A History of Agriculture in India v1.c26.s3: Mastery of Iron Technology
A History of Agriculture in India v1.c26.s3
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Mastery of Iron Technology
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Invention of the iron axe and the ploughshare. The mastery of iron technology is an outstanding achievement of mankind. Iron ores are widespread as compared with copper. Smelting of iron ore gave a hard metal to which copper or bronze are no match. This was a big step forward in metallurgy but was not easy to achieve. Without carbon this new metal had not the sharpness or hardness of copper or bronze. It was only gradually, through trial and error, aided by lucky accidents, that the high temperature of 1535°C required to smelt iron, and the use of a catalytic flux to produce a slag and thus separate molten iron from impurities were slowly achieved. The iron metal so produced was yet soft and spongy in comparison with copper or bronze. It was not until the achievement of the characteristic hardness as a result of the admixture of carbon with iron in proper proportion that the special properties of iron were fully realized.
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The invention of the socketed iron axe gave an efficient tool to man which enabled him to clear jungles for cultivation. It was with the use of fire and iron axes that the Aryans cleared the dense jungles of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
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The hard clayey soil of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar could not be easily cultivated with wooden ploughs. When the wooden ploughs were provided with iron ploughshares, their efficiency increased. This improvement enabled the Aryans to cultivate virgin lands, thus leading to greater mastery over food production. It almost led to a Green Revolution, which was sparked off by the invention of two most important tools, viz. the socketed iron axe and the iron ploughshare. In due course, all small tools of agriculture, viz. sickles and hoes, were also manufactured from iron.
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Painted Grey Pottery. The Painted Grey pottery was first isolated in a stratified context in 1946 from Ahichchhatra in the Bareilly District of Uttar Pradesh. At Rupar, it overlies the Harappan pottery and bronze implements. The Painted Grey Ware has also been recorded from the Purana Qila of New Delhi, from Hastinapur in Meerut and from a number of sites in the Punjab. Its other important sites are Panipat and Sonepat in Haryana, Baghpat, Alamgirpur, Atranjikhera, Mathura, Shravasti and Kausambi in Uttar Pradesh, and Noh in the Bharatpur District in Rajasthan. The northernmost site is at Manda in Jammu. The antiquities of Period III of Manda include glass bangles, a terracotta horse with a saddle, iron daggers and arrow heads, and copper-antimony rods and stone rotary querns.
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Excavation at Atranjikhera in the Etah District was undertaken by the Department of History, Aligarh Muslim University, under R.C. Gaur. Period II, extending to a height of 4 metres, was characterized by the occurrence of the Painted Grey Ware in association with plain grey, black-and-red, black-slipped and red wares. The other finds included iron arrow and spear-heads, bone styluses, gamesmen, beads and terracotta discs.
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The excavations conducted at Hastinapur in 1962 yielded specimens of finished iron objects in the form of nails and knife-blades from the middle levels of the Painted Grey Ware deposit. Earlier, in the excavations of 1950-52, only slags had been found. At the same time, it is to be noted that iron has not so far been found stratigraphically below the deposits of the Painted Grey Ware anywhere. The presence of the bones of a horse at Hastinapur in association with the Painted Grey Ware recalls the traditional concept of the association of the horse with the Aryans. The proven association of iron with the Painted Grey Ware, which is the earliest stratigraphic evidence of iron in India, points to the presence of a second wave of iron-using Aryans in India.
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When one examines the shapes of painted grey potteries, one is struck by the persistence of some designs even in the present. Some potteries and dishes recovered from Hastinapur are shown in Fig. 155. The pot, with a narrow neck, is the present-day *garbi*, now manufactured in bronze metal. The small cup in the foreground is the *katori*. The flat dish in the centre, resembling a *thali*, is suitable for eating rice. Commenting on such dishes from Swat, B.K. Thapar states, ‘This type is very convenient for eating rice and its occurrence in Period III accords well with the literary evidence for rice seems to have been mentioned only in the later Vedic literature.’³
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³ Thapar, B.K. *The Archaeological Remains of Aryans in North-Western India*, I.C.H.R., 1977