Outline
Intro: Early metals, their emergence, meaning and significance
Copper and bronze in India
Iron and wootz in India
Zinc and brass in India
VISUALS
Introduction: Early Metals, their Emergence & Significance
- Metals-Ores Matching Game [photos: Kevin Dunn; Lluís Fontboté]
- "Answers" [adapted from K. Dunn]
- metals timeline [Allchin]
- early metals associations
- gold coins from India ~1st c. BCE
- Archimedes
- silver coins from India, half-millenium BCE [RBI Monetary Museum]
Copper and Bronze in India
- copper ax head, Kish, Iran, 3900 BCE
- "Iceman" with his ax, ~3300 BCE
- Indus Valley civilization [World Book Enc.]
view at Harappa site
- dancer, Mohenjo-Daro culture, 3000-2000 BCE [National Museum, New Delhi]
- copper ores
hills of Rajasthan, India
- early copper furnace (modeled on Dhatwa site) [K.T.M. Hegde, 1991]
- map of copper-producing sites, 2000-1200 BCE [K.T.M. Hegde, 1991]
- Chola bronze of dancing Shiva, 11th century
- Chinese plow [Mark Kishlansky et al, 1995]
early bronze drill bit (Lothal, India) [Swarnakamal]
Iron and Wootz in India
- hematite [K. Dunn]
- Dogon Smelters, furnace
- Dogon Smelters, collecting charcoal, using bellows
- Dogon Smelters, checking smelt
- Dogon Smelters, harvesting iron
- Benin sculptures, 16-17th century [National Museum of African Art]
- Iron sites in India, ~2000 to 1000 BCE [K.T.M. Hegde, 1991]
- "Damascus" steel blade (late 18th century, Kurdish)
- Iron Pillar, Delhi
- inscriptions on pillar
Zinc and Brass in India
- brass (contemporary)
spharelite (zinc ore) [K. Dunn]
- Zawar zinc furnace [K.T.M. Hegde, 1991]
- zinc-distilling retort [A.K. Biswas, 1993]
- zinc-distilling furnace [A.K. Biswas, 1993]
- used ceramic retorts in building walls [K.T.M. Hegde, 1991]
- more used retorts in construction [K.T.M. Hegde, 1991]
- Champion's zinc furnace, England, mid-1700s
- map of zinc-producing sites in India [K.T.M. Hegde, 1991]
- Kerala mirror
- Agircola and his image of smelting, 1556
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