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Glass industry thrived before Roman contact
DR ALOK Kumar Kanungo of the Department of Archaeology, Deccan College (Pune), said there was a well developed glass industry in India much before the Indian and Roman civilisations came into contact.
DR ALOK Kumar Kanungo of the Department of Archaeology, Deccan College (Pune), said there was a well developed glass industry in India much before the Indian and Roman civilisations came into contact.
He was delivering a lecture on ‘Antiquity of Glass in India: Excavations at Kopia (Sant Kabir Nagar, Uttar Pradesh)’ at the second day of the national seminar on ‘Studies on the Ganga Civilisation: Shifting Paradigms’ in Banaras Hindu University on Saturday.
The Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology organised the seminar.
“On the basis of the archaeological findings at Arikamedu, some archaeologists believe that comparatively good glass and its technology came to India from Rome in the early centuries of the Christian era,” he said. However, in recent years, research on Indian glass indicated that there was a well developed glass industry in India well before it came in contact with the Romans, he added.
He further said the mapping of glass found in India revealed the presence of glass even in hinterland areas right from 1,000 BC onwards and it was widely spread during the Early Historic period along with many regional centres of production.
“Glass products, like beads and bangles, have been found at more than 200 archaeological sites in India. Yet we are not sure whether the early glass and its technology came to India from the West or developed indigenously or whether both these sources are valid,” he said.
He added that the evidence of glass manufacturing and working in ancient India from about 37 sites has been in the form of slag and waste pieces than in the form of furnaces and crucibles.
He said the two excavation during 2004-05 at Kopia had left no doubt that this site was not only a glass making and working centre of its time, but the whole economy was revolving around it.
