Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c14.s3.t1.4

v1.c14.s3.t1.4

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.