Metallic Marvels

Metals have a huge role in our daily life, from our utensils and vessels to the copper in the wire. These metals undergo a process called metallurgy, which is nothing but the purification of metals and the formation of alloys to attain their specification and serve respectively. This metallurgy has its deep roots since ancient times and India stands as its pioneer.

Source: Wikimedia commons

These metals are found even in several thousand years BCE. For instance, ancient times were divided based on metals like the Copper age, Iron Age, and Bronze Age in prehistory. Those were the times when metals were used as weapons, the first child of metallurgy. For the metallurgical process, India has served as the pioneer. India was a trailblazer in the field of metallurgy.

In the early historical time of around 1800 BCE, traces of the use of iron was found in the areas such as Dadupur, Malhar, Lahuradewa, and Raja Nala ka Tila. Iron smelting was done on large scale in India between the sixteenth to thirteenth centuries BCE. Iron objects such as weapons like axes, tongs, spoons, spikes, knives, bows, daggers, and many more were identified in India and date between 600 BCE to 200 BCE.

During the Bronze Age, bronze swords made of copper were found on the Harappan sites of Pakistan around the time 2300BCE. Iron metallurgy was extensively developed at the beginning of the first millennium. This was the time of peaceful settlements where the technical advancement of iron was significantly being developed, especially during the Maurya era.

Next online, is the emergence of steel. The Crucible technique, as popularly termed by the Europeans, is a process that involves high purity wrought iron, glass, and charcoal mixed in a crucible and heated until the iron melted and absorbed the carbon. Wootz steel was the first crucible steel that originated in India before the common era. It is also known as Seric steel. This product of India has been traded and widely exported through ancient Europe, China, and Arab. In the Middle East, it became Damascus steel. Periplus Maris Erythraei, a Greco-Roman manuscript, mentions the export of iron and steel to Greece from India.

References to medicinal uses of zinc are seen in a Sanskrit text Charaka Samhita on Ayurvedha, around 300 BCE. Another Sanskrit treatise on alchemy, Rasaratna Samuccaya explains the types of ores for zinc. It describes and differentiates that one kind of zinc is for medicinal purposes while the other is ideal for metal extraction.

Among all these metallurgy, one epic epitome is the Iron pillar of Delhi. It was erected at the time of the heroic king Vikramaditya, none other than Chandragupta II. Swords manufactured in India are made of Damascus steel. Another trademark of Indian metallurgy during the reign of the Mughal emperor, Akbar is the excellent invention of the fire alarms. Currency coins were also designed at their best.

Apart from all these technical findings, statues of Nataraj and Vishnu were cast during the Chola dynasty, involving five metals: copper, zinc, tin, gold, and silver. Seamless Celestial globe, another ecstatic creation of India by Ali Luqman in Kashmir. This was invented between the years 1589 to 1590 CE. To admire the talent of the Mughal metallurgists, a good example was, before the rediscovery of the seamless celestial globe in the 1980s, modern metallurgists declared it to be technically impossible to produce hallow, metal globes, without any seams. Such brains were the Mughal metallurgists.

To all these inventions of the metallurgists, India has served as a pioneer and acted as a guru/ paved a way that grew and spread the globe. The contribution and creation of India are tremendous.

Source: Wikimedia commons