St.

Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai

Department of Ancient Indian Culture, History and
Archeology
Academic Year 2019-2020
Science and Technology CIA 2

Pottery In Ancient India

Name: Sybil Monteiro

UID: 171160
Roll no.: 023
Year: TYBA AIHCA
Course Code: AAIC06.06
 Table of Contents

Sr. No. Topic

1 Introduction

2 Literary Sources

3 Black and Red Ware

4 Hakra Ware

5 Burzahom

6 Mehrgarh

7 Harappan Pottery

8 Ochre Coloured Pottery

9 Painted Grey Ware

10 Arikamedu

11 Conclusion
 Introduction

Archaeology, the study of human past through material remains, is closely related to history.
Material remains range from remnants of grand palaces, temple structures to small day to day
products like vessels, seals, coins, pottery etc. Material evidence is a key to understanding human
behavior and experience. It is not enough to describe the remnants of the past, it is not enough to
describe the details or features of stone tools, sculptures and pots, the main aim, the challenge is
to get them, get those artifacts to tell the stories of their time, of the people who made and used
them. Archaeological reconstruction depends on various things. It depends on the amount and the
kind of material that is preserved or material that has survived and this in turn depends on the
artifacts themselves and factors like soil, climatic conditions etc. Inorganic materials are more
likely to survive than organic. For example, the Stone age people could have had tools and
implements made of bone and wood apart from the stone tools, but only the stone tools survived
to be found by us. Stone age is primarily divided into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic. It
is in the Mesolithic age where we see development or an inclination towards a primitive form of
farming and domestication of animals. Innovative inventions are seen in stone tool technology
and the food production in the Neolithic age. We see the development of pottery in this age, a
greater degree of sedentary living and emergence of small and kind of self sufficient villages. They
were beginning to develop a culture, with their increased population and interactions as they settled
in one place. It is however important to know that the development and progress were not uniform
for all the people and regions of that time. We hear of references to pottery being utilized in some
Mesolithic sites and even the absence of pottery in some Neolithic sites. This means that the
progress was not uniform and varied, each progressed at their own pace.
What is pottery?
Pottery is the process of making vessels or objects using clay or other ceramic materials which are
then fired at high temperatures to make them hard and durable. There are those that are handmade
and wheel made and are baked in kilns (terracotta: terra- earth, cotta-baked, baked earth). Pottery
is essentially used as a medium of storage, storage of various grains or liquids like water, milk,
oils or alcohol. It is also used for cooking, decorative and ritualistic purposes. At times certain
unexplainable pottery is found for example, the perforated pots. In these pots nothing can be stored,
no liquids nor grains as they have holes throughout them. The idea emerged that maybe they were
used as lamps however there is no soot or any residue to prove that they were used as lamps.
Pottery is something that has continuously developed and refined itself over the ages. It has only
improved in appearance and use and also in the techniques used to make them. It remains the most
basic décor and useful storage, the most simplistic in nature with it’s own level of complexity
when thought about (how it was made, the idea, the variations, different materials combined, the
colors and designs etc). Every bit of pottery has evolved, including its function or use, in urban
society its use has moved from storage to décor although even in some urban households we see
the use of matkas that is pots used to store water. They keep the water cool. Earlier, they were just
pots with or without a lid on top, mostly rounded shape, but now they are also found to have taps
attached to them for quick use. In fairly rural or rural areas it still retains its use as storage with the
occasional use of décor.
Literary Sources

Pottery has been mentioned and discussed in many literary texts ranging from the Brahmanical
texts to Buddhist and Jain texts. It has also been spoken of in secular literature, like those that deal
with polity and grammar, Patanjalis Mahabhasya, Manusmriti, Paninis Asthadhyayi, Kautilyas
Arthashastra. Patanjali gives more details about the potter, he gives more information about people
approaching the potter’s to make pots of their own liking, indicating that the potter took
commission and made customized pots too. Can it be said that those rare or ‘only finds’ were
possibly those customized pots? There have been mentions of its uses and make with regards to
ceremonies and rituals and also for day to day household use. Pottery is spoken of in the Rig Veda
and the Yajur Vedas, however the term has only been repeated again and again without any further
details about the type of pottery, the material, its shape and size or its use. I believe its uses could
be ritualistic or household or storage purposes due to the texts it has been mentioned in. The
Buddhist works speak in more detail about pottery than the early Brahmanical works. Early
Brahmanical works like the Rig Veda refer to potteries as Juh, Darba, Charu, Dronakalasa, Tituna
and Upasachani. Charu was a kind of a kettle or pot which had a lid Abhidhana and it had a hook
by which it could be hung over the fire. Dronakalasa was a vessel that was meant to store some
juice. The Apasthamba Sutra says that Sutra dronakalasa has a slanting mouth. The Upasachni is
a kind of a spoon or cup used to pour something. The Satapatha Brahmana refers to the technique
of making Mahayirapatra, it was made of clay mixed with water and mixed again with the soft soil
from an ant hill. The upper portion of the pot is said to be elongated like a nose which was three
angulas in length, it was probably a lipped pot. The Atharvaveda refers to pots made of baked and
unbaked clay. It speaks of the baked ones being turned into a blue or red (Neel-lohita) due to the
extent of the firing However it could be possible that it actually means a painted ware that was
blue and red in color. Although we get no such reference to blue and red wares, which means it
probably meant black and red wares as we had plenty of those found in the Indian Subcontinent. 1

Black and Red Ware

The Bolan pass leads from Mehrgarh into the Quetta Valley where a number of sites are found in
the surrounding area, two important sites from there are Kile (or Kili) Gul Mohammad (henceforth
KGM) and Damb Sadaat (henceforth DS). After being excavated by Walter A. Fairservis in 1950,

1Sinha B.P., (1969), Potteries In Ancient India, Patna, Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology, Patna
University
four periods of occupation were revealed- KGM 1, KGM 2, KGM 3, KGM 4. Handmade pottery
made its appearance in the 2nd period. While in the 3rd period wheel made pottery which included
fine black on red ware with geometric designs painted on it was found. KGM 4 and DS 1 a distinct
type of pottery known as Kechi Beg ware after the site where it was first found, here the pottery
was well fired, thin, buff coloured pottery with geometric designs painted on them in either black
or red. In the northern part of the Punjab Province of Pakistan, the site of Sarai Khola, in its period
1 (earliest level excavated) there was a plain handmade red or brown burnished pottery that also
had mat impression on the base.2 Nal pottery was polychrome with different shapes like disc bases,
narrow mouthed pots, almost straight walled pots, open bowls, canisters with flat bottom and a
round and straight edges mouth. These were painted with geometric and animal designs of fish
and ibex in colors blue, red and/or yellow. Nal pottery is considered as contemporary to the 2nd
KGM period. Bala-Kot site situated on the Makran coast south of Baluchistan has wheel made
pottery similar to that found at Nal. Nal is situated in the Khozdar area that links north and south
Baluchistan.3 The pottery of neolithic Chirand (Saran district, Bihar) included red ware too, apart
from two other types. They were usually handmade , some were painted in red ochre and had
scratched designs on the surface in Linear or geometric way. Black and Red ware is also found in
the Gangetic plains, in Gujarat, Saurashtra, Kutch. During the Chalcolithic period, it was also used
in Eastern India. In the Early Historical period, the central and western parts of India also observed
the use of Black and red ware. Black and Red Ware is seen extensively throughout the Indian
subcontinent in different phases and in different variations too depending on the region. Each
region came up with some variation or due to exchange and interaction has showed similarities
between their designs. Also, despite having a different development rate, the interactions or
innovations do show similarities or differences. At times they have failed to create durable pottery
(like ill fired) but have learnt and changed over time.
Hakra Ware

In the Cholistan desert of Bahawalpur, early village settlements were located on the Ghaggar-
Hakra river which currently is dry. Here handmade and wheel made pottery were found, they
consisted of large and small vessels with a coating of mud mixed pieces of pottery that was applied
to its outer surface, thick and thin pottery with incised lines and globular vases with black slip on
the exterior. At Kunal in Hissar district of Haryana, Hakra wares were found. In the early parts of
the settlement here, pottery designs had pipal leaves and a bull with curved horns on it. A recently
excavated site called Bhirrana in Fatehabad, Haryana, various types of pottery were found. They
included incised ware, tan slipped ware black burnished ware, brown on buff ware, bi-chrome
wares, black and red wares.4 Koldihwa in Allahabad district has yielded handmade pottery of three

2 Singh U., (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12 th Century, Pearson
India Education Service Pvt. Ltd., pp 105-106
3 Singh U., (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12 th Century, Pearson

India Education Service Pvt. Ltd., pp 107-108

4 Singh U., (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12 th Century, Pearson

India Education Service Pvt. Ltd., pp 108-109

varieties, net marked, cord marked and plain red pottery and also a black and red ware pottery.
Some black and red ware have soot marks on them indicating that they were probably used for
cooking.5
Burzahom

Ill fired, handmade and coarse pottery in grey, red, brown and buff colours were found here. The
shapes include rimless and bottle shaped with flared rims. Many of these have mat impressions,
indicating there were made on mats. The later period included mostly handmade pottery again and
few new shapes and a black burnished pottery too. The shapes varied from dish with hollow stand,
globular pots, jars, stems with triangular perforations and funnel shaped vase. A distinct type of
black burnished ware is found here which has a high necked jar with flaring rim, globular body
and base and oblique notches incised on the lower part of the neck.6

Mehrgarh

We find one of the earliest evidence to pottery at Mehrgarh around the early part of the 6000-4500
BCE time frame. Wheel made pottery was found here around the later part of the previously
mentioned time frame. In the second half of the 5th millennium BCE, Mehrgarh was already in its
chalcolithic age, here large scale wheel made pottery with painted decorations were found. The
techniques had grown refined in pottery making and innovations were also seen. There was a
designated area for pottery manufacturing where the bases of three ovens or kilns were exposed
on top of a six meter large accumulation of pottery debris. We see more and more of decorated
and painted pottery emerging as the this site develops. They began using polychrome wares and
making designs on their wares, there is continuity seen in their designs despite the transitions that
are happening. Post this we see changes in color and designs also emerging- red ware decorated
with pipal leaves and well-fired grey ware. At this point, the levels of interaction between different
settlements had increased and we see similar styles in pottery on Baluchistan. A large pottery kiln
was also found.

Harappan Pottery
Pottery kilns were found at Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Nausharo and Chanhudaro the pots were baked
in a funnel shaped closed kiln. Open firing may also have been used. Harappan sites have a large
variety of pottery which includes black on red, grey, buff and black and red wares. Most of the
pots found here are wheel made. They have both fine and coarse varieties of pottery and the

5 Singh U., (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12 th Century, Pearson
India Education Service Pvt. Ltd., pp 110
6 Singh U., (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12 th Century, Pearson

India Education Service Pvt. Ltd., pp 111-113

thickness also varies. A typical Harappan pottery is fine and sturdy, it is wheel made with bright
slip, decorated with black painted designs. Polychrome, meaning use of different colors, is rare.
The red color comes from geru which is iron oxide. Black was made by combining dark reddish
brown iron oxide with black manganese, meaning their paints were mineral based.

The shapes of the various pots include: dish on stand, vase in an s-profile, small vessel with bobbed
decoration l, large slender footed bowl, cylindrical perforated jar, goblet with pointed foot. The
large jars may have been used to store grain or water. If they had a wide mouth they are most likely
to be used to store grains than water to avoid spillage. The more elaborate looking pottery, those
that have more colors painted, patterns complex designs could have been used for ceremonial
purposes or used by the rich of the society then. The use of perforated jars is unknown, there are
speculations but they still do not help much on understanding its purpose. They could have been
used for ritualistic purposes or as decoration or possibly wrapped in cloth and used for brewing
alcohol, since the alcohol was known to them too. Cooking pots were generally large, rounded
and had red or black slipped rums. The lower parts of these pots was strengthened by thick slurry
or mixed clay with ground pottery. The decorative patterns vary from simple geometrical patterns
of horizontal lines to pictorial motifs. Some designs have fish, pipal leaves, intersecting circles,
human figures etc. Human figures though, are rare and crude. In the earliest levels of Mohenjodaro,
a burnished grey ware with dark purplish slip and a vitreous glaze may represent one of the earliest
examples of glazing in the world.7
Ochre Coloured Pottery
Ochre coloured pottery (OCP) was discovered in 1950-1951 in Uttar Pradesh at the sites of Bisauli
in Badaun district and at Rajpur Parsu in Bijnaur district. It is an ill-fired and wheel made pottery
style with fine to medium fabric. It has a thick red slip with is at time decorated with black bands.
Some pieces that were found had incised designs and post firing graffiti on it. The reason behind
the name of this type of pottery was because it left an ochre color on the fingers when rubbed
against. The cause behind this occuring is could be due to water logging, poor firing, wind action
or a combination of such factors. I believe the most probable out of these is due to poor firing
and/or a combination of the factors stated previously. More than 80 sites in western Uttar Pradesh
have this pottery. It has been found outside this area and is not exclusive to it. It has been found
distributed in the north and south directions. It has also extended west , where it was found in Noh
and Jodhpur in Rajasthan. At Atranjikhera and Noh, the OCP layer was followed by the Black and
Red Ware level which was followed by the Painted Grey Ware level. Some scholars believe that
Ochre coloured pottery is a degenerate form of late Harappan pottery while other saybit was an
independent tradition that was influenced in some areas by Harappan Pottery. 8

7 Singh U., (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12 th Century, Pearson
India Education Service Pvt. Ltd., pp 158-160.
8 Singh U., (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12 th Century, Pearson

India Education Service Pvt. Ltd., pp 216-217.

 Painted Grey Ware
It is a very fine, smooth and even coloured type of pottery and has thin fabric. The shades of
Painted grey wares range from a silver grey to a darker battleship grey. It was made from well-
worked and high quality clay. The designs were simple in nature and black paint was used to paint
the geometric patterns over it. Several rows of lines were made using multi tipped brush. This
design is most common. Dashes, dots, concentric circles, spirals etc were also painted on. Some
sites, especially those in Rajasthan show stamped or incised designs.
Uniform textures and colors indicate one thing and that is the firing or the baking was done with a
sophisticated technique. To achieve this feat they would have to maintain a uniformly high
temperature in the furnace. The pots would be kept over a fast spinning wheel and given an egg
shell thickness. Once they were hard, they were turned another time on the wheel. This time they
were smoothened and trimmed using scrapers. At times they may have a reddish tinge to them
which would mean a different locally available clay was used. 9
Wares from Foreign Trade

Foreign wares have been extensively found in port towns and regions that traded with other regions
apart from our own. For example, Arikamedu in Pondicherry. Arrentine ware and Roman
amphorae were found here. Roman amphorae were used to store wine and oils and traces of them
have been found while studying them by scholars. That indicates that we imported wine from them
and goods like our spices and textiles were of high demand in their native land and in exchange
for our goods they would supply us a large amount of their wine and silver and currency. It is
therefore said that the Roman’s drained their wealth in India due to the high demand for our goods.
Many pot sheds found were of pink fabric with yellow slip which was common in Europe before
rather than after the middle 1st century CE. Arrentine ware was introduced later and Roman
Amphorae had preceded the existence of arrentine ware in India. The amphorae had been
continually imported into India even after the introduction of Arrentine ware had stopped. This
shows that the Roman Amphorae were popular. We find Arrentine sherds along with amphorae
and the colors were primarily pink fabric with yellow slip. The shape varies a little. Amphorae are
usually fairly long with pointed but blunt on the bottom and have curved handles near the neck of
the ware (high shouldered handles). The necks are short and not as long as the body. The only
other site in India where amphorae of this kind was found was at Taxila. It is present in the Taxila
Museum.

Arrentine ware was a deep red like the sealing wax red to an Indian red (like geru) approaching
something like an orange-red. Initially when it was introduced the color was yellow primarily with
red veins. This was called are marbled ware due the look it gave. Marble stone most often has vein
like patterns due to its composition and this type of yellow with red vein colour looked like that.

9 Singh U., (2009), A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Pearson
India Education Service Pvt. Ltd., pp 247.
Later we see deep red or orange-red colours. The Arrentine ware belongs to the stamped pottery
category as some of it is decorated by being stamped into mould. Another name for this category
is terra sigilla, terra means earth, while sigilla probably come from the word sigil meaning a sign
or symbol or design.

There was another kind of pottery called rouletted pottery found in Arikamedu, which is not often
heard of. It was dish type of pottery sometimes more than 12 inches in diameter and in-curved and
beak rim which usually has a faceted edge. The inside flat portion of the dish was often decorated
with circular roulette pattern in two or occasionally three concentric circles of the pattern. The
colors ranged from those that were grayish pink with grey slip and brown to sepia outside to those
that were grey ware with black slip inside as well as outside, to those that were grey ware with
brown and lastly to those that were grey ware with black slip that had magnetic lustre.10

Conclusion
In this assignment I spoke of Black and Red ware (BRW), the site examples and their findings like
those at Burzahom and Mehrgarh, similar pottery at Kile Gul Mohammad and Damb Sadaat, Nal
pottery which was similar to the phase 2 of KGM and later phases of Damb Sadaat. Hakra ware,
Painted Grey ware and Ochre coloured ware were spoken of as also Harappan pottery. Most of
this I believe is basic and simple to understand and hence strengthen the base for students. The
foreign trade relations have led to so many developments in various port towns and trade centers
that it is difficult to talk about them all and therefore I focused on the site of Arikamedu. I would
have liked to include the Northern polished ware and much more of the details I learned while
studying and preparing this however I couldn’t and decided that I speak of the lesser known types
among students. Just from studying the pottery and other material evidences we are able to study
the trade relations of the time regions, their culture and socio-economic status and culture at that
point in time. Pottery sherds are scattered across various sites and new findings always emerge.
With the advancing technology we are able to understand the layers and the process of pottery
making better and also maybe acquire more accurate dating than just speculations for those that
we have little to no proper information.

10Sinha B.P., (1969), Potteries In Ancient India, Patna, Department of Ancient Indian History and Archaeology,
Patna University