Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c16.s2.t1: Navdatoli
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c16.s2.t1
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Navdatoli
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The Malwa Culture has been well defined by the large scale excavations at Navdatoli which is by far the most extensive settlements of this culture. The site is situated on the southern bank of Narmadā just on the opposite bank of Maheswar. The extensive chalcolithic occupation at Navdatoli is represented by four mounds. The excavations (1953-54, 1957-59) have revealed two main periods. The first chalcolithic phase is further divisible into four sub-phases I-IV. The later period represents early Iron Age. According to C-14 determination the initial occupation begins around 1600 BC or may be even slightly earlier and it continued up to 1300 BC, when the site was deserted only to be occupied later in the Kuṣāṇa period. (Dhavalikar In Agarwal, 1979: 236-37; Sankalia, 1971: 42)
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The stone objects from Navdatoli have been divided into six types or groups. These are ring stones, sling stones, hammer stones, hammer stone-anvils, grinding stones and querns. Apart from this among other stone objects there are 620 balls. The stone tools which are predominant are all made on blades and over 23,000 such tools have been reported. Pen knife, blunted backed, serrated and parallel side blades, trapezes and lunates were the main tool types. The material of which these blades have been made is almost invariably milky chalcedony and very rarely carnelian, agate, jasper and quartz. (Dhavalikar In Agarwal, 1979: 240; Sankalia, 1971: 323) It is evident that each household made its own tools for agriculture etc. The chalcolithic technology was not capable of agriculturally producing much from the black cotton soil. Broad alluvial stretches were chosen and stone implements were used till the advent of the iron age.
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The large scale excavation at Navdatoli yielded a rich harvest of beads totalling 2799. Twenty-one types of materials might be broadly grouped into six categories: semi-precious stones, metals, artificial materials, bone, shell and terracotta. Thus the different materials of beads found from Navdatoli are agate, amazonite, bone, carnelian, chalcedony, copper, coral, crystal, faience, glass, gold, jasper, lapis, opal, quartz, sand stone, regular shells, shell, sand- stone, steatite, terracotta, and red glazed terracotta. Thus it is observed that beads were concentrated mostly in the IInd and IIIrd phase of proto-historic occupation at Navdatoli, and secondly the steatite contributed 56 per cent, faience 13 per cent, terracotta 11 per cent and shell 8 per cent. Thus there is an overall dominance of non-stone material.
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The lapidaries of proto-historic Navdatoli excelled in the making of beads of faience and steatite. Tiny micro-beads of steatite were fashioned probably on a thread as in the workshops of Chanhu-Daro. The thread got burnt during firing. 95 per cent of the faience beads must have been dipped in liquid glazes before firing. The coating was either a white or a bluish glaze, the latter dominating. Shell beads were found in association with scores of waste pieces of the columella of shells.
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Among the semi-precious stones, agate forms 2 per cent, with carnelian and amazonite closely following. Beads of metal like gold and copper were represented by a few specimens. Navdatoli must have been not only a bead-making centre but also a centre of trade. Rajasthan possibly supplied copper, quartz and steatite; coral and amazonite possibly came from Gujarat, sandstone from Vindhyan range, lapis from Persia etc. Jasper, agate and carnelian were available locally. For bead-making, mostly banded agate of attractive colourful scheme were chosen. Sharp drills must have been used.
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Bead-making was practised up to the early historic level; in this period, a reasonable quantity of glass slag was recovered from which the beads came. The colour of the slag is identical with some of the finished beads and as such some of these may be waste pieces. (Sankalia, 1971: 351-70)
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A large number of terracotta objects were recovered from Navdatoli. The categories of objects common to different levels were discs, skin, rubbers, lamps, ear-studs, balls or marbles, stoppers, whorls, toys and figurines. In addition to this, terracotta rings, decorated pieces, cakes, and sharpeners were also found. (Sankalia, 1971: 373)
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Objects of three metals — copper, iron and lead were found. Those of iron belonged to the early historical period while lead entirely to proto-historic levels and copper mostly to the same. But tools of copper were also used albeit on a restricted scale for the simple reason that the metal was scarce. The copper objects comprised of tools, weapons and ornaments; those of lead were fragments, whereas those of iron comprised of tools and weapons and objects of household use.
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The copper objects, a large number of them in the Phase III of the proto-historic period, could be grouped under tools and weapons like celts, chisels, arrowheads and sword. The celts are flat, and have a convex cutting edge. One of them however is a shouldered celt. Some specimens have shallow groups of circles which were deliberately made. Copper was also used for ornamental purpose such as beads etc. and for light use like poker pointed rods, point-cum-engraver, fish-hook, nails and fragments. (Sankalia, 1971: 390-402)
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K.T.M. Hegde analysed an axe, a chisel and a bangle obtained from Navdatoli. There was no evidence of copper smelting, metallurgical furnace or slag in the area. Hegde suggested that some itinerant metal-working tribe had brought the metallic ingots from the Aravalli area and processed the end artefacts.
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Elemental analysis showed 91.6-93.2 per cent copper and 3.1-4.4 per cent tin. This amount of tin could not come as chance impurity, and deliberate alloying must have been done to improve casting property, hardness and malleability of the low-tin-bronze.
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In both the metallic artefacts as well as in a sample of Khetri (Rajasthan) ore, the following trace elements were detected: Pb, Ni, Co, Bi, Fe, Mn, Zn, Al, Co, Mo, V, Gd and As. On the other hand several elements found in the Khetri ore such as W, Mg, P, Si, Ca and Sb were not detected in the Navdatoli samples. Hegde’s conclusion that the source of the copper artefacts was from the Aravalli (Khetri) deposits cannot be unequivocally supported.
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The Navdatoli axe has a smooth surface finish, free from casting fins. This seems to be cast in a well-ventilated closed mould as revealed from the absence of porosity, cracks or cuprous oxide globules. There were small grey globules of lead in the alloy.
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The microstructure of the metal revealed equiaxial grains and twinning of the grains. The recrystallised grains prove that after casting, the axe was heated above the recrystallisation temperature, about 500°C. Twinning of the grains indicates that it was subjected to intermittent anneals. These thermal and mechanical treatments were given to the object to produce its smooth surface finish and bevell the cutting edge. Absence of strain lines in the microstructure of the butt end of the axe indicates that this portion of the axe was finally annealed. Although the blade end of this Navdatoli axe was not examined, Hegde showed that in a similar bronze axe from Somnath, the cutting edge was finally forged and work hardened while the body was left in an annealed condition.
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The study shows that the metallurgical knowledge of the smiths was advanced and better than that of the Aharian copper-smiths who did not alloy tin with copper, and thus could not produce bronze, and whose moulds were crude and unventillated. (Hegde In Sankalia, Deo and Ansari, 1971: 449-56) At Navdatoli, tin was alloyed up to 3 per cent and lead up to 2 per cent. No arsenical copper was produced.
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The pottery of the Malwa Culture is extremely rich in form and the painted ornament. According to Sankalia, among all the painted pottery found in India so far, that at Navdatoli has given the largest repertory of designs. The repertory has more than six hundred motifs. Mainly there are four main potteries of this site. The earliest is characterized by the white painted black- and red-ware belonging to the Ahar Culture of south-east Rajasthan. Next comes a black-on-red painted pottery and in the final phase of occupation a coarse red-ware occurs in association with the Lustrous Red Ware which is characteristic of the post-Harappan Culture of Gujarat. But during all these phases, the black-on-red painted pottery, i.e., Malwa ware occurs abundantly.
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This Malwa ware occurs at Malwa sites in great profusion, so much so that at Navdatoli, nearly three-fourths of the pottery yield is this ware. The fossil forms in the ware comprise a water vessel, the typical Indian *loṭā* channel spouted cups and pedestalled goblets. The excavator thinks that the channel spouted cups appear to have been copied from a metal prototype which must be very similar to that from the Khurdi copper hoard in Rajasthan. The drinking goblets or champagne glasses have turned up only from Navdatoli and not from any other site of Malwa Culture. Thus, on the basis of this evidence, Sankalia suggests a foreign (West Asian) contact or influence with this culture. However an indigenous development from the pinched lip to the channel spout through the short channel cannot be ruled out. The idea of a direct influence from Iran is not warranted and not suggested even by Sankalia.