivory, and bone. All the stages of manufacture involved in bead-making namely heating, chipping, grinding, sawing, polishing and finally boring could be seen from the raw material, half-finished and fully worked beads at Lothal. (Rao, 580)

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Steatite, a soft massive variety of talc, was the most popular raw material used in the bead industry at Lothal. It is composed of hydrous magnesium silicate. The present source of steatite are Devni Mori and Kundol in the former Idar state in North Gujarat. However, the sources of black and yellow varieties of steatite are far away in the Deccan especially in Mysore state. Recently, steatite deposit has been reported from Lokhan and Mora — both situated in North Gujarat. The extensive use of steatite at Lothal suggest that there was a regular inflow of the raw material. Most of the steatite beads are made paste and a few are of stone. The micro-cylinder beads of steatite paste were manufactured by rolling the paste on a thin wire or thread and fired to a temperature as high as 1200°C, thus rendering them unbreakable. Another important type of the steatite ware is the disc-bead. Among other interesting types is a standard barrel with a trefoil design. There is also a kind of bead with lenticular section which is coloured pink. Steatite seals and beads are covered by a thin film which is considered by some as a glaze. (Rao, 583)

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Faience is a synthetic product, being calcined quartz formed by the amalgamation of lime with quartz at a very high temperature. The glaze frequently noticed on the surface of faience objects is due to silica, a natural mineral ingredient of quartz. Lothal has yielded some of the hardest faience beads including a few talco-faience ones with a light blue tint. Segmented beads strictly confined to faience are of particular interest as they provide collateral evidence for dating and cultural contact between Lothan and the Western Asiatic sites. The maximum number of segments on beads at Lothal is six. (Rao, 583-84)

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Amongst other varieties, lapis lazuli, agate, carnelian, jasper, opal, chrysoprase, onyx, cairngorm or smoky quartz, bloodstone, plasma, chalcedony, amethyst, crystal and amazonstone (microcline feldspar) are some of the varieties of gems and semi-gemstones used for bead making at Lothal. (Rao, 585)

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Agate is banded chalcedony and under this head are included opal, carnelian, crystal, onyx and milky quartz, which are only different names for differently coloured banded chalcedony. Constitutionally these are crypto-crystalline silica. Onyx is identified as such from the parallel bands of the same or different hues. It is difficult to work on agate as its texture is complex, but if properly handled, some of the most attractive types can be produced in agate. A common type among agate bead is the standard-barrel lenticular. In some cases the circular section are flattened, resulting in an elliptical section. Agate takes a very high polish. It is likely that the well-polished but unbored bead-like objects found at Lothal were used as ring-stones. The Rajpipla agate-bearing conglomerate and gravels contain rich crypto-crystalline varieties of silica; these were imported by the lapidaries of Lothal through Bhagatrav. Other sources are Rangpur of Ahmedabad district and Kapadvanj in Kaira district. The varieties used by the Lothal folk are different. The most important types in agate are the standard barrel with a lenticular section, convex cone with a plano-convex section, the cylinder and the ‘boot-shaped’ ones. (Rao, 585)

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Among the semi-precious stones, carnelian was the most popular, not only because of its attractive red colour and translucency but also because of the plentiful supply of the material from overseas sources. A great variety of beads with various shapes and shades of colour in red, lemon, yellow and a translucent variety known as sard have been found at Lothal. The lapidaries of Lothal produced carnelian by cooking agate. It is a great technological advance over others in bead-making. They knew that for easy working it was necessary to heat the agate nodules. The deep red colour of the beads was due to cooking the finished bead once again in the kiln at a high temperature. Long barrels, cylinders, truncated convex-cones, standard bicones with a cylinder section, diamond-shaped ones and small sphericals with a circular section are the main types of beads in carnelian. (Rao, 585-86)

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Onyx was more popular at Lothal than in the Indus Valley. It is found at Vijarkhi—4 miles south-east of Narmana, a Harappan site in the Halar District of Saurashtra. Standard barrels and cylinders (both with lenticular section) of onyx are found in considerable numbers at Lothal.

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Jasper is a very hard and opaque variety of quartz obtainable in turmeric yellow, blood red and green hues and in variegated forms also. Blood-stone is a variety of jasper with speckles of red in a green matrix. It was very rare in the Indus Valley, and its products were in greater use in the late Harappan period at Lothal. Variegated jasper and crystal are reported from Tankara in Kathiawar. Both red and green varieties of jasper occur in the form of small pebbles in the Bhadar river between Ranpur and Rangpur. Etching was done on jasper also. The popular types in green jasper are the convex bicones, short and standard barrels, while in red jasper short convex-cones, cylinder and barrels are common. (Rao, 586)

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Among other semi-gemstones, the assorted group chrysoprase, plasma, crystal, amethyst, milky-quartz, amazon-stone, lapis, granite and chert are included. Most of them are poorly represented. A solitary bead of chrysoprase found at Lothal has a pleasing apple green hue and a waxy lustre. Plasma has a fine chlorophyll green colour with a sheeny lustre, and takes superb polish. Crystal is extremely rare and lapis-lazuli is also very rare at Lothal.

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The collection of amazonstone, a gem, from Lothal deserves mention both for quality and quantity. It can be identified by its alluring colour from grass-green to sea-green with typical concoidal fracture and sheen lustre taking a superb polish. Palanpur in North Gujarat is known for amazon-stone. Other sources are Nilgiris of South India and Chisnoti in Padar area of Kashmir, but Lothal must have obtained its supply from Palanpur where a late Harappan site is found.

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Opal is uniformly rare at Lothal and the Indus Valley sites owing to the paucity of its occurrence in nature. It has a pearly lustre and is translucent with a peculiar play of colours. An important type of bead in this material is a short-spherical one. Another type is an unfinished short-barrel bead. It is unbored and might have served as a ring stone. A couple of weathered beads of granite are found in the late levels of period A at Lothal. (Rao, 586)

Manufacture of Beads

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A bead factory with a working platform in the open courtyard surrounded by eleven rooms has been laid bare in Block E near the acropolis. Two earthen jars, one containing 582 carnelian beads and another containing 212 beads of carnelian, shell and steatite, were found embedded in the platform. Several cores, flakes, ground and unbored beads were scattered all over the courtyard and in the rooms around. To the north-east of this factory is a kiln used for baking the raw material and finished product. Another important evidence for suggesting that the mud brick structure with a working platform surrounded by workers' room was a bead-factory is that a flanged drill-bit of bronze used in boring stone beads was found near the factory. (Rao, 580)

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The Lothal folk also followed almost the same process as is being adopted by the modern lapidaries. At first, the nodules of agate were heated to a smoky colour and the cortex was removed. The core was then reduced to the required size and shape by low-flaking using the pressure-technique. Subsequently by rubbing on slabs of sandstone the surface was smoothened and the edges were rounded off. Polishing might have been done by using haematite granules or fuller's earth in fine chamois leather, after rolling them over a sandstone block. Sand was used as a smoothening medium. Beads were subsequently bored from both sides using flanged drills of bronze and finally heated in the kiln referred to above. (Rao, 581)

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The kiln used by the lapidaries for heating beads is ovoid on plan; its longer axis being 5 ft and height 1 ft 4 inches. It is not known whether it had a vaulted roof or not. Thin burnt bricks are used for the walls which are mud-plastered along with the floor. The four interconnected flues in the floor of the upper chamber allowed fire to reach the earthen bowls containing pebbles and beads. A huge dump of dehydrated lime seen near the kiln proves conclusively that limestone was used for completely dehydrating steatite. Bannister and Canningball have said in the case of micro-steatite beads from Chanhu-Daro, that the beads must have been dehydrated and then heated to a temperature 1200°C. Lothal is the only Harappan site where evidence of such an elaborate arrangement for large-scale production of beads has been found. Obviously it must have been a very important centre for making beads.

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In the case of steatite beads the raw material was powdered, made into a paste and rolled into tubes over a thread or wire. These tubes were fired and cut into their sections with a fine wire or saw to obtain disk or cylindrical beads. Marks of cutting with a wire are clearly visible on the disk beads from Lothal. Thicker beads of steatite appear to have been produced by heating raw steatite pieces cut to the required size and shape. The lapidaries of Lothal used very delicate instruments with effective control in fashioning micro-beads of gold of uniform size with a diameter of less than 1/50th of an inch. Great skill has been exhibited by them in covering a small jasper bead with a gold cap on either margin. In the selection of the raw material and the shaping of the beads to bring out prominently the variegated bands in agate, carnelian, chert and jasper they are unequalled by the lapidaries elsewhere. Apart from this, Lothal has yielded the largest number of etched beads. From the fact that it manufactured carnelian beads on a very large scale, its claim for being the first centre wherefrom the technique of etching travelled to other centre is probably justified. (Rao, 581-82) Beck opines that etching must have been done by alkali such as lime and the Harappans were the first to initiate this technique.

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Besides the above kilns, two more kilns have been noticed at Lothal. One of them situated close to the bead factory in Block F is circular on plan and has two chambers. Its longer axis along the mouth was meant for supply of fuel. Fire reached the upper chamber through four flues all of which are interconnected. There is sufficient evidence to show that this unique type of kiln was used for baking pebble and beads of semi-precious stones. Among the important finds from the kiln are beads in different stages of manufacture, partly baked pebbles, fragment of earthen bowls used as containers for baking the pebbles and finished beads. (Rao, 83)