Copper in Ancient India c12.11

c12.11

From the discovery of large quantities of copper implements at Gunjeria in the Central Provinces it would appear that in pre-historic times copper smelting was extensively carried on in the Central Provinces, for it is very unlikely, judging from the lack of facilities of transport which must have existed at such an early period of Indian civilisation, that such large quantities of copper and silver were imported either from abroad or from other parts of India though as a matter of fact such an hypothesis would be more or less a conjecture. We are however, on some solid grounds regarding the copper of the Sultangunj Buddha statue. From the copper slag and raw copper found in the vicinity it would appear that both the smelting as well as the casting operations were done in the locality.