A Concise History of Science in India c10.5

c10.5

It has been surmised that a certain jar-type of pottery (called ‘scored pottery’) might have been used by the farmers of Mohenjo-daro as an appliance for raising water in a manner similar to that of the wheel used in most parts of the Near and Middle East even now. The specimens found at the Mohenjo-daro have deep grooves suggestive of the possibility of their being lashed to a wheel. The base and the rim of this type of pottery are also of shapes suitable to the operation of taking out water. However, in view of the fact that a number of these have been found near small public wells, it has been doubted whether they were used for obtaining a constant stream of water. Mackay says: ‘It is more than probable that some arrangement for drawing water for irrigation, by means of an endless rope working on a wheel, with pottery vessels attached to it at intervals, was in use in Sind and other parts of Western India from very early times, though it may not have taken the form of the modern wheel. The latter may have been an improvement introduced into India from Persia. The use of the so-called Persian wheel is almost exclusively confined to Baluchistan, Sind and the Panjab, and some parts of the Bombay Presidency.’c