bead making was an important craft of Harappan civilization. explain
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Answer:
The Harappan civilization is referred to as a Bronze Age civilization.
Customarily, unalloyed copper was used for manufacturing artifacts and rarely tin was mixed with copper to make bronze.
Harappan Tools
Tools and weapons were simple in form. They comprised of flat -axes, chisels, arrowhead, spearheads, knives, saws, razors, and fish-hooks.
People also made copper and bronze vessels. They made small plates and weights of lead, and gold and silver jewelry of considerable sophistication.
The Harappans continued to use knives of chert blades. Further, a great skill and expertise have been seen in precious and semi-precious stone beads and weights.
Long barrel shaped cornelian beads (up to 10 cm. long) are the finest examples of craftsmanship.
Steatite was used for making a variety of objects like seals, beads, bracelets, buttons, vessels, etc. but its use in making faience (a form of glass) is particularly noteworthy.
The gold objects found in the form of beads, pendants, amulets, brooches, and other small ornaments in the Harappan civilization. The Harappan gold is of light color indicating high silver content.
Mature Harappan pottery represents a blend of the ceramic tradition of the pre-Harappan culture of both west of the Indus region as well as of the Saraswati area.
The pottery technology was quite advanced. Most of the pots were wheel-made.
Big storage jars were also produced. Pots were beautifully painted in black on the bright red surface with geometric designs, plants, animals, and a few paintings seem to depict scenes from stories.
More than 2,500 seals have been found. These are made of steatite. They mostly depict a single animal-unicorn bull, elephant, rhinoceros etc. but some also depict trees, semi-human, and human figurines; in some cases, participating in a ceremony.
Shell working was another flourishing industry. Artisans, settlements close to the sea manufactured shell ornaments like pendants, rings, bracelets, inlays, beads etc., besides objects as bowls, ladles, and gamesmen.
Trade and Commerce
Intensive agricultural production and large-scale trade played significant roles in flourishing of the Harappan civilization.
The elegant social structure and the standard of living must have been achieved by a highly developed system of communication and a strong economy.
The trade must have been internal in the beginning i.e. between one zone and another.
Agricultural produce, industrial raw materials (including copper ores, stone, semi-precious shells, etc.) were traded on a large scale.
Besides the raw material, they used to trade −
Finished products of metals (pots and pans, weapon, etc.);
Precious and semi-precious stones (beads, pendants, amulets, etc.); and
Ornaments of gold and silver were also traded to various areas.
They procured −
Copper from Khetri mines of Rajasthan;
Chert blades from Rohri hills of Sindh;
Carnelian beads from Gujarat and Sindh;
Lead from south India;
Lapis-lazuli from Kashmir and Afghanistan;
Turquoise and jade from central Asia or Iran;
Amethyst from Maharashtra; and
Agate, chalcedony, and carnelian from Saurashtra.
The occurrence of mature Harappan seals and other artefacts in contemporary Mesopotamian civilization, and some of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian objects in Harappan civilization, and the evidence of Mesopotamian documents established that the Harappans had the trading relationship with each other.