Ancient Indian Mining Metallurgy and Metal Industries: Vols 1 and 2 English 2002

The material progress of any country, apart from other things, depends upon mining, metallurgy and on metal industries. The present book is a study of the subject in the background of ancient India and is based on archaeological, literary and technological studies, covering every phase, commencing from the earliest times up to the nineteenth century. The book is spread over five chapters. Chapter 1 deals with the scope of the study, including a short survey of the history of metals in the ancient Indian metallurgy and metal industries. Chapter 2 deals extensively with the origins of copper metallurgy. Chapter 3 is devoted to the study of noble metals e.g. gold and silver. Chapter 4 contains an exhaustive study of Indian iron metallurgy, with special reference to the steel production of southern India. The study of miscellaneous metals like brass, tin, zinc and lead is dealt with in Chapter 5.