History of Chemistry in Ancient and Medieval India, Incorporating the History of Hindu Chemistry by Acharya Prafulla Chandra Ray c10.20

c10.20

We have seen that these prehistoric people were acquainted with the art of making baked or burnt clay pottery, as well as painting the same with two or more colours. This implies the construction of open and closed kilns. They also knew the art of extracting copper from the copper ores and of working the metal into various articles by hammering, cutting and rolling. Closed pottery kilns with their reducing atmosphere served satisfactorily for the smelting of copper ores for which the temperature needed does not exceed 700°-800°C. But no evidence of cast copper articles has been obtained, showing that, as a much higher temperature of about 1100°C for melting copper for the purpose is necessary, the construction of an advanced type of furnace to produce this high temparature was not evolved at the time. Nevertheless, with the development of the art of painted and polychrome pottery, and that of smelting copper from copper ores, it may be said that these prehistoric people of the fourth and third millenium B.C. laid the foundation of chemistry and of metallurgy in India.