Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c19.s6.t8.15

v1.c19.s6.t8.15

It is difficult to fully agree with Agrawal and Chakrabarti (1985: 219-20, 495) that iron was made here from iron shale samples taken from the Atranjikhera rings and analyzed by them. Their sample contains 31.40 per cent Fe O. They could smelt a better raw material, better accessible if slag containing as high as 60-70 per cent Fe O. Evidently some better raw material was smelted. We also do not agree with Gaur (1983: 220) that the metallic content was obtained directly from the ore, because the temperature of the furnace even needed smelting point of iron, and the metal was obtained essentially through solid state reduction.