Technologies of Indian Ceramics:
New findings and Revised Chronologies

NAMAN AHUJA

Claywork can be studied through history as a product of organisation of labour. It is plentiful, and it endures. Unlike stone artwork and buildings which are expensive, clay is widely used by all sections of society, and is a valuable archaeological source. The history of the exceptionally rich literary and aesthetic metaphors which are associated with ceramic artworks all over India – the kumbha, ghata, purna-ghata, etc. – from ancient texts, to living traditions, are not the subject of this paper. Neither does Naman allude to the use of unfired clay which has a massive history. He focusses on the history of fired ceramics: ancient, and medieval.

The first uses of the off-white clays of Baluchistan which turn to a biscuit beige or pale grey terracotta in 4000 BC form the start of his study. New research on the oxides and mineral pigments used to paint these exceptionally refined wheel-thrown pots by 3500 BC reveals a command on metallurgy we had not previously known about. A thousand years later, we see a shift to red clay which turns to the more easily recognised types of terracotta, that can be painted and/or burnished. It is also used for functional and ritual vessels, as well as sculpted objects and fired bricks and is widespread at all Harappan sites from 2800 to 1700BC. A variety of characteristic wares emerge thereafter: Pirak, with its distinctive geometric patterns with manganese and iron-oxide in 800 BC, Swat with its anthropomorphic pots in 700BC that are akin to the Agnicayana Vedic ritual pots of Kerala, Painted Grey Ware from 800BC onward, the so-called Northern Black Polished Wares from 400 BC onwards, and then Black-and-Red Ware (with heavily reduced, burnished black sections) that are common in South India from 200 BC onwards. It was at about this time that the use of moulds for making ceramic pots, plaques and figurines became endemic. Initially thought of as being unique to Roman sites, we are now able to see how this technology spread across the world at that time. And curiously, at least in India, the moulded ceramics became so popular, that even hand-made ceramics began to copy them in 200 AD.

While entire cities, complete with their reservoirs and roads, began to be made of fired terracotta in South Asia by 2800 BC, the earliest monumental clay sculptures don’t really survive from the period prior to the second century AD. Kushan period stupas in the ancient region of Gandhara were faced with grand sculptures, often of clay or stucco. In Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, temples were erected at Ahichhatra and Bhitargaon with terracotta sculptures in the fifth century. The tradition carried on right till the end of the ancient period at Nalanda and is also seen at Vaikuntha Perumal at Kanchipuram in the seventh to eighth century.

Surprisingly little is known about South Asian ceramics from the period between the seventh to twelfth centuries apart from some new discoveries of pre and early Ghaznavid ceramics from Afghanistan. It was from this region that the new tradition of white clays and a base for glazed tiles and faience, also known as fritware or stonepaste came to be used for the making of glazed and painted tiles. This technique began to be used in India after the twelfth century, and some of the grandest examples of that, from Gwalior, Multan, Gaur (Bengal), Agra (Chini ka Rauza), Thatta (Sindh) and Lahore, conclude this paper.

Dr Naman Ahuja is an art historian and curator. He is a professor of Indian Art and Architecture at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His studies on terracotta, ivories and small finds have drawn attention to a wide range of ritual cultures and transcultural exchanges at an everyday, quotidian level. He has curated several exhibitions, most notably The Body in Indian Art and Thought, and published books, including The Making of the Modern Indian Artist Craftsman: Devi Prasad