Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c25.s5.14

v1.c25.s5.14

The above correlation is indeed good (*vide* Table 17.7). But then Hegde ran into difficulty when he tried to correlate the Devnimori silver coin with the Zawar galena ore. Since the correlation was negative, he hastily concluded (Hegde, 1967 and 1968: 518) that ‘the silver metal was not extracted from the indigenous source but was probably imported’. Later, Shekar (1983: 179-80) showed that the trace element pattern of the Devnimori silver coin clearly matches with that of the Ambāmātā deposit only a hundred kilometre away (*vide* fig. 17.3a and Table 17.7). Specifically, the elements found missing in the Zawar galena sample viz., Cr, Co, Ni, Bi and Mo were detected in the Devnimori coin and the Ambaji ore; gold present in the Zawar sample was not present either in the Devnimori or Ambaji samples. This is a classic example of the hazard in ore-artefact correlation; possibly the silver metal was not ‘imported’! Shekar explained the absence of tin in the silver coin (tin is present in the Ambaji ore) by suggesting that the volatile metal might have escaped during smelting.