Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c14.s3.t1.1

v1.c14.s3.t1.1

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)