Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c22.s2.1

v1.c22.s2.1

The beads recovered at Taxila number over 8500, twenty per cent of the number from the Bhir Mound, sixtyfive per cent from Sirkap and the rest from the Dharmarājika and other sites. The inhabitants of the Bhir Mound area preferred agate, carnelian, shell, bone, and glass — blue and green. In the later day Sirkap inhabitation (vide Table 14.2) we find continued uses of agate and carnelian, increased uses of imported garnet, jasper, lapis lazuli, malachite, turquoise, serpentine, marble and diversely coloured glasses as beads of different shapes — spherical, oblate, ovoid, barrel, hemispherical, scaraboid, disk, lenticular, cylindrical, cone, bicone, cube, angular, tabular, gadrooned, leech, pendants and miscellaneous types.