Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c16.s3.t5: Ināmgāon
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c16.s3.t5
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Ināmgāon
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Ināmgāon, a site on the north bank of the Ghod river is situated about 50 miles east of Poona. The main mound is roughly about 500 m east-west and 50 m north-south, with its western and eastern arms pointing towards the river in the south.
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Five seasons of work at Ināmgāon more than confirmed the sketchy data from Nevasa, Chandoli and Songaon about the character of the Jorwe Culture. The excavations in this site have given a vivid picture about the life of the Jorwe people.
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The recent dates for samples from Ināmgāon excavation show that the Jorwe Culture can now be dated to c. 1500-1000 BC, because four dates from Inamgaon are before 1400 BC whereas a majority of them fall between 1400-1200 BC which appears to be the peak period of the culture. There is a late Jorwe phase at Inamgaon, whose beginning may be placed to 600 BC. (Agarwal and Chakrabarti, 1979: 250-60)
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The specialized blade-flake industry is one of the characteristic features of the Jorwe Culture at Ināmgāon etc. Polished stone axes and chisels of dolerite were used. Chalcedony and agate were also parts of the lithic assemblage at Ināmgāon. Sankalia opined that the making of chalcedony blades was a cottage industry as at Navdatoli, Nevasa and probably in most of the neolithic-chalcolithic sites.
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Among the stone objects, the important ones are blades, querns and ground stone tools. Boat-shaped querns were also manufactured locally and the axes were often made of fine grained dyke basalt.
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Personal ornaments were mostly composed of beads of chalcedony, agate, carnelian and varieties of jasper. Only well-to-do people could have afforded bangles and anklets and necklaces of copper beads. Gold beads and spiral ear ornaments with thickened terminals, though extremely rare, have also been reported: one from Daimabad and another from Inamgaon. Beads of ivory have turned up in good numbers at Inamgaon and what is more, a large piece of ivory was found in Malwa levels attesting to the manufacture of beads at the site.
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That most of the ornaments were made locally at Inamgaon, is documented by the find of a crucible and a pair of tongs. Apart from this, a number of houses of the Jorwe people have been laid bare in course of excavation at Ināmgāon. The most important feature of this pattern of settlement is the location of craftsmen’s quarter on the western periphery of the principal habitational area. These quarters were of potters, ivory-carvers, copper-smiths, gold-smiths and of lime-makers. There is evidence that lime was manufactured and preserved as lime balls at Inamgaon.
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At Ināmgāon, right from the beginning of the habitations, the craftsmen’s houses were situated on the western periphery of the main mound just on the left of the entrance to settlement and the same pattern continued in the subsequent periods. The same pattern still prevails in Maharashtra. (Agarwal and Chakrabarti, 1979: 254 and 258; Sankalia, 1974: 484 and 508)
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The pottery style at Ināmgāon is marked with individuality. It is distinctive in every way-form, fabric and design motifs. It has a red or bright orange mat surface on which was executed painted ornamentation, usually geometric in black pigment. The chracteristic shapes comprise of a concave-sided bowl with sharp carination, a spouted jar with flaring mouth and high-necked jars with globular profile.
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A remarkable and unique kiln to fire pottery, discovered at Inamgaon, is like a huge trough of clay about 1.7 m in diameter built on stone foundations. Oval clay cushions with a hole in the centre and grooves on the side were placed over the fire chamber at a depth of 60 cm to provide outlets for hot gases. Air ducts radiated from the centre of the kiln. Though the Harappan kilns were built on similar principles, yet their design and material were different.
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That copper was doubtless scarce and was sparingly used for making axes, chisels, knives and fish hooks and also for beads and bangles is clearly substantiated by the excavation. Dhavalikar thinks that the chances of metal being imported from the distant Khetri mines of Rajasthan are slim; native copper and chalcopyrites have been reported from the vicinity of Inamgaon. Lumps of native copper were obviously heated and beaten into desired shapes. For extracting copper from chalcopyrites special furnaces were built and one such is reported from Inamgaon also. It is a boat-shaped structure built of clay on stone foundation having a clay cushion similar to that in the kiln for keeping the ore. Tylecote opines, that stylistically the furnace bears a family resemblance with the bronze age furnace in Israel which are dated second millennium BC. Dhavalikar suggests that unlike copper, the only source of gold was Hatti mines in Karnataka which were worked from the Neolithic times and the metal must have been brought to the Northern Deccan by way of trade. (Agarwal and Chakrabarti, 1979: 258)
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A few clay figurines, mostly unbaked, have been reported from Ināmgāon.
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These figures were presumably of female deities on the back of cult animals.
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An important feature of the Jorwe Culture is the mode of the disposal of the dead. Usually the adults were buried in an extended position, whereas the children were accommodated in two coarse, hand-made red grey ware urns placed horizontally mouth-to-mouth in a pit. The pit for both men and children was dug in the courtyard of the house. In case of adults the portion below the ankle was deliberately chopped off because the people probably did not want the dead to go away.
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We have already discussed the Jorwe Culture in the site of Prakash. Both Malwa and Jorwe people spread their cultures there.