Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c20.s2: The Earliest Indian Iron in 1300 BC Chalcolithic Ahar?
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c20.s2
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The Earliest Indian Iron in 1300 BC Chalcolithic Ahar?
v1.c20.s2.1
The participants in the 1983 Poona Seminar debated on the above question and the answer appears to be negative. Sankalia et al. (1969) had excavated the chalcolithic site of Ahar in Rajasthan, and their publication containing an erroneous stratigraphical chart created confusion. The iron artefact-containing layer was wrongly marked as IC, which led Sahi (1979) to propose that the earliest iron in India was evolved in chalcolithic Ahar during the thirteenth century BC. Although this view was endorsed by Chakrabarti (1982: 83) as well as Allchin and Allchin (1982: 325-26 & 345), the excavators themselves disagreed with this interpretation in view of “the great chance for contamination (between layers I and II), and the later objects getting mixed up with the earlier”. This point was subsequently clarified by Lal (1987-88).
v1.c20.s2.2
Charkrabarti (1982: 83) endorsed Sahi’s conclusion that “iron metallurgy was invented independently as an offshoot of copper metallurgy in India, particularly in the regions of Malwa and Banas cultures” on the basis of the works of Charles (1979) and Hegde (1981). We agree about the concept of independent origin of iron in India but feel uncertain whether this was ‘an offshoot of copper metallurgy’. Hegde (1981) was quoted but probably misunderstood; what he wrote was that it was not easy for copper-smiths to invent iron. They had the furnace which could provide a temperature of 1250°C for solid state reduction of iron ore, but they had to wait for centuries before the conflicting demands of high rate of oxygen supply and high CO/CO₂ ratio or a reducing atmosphere within the charcoal bed could be met substantially. The evidence of small quantities of poor quality iron occurring at the earliest levels of the iron age sites shows intensive experimentation, and proves that “we did not receive the technical know-how of iron smelting and smithery from an outside source”. (Hegde, 1981: 196) The argument may be further extended. Atrañjikhera and Jakhera PGW sites exhibit a large number of iron tools of varied nature; therefore, we may propose that iron was possibly discovered in the earlier periods of BRW era which shows ill-defined iron objects.
v1.c20.s2.3
Since chalcolithic tradition preceded the iron age, the latter must have evolved from the efforts of copper-smiths. This generality need not be interpreted specifically to justify an early advent of iron in the chalcolithic Ahar. It is true that the Ahar slag contained 43-48 per cent iron oxide (and 35-38% silica) (Hegde, 1969), but this was most probably in the form of a silicate such as fayalite, which originated from the use of iron-containing chalcopyrite and silica as flux. Copper artefacts of Ahar contain 1-6 per cent iron which probably exists as slag inclusion rather than in the metallic state. Unfortunately, phase studies of these materials were not undertaken by Hegde, but we know that reduction of iron to the metallic state is possible from the oxide phases but not the silicate phases. Therefore, the examples of iron being accidentally produced in copper smelter (Ashenbrenner and Cooke, 1975) need not be indiscriminately invoked.