Page 3 - Oct-Dec 2016

VOl. 13 No. 4
METAL MASTERS

India is well endowed with metal resources and metallurgy.
Arthashastra describes various mineral ores and they are referred as
dhatu of different kinds. In the 12 century, the Arab geographer Al-
th
Idrisi said “The Hindus excel in the manufacture of iron. It is impossible
to find anything to surpass the edge from Indian steel”.
NANO SILVER
Copper Today nano silver is used in washing machines

The indus Valley Civilisation was a melting pot of and wound healing. Do you know that Indians
metallurgy. The circular and the rectangular-shaped kilns had this indigenous technology
for hundreds of years. This
discovered in lothal, gujarat were believed to have been was seen in the silver beaten
used for casting of metals. into thin sheets pounded to
its nano form and used on
sweets.
Iron and Steel

in olden times, iron was directly extracted from iron-
rich ores that were reduced by means of charcoal and METAL MARVELS OF INDIA
also made corrosion proof. During the gupta period,
iron technology gained significant advancement. it also a marvel of india is the iron Pillar
showed its competent use in warfare in the medieval of Chandragupta ii Vikramaditya.
period like Mughal armoury and Tipu sultan’s rockets. it now stands near Qutub Minar
indian iron and steel was known the world over! in Delhi. The high amount of
phosphorus in the iron formed a
layer of ‘misamite’ which protected
Mercury the iron pillar from rusting. it

Mercury is a metal that has been of great alchemical reveals die-striking. Can you tell
importance in ancient times. some of the earliest literary what die-striking is?
references to the use of mercury distillation comes from ananya aryankita, IX-E, daV Public School,
arthashastra. unit-VIII, Bhubaneswar
wootz is derived from word ‘ukku’
Zinc meaning steel in Telugu and
Kannada. wootz steel was produced from
Nagarjuna has been ascribed 500 bCe to 1600 Ce. it is a kind of crucible
with the discovery of a unique steel made by adding large quantities of
way of extracting zinc in the book carbon to iron. Damascus swords were
rasaratnakara. in this method, made of this steel. Find out any
downward distillation of the zinc legend or story related to a
vapour was done after smelting Damascus sword.
zinc-ore using specifically designed
retorts with condensers and
furnaces, to obtain zinc metal.
ACTIVITY-METAL MAGIC

Gold and Silver using these key words describe how
Nataraja bronzes were made.
gold and silver were used to make ornaments in the molten
harappan period. The deepest mines of gold in the ancient wax knife metal
period was in Karnataka. The granulation technique was oven hole
used to make gold jewellery from the late 1st millennium clay copper
bCe.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20