Copper in Ancient India c8.s1.4

c8.s1.4

The bolt appears to have been shaped by the hammer though originally made by casting copper, as the shape is quite perfect and the flat ends quite smooth. The copper implements discovered at Gunjeria also bear unmistakable signs of having been hammered and Mr. Vincent A. Smith is of opinion that they were "cast in the first instance and then finished by the hammer." Mr. Smith further writes about the Gunjeria implements "Mr. Reginald Smith pointed out to me that several of the British Museum specimens exhibit ridges which apparently indicate the line of junction of two open moulds face to face. When the two moulds had thus been applied and closed the metal was probably poured in through an aperture at the narrow end. The Pachamba or Karharhari find permits of no doubt that in Bengal roughly cast 'blooms' of copper were knocked into shape as celts by hammering. The more highly finished articles from Northern India and Gunjeria were no doubt made in regular moulds and merely finished with the hammer." There is however one argument against the hypothesis that the Gunjeria implements were made by casting which, as pointed out by Mr. Bloomfield himself, is that out of the 424 weapons "hardly two of the copper pieces are of the same size, weight or shape." This objection may be met, as Dr. Campbell has suggested, by supposing that the metal was run into mould of the shape of, but smaller and thicker than the article which was then finished by the hammer. I think this explanation is correct. From the perfect shape of the copper bolt it would appear that it was also made by first casting copper and then finishing the product with the hammer.