Indus Ceramic Industries: Complexities, Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

The study of ceramic industries of the Indus Valley Period has largely been descriptive, involving their use as a chronological marker and a determining tool to understand the extent of cultural boundaries. However, with the introduction of new methodologies and analytical techniques, primarily borrowed from material sciences, an increased emphasis has been placed to assess the quality of ceramics and its links to various processes involved in their manufacture. These studies have given us an overall idea about certain clay paste recipes, tentative provenance of the raw-materials, composition of slips and decorative pigments, baking conditions and temperatures, and probable architecture of pottery kilns. From an overall review of ceramic studies, we now know that there are simple as well as complex ceramic manufacturing methods adopted by the Indus Valley ceramic manufacturers. However, to have an overall understanding of its various technological dimensions, several intangible components of the society needs to be understood. These include the organizational aspects of ceramic production, transportation mechanism that led to the movement of ceramics from the place of its manufacture to other destinations, the dissemination of technological knowhow between different settlements and regions. Moreover, we still have not understood whether the spread of specific ceramic types within the larger and adjacent domains of the Indus Civilization, occurred as a result of trade of goods where ceramics acted as containers for specific materials; for instance, liquids or special ceramics themselves being transported to other places as trade commodities. Further, we still have not reached a stage where we could work out the nature of polity and other social mechanisms that supported this trade/ exchange activities. The paper in this regard reviews the researches undertaken in the realm of ceramic industries of the Indus Valley Civilization and identify the unexplored areas of Indus ceramic industries.