SkunkyArt | ThehackerArt — Technology in Ancient India

Early humans developed technologies such as stone-working, agriculture, animal husbandry, pottery, metallurgy, textile manufacture, bead-making, wood-carving, cart-making, sailing, and so on with little science to back them up.

If we define technology as a human way of modifying the material world around us, we can find that the first stone tools in the Indian subcontinent date back more than two million years (That was long before the advent of modern man in India, which is thought to have occurred some 70,000 years ago.)

Jumping ahead in time, the Neolithic revolution of around 9,000 years ago saw the development of agriculture in parts of the Indus and Ganges valleys, resulting in the need for pots, water management, metal tools, transportation, and so on.

The Indus or Harappan civilization (2600-1900 BCE for its urban or Mature phase), which flourished in the northwest of the subcontinent, saw the rapid growth of an efficient agriculture that adapted to very diverse climates and conditions, ranging from the water-rich Indus valley to semi-arid areas of today's Rajasthan.

The Harappans grew wheat, barley, and millets and practiced plough-based agriculture as well as intercropping in some areas.

Their wheel-turned pots came in a variety of shapes and sizes, and some were also glazed and painted.

Metal smiths extracted copper from ore found in the Aravalli hills, Ambaji (Gujarat), or Oman and alloyed it with tin to create bronze.

Mixing various impurities into it, such as nickel or arsenic, hardened it to the point where bronze tools could be used to dress stones.

The true saw was invented by the Harappans, with teeth and the adjoining part of the blade set alternately from side to side, a type of saw unknown until Roman times. They left us a few bronze figurines cast using the lost-wax process.

The Harappans also invented advanced grid-based town planning and sanitation, which collected used water from individual bathrooms into municipal drains that were inspected and cleaned on a regular basis. They realised that bricks with the dimensions 1: 2: 4 (width equals two heights; length equals two widths).

Harappan craftsmen used a variety of minerals for ornamental, cosmetic, and medicinal purposes; they excelled at bead-making, and their long carnelian (a semiprecious stone) beads, in particular, were highly prized in Mesopotamian royal families.

The Harappans produced a large number of gold, bronze, conchshell, glazed faience, and humble terracotta bangles, which contributed to India's love of bangles.

Weavers used wheel-spun thread, and evidence of silk, in addition to cotton, has recently been discovered at two sites. Stone and ivory carving, carpetmaking, and inlaid woodwork were among the other crafts.