Paper short abstract:

A comparative study is made on stylistic and technological grounds of vessels and high-tin bronze bowls found in the Indian subcontinent attributed to the megalithic/Iron Age and early historic periods, with some early examples found in Thailand. Aspects of material culture and surviving techniques point to wider Asian exchanges in antiquity.

Paper long abstract:

This paper attempts to make a comparative study of vessels and bowls found in India attributed to the Iron Age and early historic periods, with some early examples found in Thailand. Investigations on Thai sites from about the mid first millennium BCE onwards (studied by Rajpitak, Bennett, Seeley, Glover, Bellina-Pryce, Pryce and others) have revealed finds of bronze bowls. Some of the analysed examples were found to have a high-tin content, while there are also examples of decorated bronze bowls amongst these. Scattered examples of high-tin bronzes have also been reported from the Indian subcontinent attributed to the Iron age and early historic period spanning the early first millennium BCE to early centuries CE. These include the author’s archaeometallurgical investigations of a few finds from the Adichanallur burials and Nilgiri cairns in Government Museum, Chennai, and also Mahurjhari from the Vidarbha megaliths and Gandharan Grave culture of Taxila. These were of hot forged and quenched high tin bronze of about 21-24% tin, which were comparable to a surviving tradition in Kerala. This paper further compares technological and stylistic aspects of vessels from the different clusters of northwest India, eastern India and southern India/Deccan with those found in Thailand. Further comparisons are made with surviving practices documented from Orissa in eastern India apart from Kerala in southern India and with material culture from other megalithic sites including Kodumanal in Tamil Nadu.