Sharada Srinivasan Dr Ian C Glover

Abstract

Binary high-tinbronze alloys have been recorded in SE Asian antiquity, and it had been reasonable to regard known Indian examples as imports from tin-rich SE Asia due to the scarcity of tin in India. However, this paper puts forth new evidence of ancient and surviving high-tin bronze working in the Indian subcontinent. lt challenges the above assumption and indicates that the indigenous development of high-tin bronze working, and exploitation of the sparse tin deposits in ancient India, cannot be ruled out. Surviving traditions from Kerala in S lndia are documented of the manufacture of vessels and instruments of wrought and quenched high-tin bronze, and mirrors of cast high-tin bronze. New metallurgical evidence is presented for the continuous use of artefacts of high-tin bronze in the subcontinent from the 1st millennium BC to the present day, particularly in South India, which is corroborated by literary and iconographic evidence from the historical period.

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How to Cite
Wrought and quenched, and cast high-tin bronzes in Kerala State, India. (2022). Historical Metallurgy, 29(2), 69-88. https://hmsjournal.org/index.php/home/article/view/441
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