Minerals and Metals in Ancient India v1.c26.s6.4

v1.c26.s6.4

In April 1980, the Hindustan Zinc Limited (HZL) sponsored a three-year research project on recovery of zinc from the ancient slags which was successfully conducted at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur by the author of this monograph. (Biswas, 1981-84) Some of the results related to phase characterisation of and zinc recovery from the ancient slags would be recorded in this chapter. In 1982, HZL collaborated with British Museum Research Laboratory (P.T. Craddock, Lynn Willies etc.) and the Department of Archaeology, Baroda University (K.T.M. Hegde) on archaeological investigations, and this led to the spectacular discovery of the zinc distillation outfit including furnaces and retorts showing the production strategy. Craddock (1984) described the exciting discovery: