Copper in Ancient India c7.s1.1

c7.s1.1

"The most important discovery of instruments of copper yet recorded in the Old World", as Evans puts it in his Ancient Bronze Implements, was made by some shepherd boys who, while tending cattle in the village of Gunjeria in the district of Balaghat in the Nagpur Division of the Central Provinces, observed a piece of red metal peeping out of earth in a plot of waste land. On receipt of this news in 1870 Mr. Bloomfield, Deputy Commissioner of Balaghat, had the place excavated and as many as 424 copper implements and weapons and 102 pieces of thin silver plates were discovered in one place measuring about three feet in length, three feet in breadth and four feet in depth. The discovery of this remarkable find was announced at the May meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1870.²