Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c22.s1: The Stone Objects
Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c22.s1
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The Stone Objects
v1.c22.s1.1
The Buddhist sculptures are the most important stone objects in Taxila. Besides them, there is a large collection of utensils and other articles of daily use recovered from Bhir Mound and Sirkap of the period 300 BC to AD 100.
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The coarse and soft lime *kaṅkar* and flint-like hard limestone were available in the nearby foothills and widely used as building materials. Apart from the local limestone, other hard stones used were: blue serpentine, *saṅ-i-abrī* or *abrī*, granite, basalt, quartzite etc. Many semi-precious stones were used, and these would be referred to later. *Abrī*, a lower cretaceous shell limestone of a variegated chocolate and yellow colour, and abundant in the Hazara and Attock districts, were used for bowls, cups and dishes in the Bhir Mound settlement only, up to about 200 BC. (Much later, in Mughal times, *abrī* became a favourite stone for the inlay-work on buildings and pavements).
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The Greeks emphasized on the increasing use of softer varieties of stone instead of the hard one. Replacing the hard basalt or quartzite saddle-querns, the softer sand-stone stool-querns became fashionable during the Maurya period. Up to the beginning of the second century BC, four kinds of sandstone were used in the Bhir Mound settlements: (1) the grey *tarakī* or *Kambiāl* sandstone, locally available and used for the temple pillars and pilasters, (2) spotted red and white sandstone from Mathurā, (3) greyish quartz sandstone and (4) buff-coloured fine-grained hard sandstone, usually with some black spots, from Chunar near Vārāṇasī. The second variety has been widely used for the Hellenistic and Mathurā style statues and sculptures under considerable Greek influence. The fourth variety was evidently brought from Chunar to make the Aśoka pillars and later thrown down, broken and re-used for making utensils.
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The other soft stones found on the Bhir Mound are steatite, alabaster and slate. The slate of the Hazara district was freely used for the construction of drains and bathroom floors, heat-resistant inlay moulds for making jewellery etc. The alabaster at the foot of the Salt Range in the Punjab was used to make household vessels and exquisitely curved ringstones. Schist and phyllite, probably obtained from the neighbourhood of Southern Swāt, were used for the vast majority of Gāndhāra sculptures. During the end of second century BC, schist was used under the Pārthian domination, for caskets, household vessels, lamps and sculptures. In the first century AD, phyllite began to supersede schist, being more durable and less liable to split in the process of carving. Agate bowls, cups, caskets etc. (first century AD) were probably made in the Kaṭhiāwār, Gulf of Cambay region. Some of these were exported by the Pārthian merchants to Rome.
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Marshall (1975: chapter 25) referred to a natural stone, which looked like artificial porcelain, found in Taxila. He named it porcelain-agate, a term new to geology. It was found in the form of round flat disks, evidently used for some kind of inlay work during the Maurya period. Analysis of a sample at the Royal College of Science, England, by Prof. H.B. Baker, yielded the values: 98.40 per cent silica, 0.99 per cent ferric oxide and alumina, 0.12 lime and 0.05 magnesia. Baker concluded that porcelain-agate was “a natural substance produced, possibly in a volcanic region, by the long-continued heating of ordinary quartz”. The source of occurrence of this material is not known.
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The semi-precious stones found at Taxila were obtained from other sources, imported as items of trade. Pebbles of jasper of various colours — red, green and yellow — probably came from Rājpūtānā or Central India. Jade, comprising of both jadeite and the nephrite variety, came from the well-known mines in the Karakash Valley of Eastern Turkestan, or the Tunga Valley of the Pamirs (jadeite) or the Rewāh State in Central India (nephrite variety only). As noticed by Hiuen-Tsāng, jade assumed greater importance in the context of Buddhist carvings, during the post-Taxilian period.
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Lapis lazuli came from Badakshan in northern Afghanistan, turquoise from Persia, and garnets from Rājpūtānā. South India must have supplied beryl and aquamarine to Taxila as well as to Rome, just as the gem gravels of Sri Lanka supplied trade items of a variety of precious gems.