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Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c20.s3.t9: Early Iron Industry at Ujjain

Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c20.s3.t9

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Early Iron Industry at Ujjain

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Banerjee documented (1965: 19-20, 68, 178-81) the nature of the early iron industry at Ujjain. The weapons of war were manufactured within the bounds of fortifications during Periods II and III.

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The evidence of smelting is provided by enormous deposits of iron slag, unsmelted or partly smelted iron ore, lumps of a crystalline material calcite or aragonite, whitish powder lime dumped with slag on both sides of a canal. The evidence ranges from Period II (500 BC onwards).

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Iron ore in the form of mammiliated limonite is indeed available in the hollows of trap in the region. A little over twenty pounds of calcium carbonate was found and identified as the aragonite variety on the basis of its hardness. Lumps of calcite or aragonite crystals occur sporadically in the occupational deposits. These must have been used as flux in the smelting of iron ore to remove the siliceous gangue. The whitish powder found in the slag, presumably lime or the product of calcination of calcium carbonate, also probably served as flux.

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As regards the actual mode of smelting, the evidence is not clear, though certain broad inferences are possible. Alternate deposits of charcoal mixed with the iron slag and a whitish powder, possibly lime, as stated above, occurring in an exposed section, point to a simple method of smelting. Probably charcoal and iron ore were laid in alternate courses, covering the entire pile thickly with clay to prevent the heat from escaping. The heaped circular kiln must have been provided with passages for the intake of air and escape of gases. Banerjee (1965: 179) refers to the ‘outlets for molten iron’, but we doubt that the iron could be molten in the primitive furnace. The solid wrought iron must have been hammered to drive out the molten slag inclusions.

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Banerjee reported (1965: 179) that “the remains of a forge with a groove for the introduction of the working end (or nozzle) of a blower or bellows, an improvised stand made from the sturdy and large neck of a broken vessel to support a water jar to store water for quenching, a small or miniature jar to collect small quantities or water according to necessity, and a shallow but large enough bowl to contain water near at hand for quenching, help to reconstruct the process of a black-smith’s working. The use of an anvil, also of iron, and iron tools like pincers for handling the red-hot iron bar or tool, is clearly indicated. The iron nail and chisel lying near the forge, which is lined with bricks and clay, burnt hard, and contains ash and charcoal, suggest the variety of objects produced, sharpened or remade at the forge”.

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Banerjee (1965: 180) quoted Manimekalai (19.2.107-9) and Perungadai (1.2. 40-44) of the early centuries of the Christian era admiring Greek carpenters, the jewellers of Magadha, goldsmiths of Pāṭaliputra, the metal workers from Marāṭṭa, metal-smiths of the Vatsa country (Kauśāmbi) and the black-smiths from Avanti: Avanti-K-Kollarum thus acknowledging the early Iron Age traditions of the Ujjain locality.

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The Ujjain tradition for iron-making continued in the area for centuries. An elliptical Vasudeva temple of c. fourth-third century BC at Besnagar (23°32'N; 77° 48'E), 3 km north-east of modern Vidisha, had pillars firmly set on thick stone basal slabs and fixed by steel wedges. At the same site, a piece of broken iron sword dated 125 BC contained 0.7 per cent carbon and showed elongated and irregularly disposed crystals of pearlite upon ferrite ground mass; 146 was the Brinell Hardness measured. 100 BC Kauśāmbi iron arrowhead assayed 0.74 per cent carbon and showed grains of pearlite throughout the section. (S. Prakash and R. Singh, 1968, Coinage in Ancient India, pp. 529-32) Ujjain technology might have been borrowed in Taxila which produced in AD 100, carpenter’s adze assaying 1.23 per cent carbon, a double-edged sword with 1.3-1.5 per cent carbon and 235 Brinell hardness. During third-second century BC, Rairh in district Jaipur was a major centre of ironsmithy showing huge quantities of slag, also swords, daggers etc.

Cites (3)