Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c15.s5: Iron at Ahar
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c15.s5
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Iron at Ahar
v1.c15.s5.1
While the earlier excavations had not yielded any iron object at Ahar, the 1961-62 excavations yielded seventynine objects of iron, including thirty-six iron slag samples. (Sankalia et al., 1969: 203) A wrongly published chart led Sahi (1979) to assert that the iron samples belonged to Ib and Ic phases and therefore could be dated as early as thirteenth century BC. However, this claim has been contested since the iron samples actually belong to the much later period II with NBP wares.
v1.c15.s5.2
Several suggestions have been made that iron metallurgy has been an off-shoot of copper metallurgy (Charles, 1979), and that iron was made at Ahar from copper slag (Chakrabarti, 1985). Vibha Tripathi refuted this suggestion, ‘since it is just not possible to produce iron from chalcopyrite ore’. The Ahar samples which have not been thoroughly analysed could however be iron-rich copper having magnetic properties.
v1.c15.s5.3
It is thus not established whether iron production was first made in India at Ahar around 1300 BC, as claimed by Sahi (1979). It is possible however that the expertise in smelting technology diffused from Ahar to Atrañjikhera where iron was definitely made around 1200-1100 BC.