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The Affect of Crafting
Third Millennium BCE Copper Arrowheads
from Ganeshwar, Rajasthan

Uzma Z. Rizvi
 The Affect of
Crafting
Third Millennium
BCE Copper
Arrowheads
from Ganeshwar,
Rajasthan

Uzma Z. Rizvi

Rivizi text.indd 1 20/09/2018 11:12:52

 Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

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Uzma Z Rizvi 2018

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Rizvi text.indd 2 24/09/2018 10:56:59

 The Affect of
Crafting
Third Millennium
BCE Copper
Arrowheads
from Ganeshwar,
Rajasthan

Uzma Z. Rizvi
Archaeopress Archaeology

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Rivizi text.indd 4 20/09/2018 11:12:52
 This volume is dedicated to the memory of Abba and Nana.

For all the time we did not spend together, I spend my time now,
imagining time.

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8 List of Figures
& Tables
10 Acknowledgements
13 Preface
Part One
Chapter One
16 Introduction to the
Affect of Crafting
18 Crafting Theory:
Thinking about the
Affect of Crafting
18 The Affective Artefact:
Objects of Colonial Desire
and Objects of Science
19 Technology and Crafting
20 Style and Form:
Thinking about the
Function of Aesthetics
in Archaeology
21 Craft Specialization and
Production
21 Distinguishing Crafts:
Rituals, Aesthetics,
and Metallurgy
23 Contextualising Crafting:
Materiality and New 39 Kilarli Complex
Materialisms
24 On Crafting Resonance
25 On Crafting Materials
and Places
26 The Copper Collection
from Ganeshwar
28 Chapter Summary and
Introduction to Other
Chapters
Rivizi text.indd 6
Table of Contents
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
30 Contextualising 44 GJCC Material 58 The Affect of
the Ganeshwar Culture and Crafting and
Copper Corpus: Chronological Ancient Sociality
Archaeological Implications
59 Crafting Bodies
Practice and
44 Material Culture of the
Research 60 Labouring Places
GJCC
31 Paleo-climate, Irrigation, 61 Crafting Complexity
44 Ceramics
and Subsistence
62 Crafting Resonance
Agriculture 47 Copper Artefacts
64 Crafting Place
33 Ganeshwar Jodhpura 47 Arrowheads
Cultural Complex: 65 Belonging in the GJCC
49 Celts
Archaeological Surveys 66 Many Forms of
50 Fishhooks
33 Survey Methodology Belonging:
50 Bangles The Copper Hoards
35 GJCC Survey
50 Miscellaneous Shapes 66 The Affect of Crafting and
38 Ganeshwar Complex/
50 Microliths Ancient Sociality
Ladala Ki Dhani
38 Jodhpura Complex 50 Small Finds
38 Cheeplata/Neerja 50t Chronology
Complex 53 Comparison of Copper
Material: Regional
Context
39 Khetri Complex
53 Comparison of Copper
40 Archaeological Material: Bagor,
Excavations
Rajasthan
at Ganeshwar
54 A Short Note on the
Copper Arrowheads
from Chichali
54 Chronological
Comparisons with Early
Harappan Material
56 Chronological
Connections with
Kayatha Culture
56 A Short Note on Painted
Grey Ware (PGW)
and Chronological
Connections
56 Proposed Chronology
for GJCC
20/09/2018 11:12:52
 Part Two Appendices

Catalogue of
Images of All
Appendix I
Appendix II

Arrowheads Artefact Sheets
128 List of all GJCC 146 Registry of Copper
by Type from the Copper
Survey Sites Material from the
Collection of the
70 Type A Collection of the
Rajasthan State 140 List of Sites with Vitrified
Department State Department
78 Type B Waste Materials
of Archaeology of Rajasthan
86 Type C 144 List of Metal Production
and Museums
Sites—2003 Survey
88 Type D
112 Bangles Results
90 Type E
113 Blades 145 List of Mining and Raw
92 Type F Material Sites—2003
114 Celts
94 Type G Survey Results
115 Chisels
98 Unclassified
116 Hairpins
117 Hooks
119 Rings
120 Rods
121 Sawpiece
122 Spearheads 166 Bibliography
123 Wires 174 Index
124 Miscellaneous
125 Sikar Museum

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 List of Figures & Tables
All figures and tables are the
author’s unless otherwise noted
on figure and table captions

Figures

Figure 1.1 Figure 2.1 Figure 3.1

Satellite map of Rajasthan
with explored GJCC sites
Figure 1.2
Map of Rajasthan with district
lines and explored GJCC sites
Figure 1.3
Satellite map of GJCC Survey
sites based on 2003 Survey
that document vitrified metal
waste material.
Figure 1.4
Satellite map of GJCC Survey
sites with evidence of smelters
Figure 1.5
Satellite map of GJCC Survey
sites with evidence of raw
material procurement
Map of region with GJCC,
Ahar Banas, and Harappan sites
marked
Figure 2.2
Satellite map of GJCC Survey
sites
Figure 2.3
Sarpanj, Patwari and others
discussing mapping at Jodphura
Figure 2.4
Ladala ki Dhani, vitrified metal
waste deposits
Figure 2.5
Section of mound covered in
vitrified metal waste, Singhana
Figure 2.6
Satellite map of GJCC Survey
sites based on 2003 Survey
that document vitrified metal
waste material
Figure 2.7
Satellite map of GJCC Survey
sites with evidence of smelters
Figure 2.8
Metal production feature, Rasali
Figure 2.9
Metal production feature,
Burjiwala
Figure 2.10
Satellite map of GJCC Survey
sites with evidence of raw
material procurement
Figure 2.11
Copper source, Dhowri ki Dongri
Figure 2.12
Map of site of Ganeshwar,
drawing with community members
GJCC ceramic sample from
2000 Survey
Figure 3.2
GJCC incised ware,
Hawa Mahal Museum
Figure 3.3
GJCC reserved slip ware,
Hawa Mahal Museum
Figure 3.4
Copper artefacts from
Ganeshwar excavations
Figure 3.5
Copper arrowhead from
Ganeshwar excavations
Figure 3.6
Copper arrowhead from
Ganeshwar excavations, Type A
Figure 3.7
Copper arrowhead from
Ganeshwar excavations, Type B
Figure 3.8
Copper arrowhead from
Ganeshwar excavations, Type C
Figure 3.9
Copper arrowhead from
Ganeshwar excavations, Type D
Figure 3.10
Copper arrowhead from
Ganeshwar excavations, Type E
Figure 3.11
Copper arrowhead from
Ganeshwar excavations, Type F
Figure 3.12
Copper arrowhead from
Ganeshwar excavations, Type G

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Figure 3.13
Copper celt from
Ganeshwar excavations
Figure 3.14
Copper fish hooks from
Ganeshwar excavations
Figure 3.15
Copper bangle from
Ganeshwar excavations
Figure 3.16
Copper floral piece from
Ganeshwar excavations
Figure 3.17
Copper half wheel piece
from Ganeshwar excavations
Figure 3.18
Barrel shaped stone mottled
bead, Ganeshwar
Figure 3.19
Arrowheads from Bagor
Figure 3.20
Copper tools from the site
of Nal
Figure 3.21
Copper tool from Ganeshwar
excavations
Figure 3.22
Copper material from
Kalibangan
Figure 3.23
Copper arrowheads from
Banawali
Figure 3.24
Copper celts from Kayatha
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Tables
Table 2.1
Summary of estimated dates
and studies for paleo-climate
of Northern India during
mid/late Holocene
Table 2.2
Estimate of settled area for
the GJCC (in hectares)
Table 2.3
Percentage of types of sites
(based on 2003 Survey)
Table 2.4
Comparisons of number of GJCC
multifunctional sites
Table 2.5
Periodisation of Ganeshwar
based on excavations
Table 3.1
Metallurgical analysis:
percentage of copper in
artefact from Ganeshwar
Table 3.2
Ganeshwar-Jodhpura periodisation
based on excavation reports
Table 3.3
Radiocarbon dates from Jodhpura—
Charcoal Samples
Table 3.4
Projected dates for Ganeshwar
and Jodhpura chronology
Table 3.5
Chronological comparisons between
Ganeshwar and Bagor
Table 3.6
Calibrated dates and relative
chronological markers for the
GJCC
Table 3.7
GJCC chronological framework
in regional context
Table 3.8
Chronological comparisons with
examples used—GJCC in regional
context
20/09/2018 11:12:52
 Acknowledgements
This volume has benefitted from the collaborative
efforts of friends and colleagues here in the United
States and in India. I would like to begin by thanking
my colleagues at the Rajasthan State Department
of Archaeology and Museums: Arvind Mayaram
(Indian Administrative Service), Dr. Lalit Panwar
(Indian Administrative Service), Mrs. Naseem
Hussein (Deputy Secretary), Mr. A. K. Jaghadari
(Director, Department of Archaeology and Museums),
Mr. Zaffar Khan (Excavation Officer, Department
of Archaeology and Museums), Shri Daya Ram, and
for all the years of friendship, support, and endless
cups of tea, Pankaj Dharendra. I would be remiss if
I did not mention the officers from the Archaeological
Survey of India, Jaipur office, who were always
helpful. I would also like to acknowledge the intellec-
tual guidance of Shri R. C. Agrawala, Shri V. J. Kumar,
Dr. Rima Hooja and Dr. R. C. Swarnkar (Department
of Anthropology, University of Rajasthan). This
study is indebted to Harphool Singh, Dr. Ambika
Dhaka, H. C. Misra, and Nidhi Misra—all of whom
were integral to its success.
The late Gregory L. Possehl, University of
Pennsylvania, was invaluable to this project (and my
career), as have been my continued conversations
with Robert Preucel. Integral to these projects have
also been my research assistants, Clare Constantine
(Stanford University), Erin Silverstein, Samudyatha
Mysore Subbarama, and Julia Rittenberg (Pratt
Institute), and designer, Asad Pervaiz.
Sections of this book have been refitted from
other sources, including my PhD dissertation,
Configuring the Space In-Between: Redefining the
Ganeshwar Jodhpura Cultural Complex in Chalcolithic
Northeastern Rajasthan, India (Anthropology, UPenn
2007); “Crafting Communities and Producing Places:
Copper, Settlement patterns, and Social Identity
in the Ganeshwar Jodhpura Cultural Complex,
Rajasthan, India,” in Connections and Complexity:
New Approaches to the Archaeology of South Asia
(edited by S. Abraham, P. Gullapalli, T. Raczek, and
U. Rizvi, pp. 315–340, Walnut Creek, CA: Left
Coast Press, 2013), and “Crafting Resonance: Empathy
and Belonging in Ancient Rajasthan” (Journal of
Social Archaeology, 2015). Versions of sections have
also been presented at conferences: first, at the 2007
Society for American Archaeology Meetings and
continuing through to 2008 during my post-doctoral
work at Stanford University. Parts of it appeared
again at Theoretical Archaeological Group meetings
in 2010, at the Society for American Archaeology
10
Rivizi text.indd 10
Meetings in 2011, and most recently at the Annual
South Asia Archaeology workshop in 2013.
This book emerges from research that was made
possible by the financial support of the Fulbright-
Hayes Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad
(DDRA PR/Award No. P022A020048) Grant, the
George F. Dales Fellowship, the Zwicker Fellowship
(UPENN), and the Mellon Foundation Fellowship
for Faculty Research (Pratt Institute). Preliminary
work was funded by the Department of Anthropology
(UPENN) Summer Field Funds (2000). I would
also like to acknowledge the institutional support
of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS)
and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS).
Additionally, I have benefitted greatly from the
support of Richard Meadow and his colleagues at the
Peabody Museum, Harvard University, for access to
and help with the Paul Yule archives.
I thank my colleagues who work on the archae-
ology of South Asia with whom I have established
a vibrant intellectual community, whose support
and debates have seen me through many a difficult
turn. Those with whom I have worked most closely
over the years and require special mention are
Shinu Abraham, Praveena Gullapalli, Teresa Raczek,
Namita Sugandhi and Marta Ameri. I have often
bent the ear of Heather Miller, who has always been
gracious in her guidance and assistance and to whom
I owe a great deal for her insight, as well as Mark
Kenoyer and Richard Meadow. In addition to these
individuals, Josh Wright and Benjamin Porter have
interacted with this material through the 10 year
wait to publish and have influenced and supported
my work in crucial ways. And at my home institu-
tion, Pratt Institute, the following individuals have
contributed enormously to ensuring this volume
came to completion: Ann Holder, Lisabeth During,
Gregg Horowitz, Carl Zimring, Francis Bradley, Josiah
Brownell and Sophia Straker-Babb. For her gracious-
ness and support, I would like to also thank Gina
Shelton, our reference librarian at the Pratt Library.
The Ganeshwar Jodhpura Cultural Complex
(GJCC) survey project was possible with the
undying support of key individuals in New Delhi,
Pune, Udaipur, Baroda and Jaipur, India. I must
thank and acknowledge the following: Dr. R. S. Bisht
(Archaeological Survey of India) for all the hours
and discussions he obliged me with while in Delhi,
Dr. A. Nath (Archaeological Survey of India) for
his open-door policy, quick survey methodology
classes on cold January mornings, and his ability
20/09/2018 11:12:52
 to touch the hearts of students worldwide. I will
always remember debating the third millennium
BCE while simultaneously learning how to navigate
the Delhi bus system with Shri B. M. Pande, who
taught me so much. In Pune, my primary advisor
at Deccan College, Dr. V. Shinde, intellectually
shaped my research; and Mr. Bhandare (AIIS-Pune),
who was instrumental in setting my work up
during my first year there. In Udaipur: Drs. L. Pandey,
and J. Kharakwal—both of whom continue to inspire
and support my work in the region. In Baroda:
at M.S. University, Drs. V. N. Sonawane, K. Krishnan,
K. K. Bhan and A. Prasad—each of whom helped
tremendously in the preliminary stages of this
research project. Of course, this survey would not
have been possible without my core survey team,
whose diligence, good humor and archaeological
expertise were invaluable to this project: H. C. Misra,
Rakesh Sharma, John Tennyson, Nidhi Misra, Zehra
Rizvi, Ambika Dhaka and Ashish Nagar. It is also
important to acknowledge the institutional support
in India that I received from both the American
Institute of Indian Studies, where Dr. Pradeep
R. Mehendiratta and Purnima Mehta have always
been supportive and kind, and the Fulbright India
office, where Ms. Bharati and Girish Kaul made
all the paperwork just a little easier to deal with, and
to Professor Jane Schukoske for her unending support
and good cheer. More over and beyond, there are the
superfriends: Sunila Kale, Naisargi Dave, and Surabhi
Kukke—each of whom has had a hand in making me
the scholar/woman/mother/friend I am today.
Many thanks also to the editors at Archaeopress,
in particular David Davison, whose patience, good
humor and willingness to let Asad and me experiment
with form was much appreciated. This volume has
benefitted enormously from early edits by Murtaza
Vali and copyediting by Michael Jennings.
Last, but not least, I must thank my family for
their years of unrelenting support, understanding
and willingness to put up with all of my shenanigans:
thank you, Amie, Abbu, Zehra and Sakina. And my
other family—particularly Shakir Uncle and Nargis
Aunty—thank you for always supporting me
unconditionally in my ambition and research;
Fatubai and Zahra, you are sisters to both me and
my daughter; and Moose, we are bereft and miss you
unconditionally. I could not have done any of this
without the light of my eyes, the loves in my heart,
my critically engaged, supportive and wonderful
family: Murtaza Vali and Zainab Sophia.

11

Rivizi text.indd 11 20/09/2018 11:12:54

 12

Rivizi text.indd 12 20/09/2018 11:12:57

 Preface

The material presented in this book has waited a all of those aspects, but one aspect that I continued
long time to be published. In 2003 I presented the to wait upon was a more detailed discussion of the
director of the State Department of Archaeology copper artefacts from the Department of Archaeology
and Museums, Rajasthan, A. K. Jagdari, with three and Museums, Jaipur collection. In many ways, a
copies of a CD of images of the copper material from decade passing has been useful because I approach this
the Ganeshwar excavations (1978–79), along with material from a mature stance, and I have a different
a final report of work in Rajasthan. I was indebted relationship with my discipline, with the materials
to him and the department for providing me the op- and with ancient South Asia.
portunity to document the landscape and the copper This decade between research and publishing
material. As such, and in the spirit of decolonization, has taught me the value of slow analysis and
I felt I should provide the department the first thoughtful research. This is a very simple project,
chance to publish the images of copper material, and with both the crux and crisis located in the same
only if they were unable to do so within a certain span space. In making things, subjectivities are also
of time would I publish the images. We agreed constructed, places are also crafted, aesthetic empathy
to a couple things that day: first, we negotiated creates resonances and senses of belonging, and
a time frame. I agreed to wait 10 years before everything involved is transformed for having
publishing the images. Second, we agreed experienced each other. In much the same way this
that every image of the arrowheads would be project has transformed me and my research interests.
represented if possible. A decade later I visited the And for that, I am grateful.
department’s offices in order to see if a publication
of this material was in process, and as none was,
I am honoured to present this material for publica-
tion. With this publication, I have fulfilled, to the
best of my ability, both of my promises to the State
Department of Archaeology and Museums, Rajasthan.
In the years 2000 and 2003 when I was conduct-
ing my doctoral dissertation research, while I had very
little guidance on how to decolonize archaeological
practice, it was clear to me that it had to happen.
In retrospect, in some instances I gave up too much
power, authorship, and authority; and in other
moments, not enough. But that was to be expected,
because archaeology as a discipline had yet to really
understand, engage with or work through decoloni-
zation. There was, by then, some sense of community
archaeology, and with the help of that scholarship,
and with a look to history, in particular to the subal-
tern studies group, I figured out a methodology,
an ethic, a community based research practice, and
what a postcolonial archaeology might look like.
I have, since conducting this research, published on

Uzma Z. Rizvi

Brooklyn, NY
January 2015

13

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Rivizi text.indd 14 20/09/2018 11:12:57
 Part One
The Affect of
Crafting

16 Chapter One
Introduction to the Affect of Crafting

30 Chapter Two
Contextualising the Ganeshwar Copper Corpus:
Archaeological Practice and Research

44 Chapter Three
GJCC Material Culture and Chronological Implications

58 Chapter Four
The Affect of Crafting and Ancient Sociality

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 Chapter One
Introduction to the
Affect of Crafting
This book provides an interdisciplinary lens to
the copper material collected and excavated from
Ganeshwar, while reconceptualising the Ganeshwar-
Jodhpura Cultural Complex (GJCC) in third
millennium BCE India. The GJCC are communities
of copper producers. Located in Northeastern
Rajasthan, these settlements are bound together
by a shared cultural vocabulary that encompasses
similarities in material culture, production of copper
tools, and geographic proximity to copper mines
(Figure 1.1: map of region). For over a decade, the
focus of my research has been on establishing links
between technological complexity and socio-political
complexity (2007, 2010, 2013a). I have demonstrated
how the GJCC is an indigenous development that
sustains a larger regional economic need for copper
products in the Ancient South Asian landscape (2007).
The underpinnings for regional economic organiza-
tion are resource specialized complexes located in
highly circumscribed regions where copper is a natural
resource (Scarborough, Valdez, and Dunning 2003).
These copper producing communities may have
come together through variables, such as population
increase—technological knowhow, or a simple
adaptation to a landscape, but central to understanding
them is their relationship to copper.
This book is about the relationships between
copper and humans that produce practices, forms,
styles, and traces on a landscape. It is through those
relationships that material, humans, and cultures
are transformed and through which we might under-
stand ancient sociality. ‘Ancient sociality’ describes
the many simultaneous social relationships that exist
among all things (human, animal, mineral, and so
16
Rivizi text.indd 16
forth). This book interrogates how the (intangible)
social is produced through material relations.
It illustrates how affective responses of belonging
emerge in those material moments linking an
evocative intimacy to specific things and landscapes.
This volume presents an interrogation of materi-
ality and crafting, a consideration of the situatedness
of the technological practice of crafting itself, and the
forms of relationships that exist between all things
transformed in the act of crafting: bodies, minerals
and landscapes. Linked to those transformations, this
volume presents an argument for cultural resonance
as a manner through which to understand the
resilience and repetition of certain styles and forms
of copper arrowheads across the region during the
third millennium BCE. Morphological consistency
is theorized as producing affective responses that
engender belonging: one belongs through things.
Prior to this study, the GJCC had predominantly
been considered in relation to the Indus Civilization
as a resource area, a marginal and frontier region
(Agrawala 1978a and b, 1979a and b; Agrawala
and Kumar 1982; Hooja 1994; Sinha 1997). This
argument reflects early interpretations of the region
as a hunting-gathering society based on the presence
of microliths and copper arrowheads (Agrawala
and Kumar 1982, 127). These interpretations are also
based on comparative evidence for sedentary agrarian
practices, as seen at sites like Kalibangan, Ahar,
and Gilund (Agrawala and Kumar 1982,127; Hooja
1994,128). I challenged this interpretation in my
PhD dissertation (2007) and will present a brief
discussion of paleoclimate, ancient irrigation studies
and material culture that index agricultural practices
20/09/2018 11:12:57
 Rajasthan
0 62.5 125 250
N Kms
Figure 1.1
Satellite map of Rajasthan with explored GJCC sites marked
in the GJCC in chapter two. The excavations at
Ganeshwar and Jodhpura do not suggest a lack of
sedentary agricultural practice; rather, the evidence
suggests different agro-cultural practices in antiquity.
The lack of architecture for the storage of surplus is
more likely an issue related to the scale of excavations
at these various sites. As early as 2900 BCE, the GJCC
emerges as a community with subsistence strategies,
including fishing and hunting, as evidenced by
fishhooks and faunal remains, as well as some early
farming suggested by paleo-climate reconstructions,
burnt grains/seeds and grinding stones, found in early
contexts (Rizvi 2007, 186).
A core argument that has run through all my
work on the GJCC is that these communities
were not politically or economically weak as they
maintained their autonomy from adjoining larger
political forces (such as the cultures of the Ahar
Banas to the south/southwest and the Harappan
to the north/northwest). The GJCC are complex
communities, and this book interrogates how these
communities maintained themselves as distinct
cultural units (Porter 2013). Utilizing primary research
conducted in the region and the documentation of
17
Rivizi text.indd 17
Explorations
Rajasthan Border
India
the copper corpus from Ganeshwar, I argue that
the affect of crafting can be understood through the
relationships between bodies, minerals and landscapes
as they co-constructed senses of belonging through
form and practice during the third millennium BCE.
This book is focused on two acts of crafting in
the GJCC: one of resonance and the other of place,
and both through copper. The shift from thinking
about crafting as primarily linked to economy and
the production of material objects to a consideration
of the affect of crafting allows this analysis to run
parallel to discussions of craft specialization. Within
the archaeology of South Asia, craft specialization
highlights economics, technology, and material
culture studies, dominating the archaeological
literature (for example, Agrawal 2000; Agrawal and
Kharakwal 2003; Biswas 1996; Kenoyer, Vidale,
and Bhan 1991; H. L. Miller 2007; Ratnagar 2007;
Sher and Vidale 1985; Sinopoli 2003; Wright 1991).
I am not suggesting that craft specialization and
material culture studies are insignificant to this
analysis. Rather, I believe that the analysis presented
in this volume should be considered in addition
to the more conventional forms of archaeological
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 Chapter One
analysis; that is to say, there may be complimentary
ways to look at the same material. Resonance and
placemaking as theoretical tools developed in this
book are situated between and intertwined with
the literature of craft specialization (economics/
technology/complexity) and material culture studies/
materiality/new materialisms. The development of
crafting as resonance and placemaking is influenced by
all of these discourses. For example, it is through the
exploration of economic specialization and technology
that a focus on placemaking was possible and through
thinking about objects as things in relation to theories
of new materialism that a consideration for resonance
as empathy and belonging emerged. A theory related
to affect of crafting allows for multiple considerations
and reconstructions of past socialities.
Crafting Theory: Thinking About
the Affect of Crafting
At the core of the affect of crafting is that what is
crafted is not only a material object, but rather that
a transformation is crafted in all manners (tangible/
intangible), experienced by everything involved.
The archaeological literature of South Asia tends to
focus on the finished craft object, the systems by
which that object becomes a commodity, and the
intersections of craft specialization studies with a
material science approach to technology. The focus
on the affect of crafting is a conscious move away
from an analysis of such systems and materialities,
providing, instead, an alternative appreciation of such
processes, decision making, and transformations.
It should be noted that there is methodological and
philosophical promiscuity necessarily embedded
within this framework, primarily as a means to disturb
how these systems of knowledge have been created
allowing for a different perspective on the same
material. However, developing such a lens continues
to be predicated upon a specific history of the artefact
in archaeological theory within a regional (South
Asian) archaeological literature. The following
sections provide a framework which has informed the
manners in which this particular study has developed.
The Affective Artefact: Objects of Colonial
Desire and Objects of Science
Artefacts have a long history of having been con-
structed through discourses of desire, fetish, and
collection. The excitement or thrill of holding,
touching and possessing a relic or an artefact creates
as its subtext a desire to expand
1 systems of control to encompass
www.nsf.gov/news/spe-
cial_reports/history-nsf/
timeline/index.jsp (last
accessed Sept. 28, 2015)
18
Rivizi text.indd 18
past times. The creation of a colonial desire for the
artefact, links between coloniality and collections,
as well as the manner in which the postcolonial
nation has dealt with the artefact have been well
documented in different contexts (de Jong 2008;
Gosden 2004; Gullapalli 2008; Harrison 2006; Lahiri
2005). The artefact emerges as the desired object
not only in terms of collection but following, and
arguably prompted by, that as the primary object
of archaeological inquiry. The development of
archaeology as a field or method of study and its
link to modernity is an important framework within
which to understand this project. Moreover, archaeol-
ogy has a deep relationship with colonialism, which
entangles the discipline with capitalism, nation
building, and the development of a particular form
of science that provides a basis for Western liberalism
(Rizvi 2016; J. Thomas 2004). The transformation
of these colonial spaces in the post-colonial time
period creates the context within which artefact
study emerges in distinct manners within the
developing fields of anthropological archaeology,
art history and ancient history. This moment is
marked by the establishment of postcolonial nations
with heterogeneous populations, and the develop-
ment of these fields in these new contexts (Gullapalli
2008; Paddayya 2002; Trautmann and Sinopoli 2002).
Global politics became explicitly technopolitical,
and the importance of science as defending rational,
progress oriented and secular ideals was reinstated
with additional emphasis, mobilizing war time
efforts for peace time research. The linking of national
developmental agendas with science can be seen,
for example, in the United States, through the
establishment of the National Science Foundation
(NSF). The NSF emerged as a post war effort, first
articulated by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1944. Legislation was put forward to Congress
in 1945, and by 1950 the NSF was established.1
A key shift within anthropological archaeology at
this time was the recognition that civilisational sweeps
as grand narratives based on race/language/culture
were no longer sufficient, and in fact, had problematic
contemporary outcomes (Erdosy 1995; Johansen 2003;
Rizvi 2013a; Shaffer 1984). As archaeology refocused
its lens on the artefact with science and technology
in mind, the distance that took place with colonial
othering inherent in the ethnographic frameworks was
replaced with that of scientific objectivity. This led
to a reifying of a static object as artefact to be studied,
and within South Asia, has defined how archaeology
is valued and practiced by postcolonial nation-states
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 Introduction to the Affect of Crafting
(Chadha 2010). The reliance on the objective distancing
of scientific analysis and method led to the artefact
being coded first and foremost as empirical evidence of
ancient cultures, effectively removing any connection
to the present.
Steeped in this core belief in science and its
unquestioned benefit for archaeology, Lewis Binford
placed Archaeology within Anthropology, relying
upon the artefact to illustrate the significance of how
one might understand the larger system of culture:
‘Artefacts having their primary functional context
in different operational sub-systems of the total
cultural system will exhibit differences and similarities
differentially, in terms of the structure of the cultural
system of which they were a part’ (1962, 18). Such a
perspective promoted the idea that there was material
culture and that there was an intangible aspect of the
artefact that connected to a larger cultural system,
although the latter was not expressed as such. In the
archaeology of South Asia, much of the literature was
based on systems theories developed primarily to
understand social evolutionary models of civilisation
(Fairservis 1971; Malik 1968). In a shift away from
considerations based on such models of power,
Binford’s system based approach to material culture
applied a scientific method to similar questions and
permitted archaeologists to focus in on certain systems
of production—of material, of meaning, of ethnicities,
and most significantly, for the Indus world, of the link
between artefacts and complexity (Dales 1986; Dales
and Kenoyer 1986; Fuller and Boivin 2002; Shaffer
1984; see Paddayya 2010 for a review of Binford’s
impact on Indian archaeology).
The idea that artefacts were a part of a larger
system, and that by studying them one could speak
to the culture, was also addressed specifically in
relationship to social contexts of technology (Dobres
1995; Sherratt and Sheratt 2001). Perhaps most
cited in relation to the social context of technology
is André Leroi-Gourhan’s work on chaîne-opératoire
or operational sequence (1964), in which the highly
routinised practice, the step-by-step description
of movement and gesture, is placed within a social
space, and the life cycle of the crafted object is taken
into account. This is distinct from later work on the
cultural biography of things and their relationships
to commoditisation by Igor Kopytoff (1986), or
from Chris Gosden and Yvette Marshall’s work on
the cultural biography of objects that locates and
interprets the accumulation of meanings performed
between people and objects (1999). Leroi-Gourhan’s
work focuses on the systems of technology as
19
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systems of culture. For him, such a focus is related
to a philosophy of technology as it relates to the
cognitive cultural worlds inhabited by individuals.
For archaeologists, Leroi-Gourhan’s work is significant
as a systemic approach to past culture, a system in
which certain types of technologies existed based on
the finished objects. Moreover, his theoretical frame-
work provides a socio-cultural element to the study of
technological processes of the past through a link with
cognitive psychology (see Boivin 2008; Malafouris
2013; Renfrew 1994). Leroi-Gourhan’s philosophy
of technology is a philosophical inquiry of the social
symbolic; however, the vast majority of citations of
chaîne-opératoire within archaeological literature of
South Asia tend to be within a materialist perspective
of technology. The material science approach allows
archaeological discussion to embed technological hap-
penings within a social fabric, with social implications
(Gullapalli 2013; Vidale and Miller 2000). However,
early materialist approaches in Indus archaeology
challenged the utility of focusing on the operational
sequence as it limited ‘the understanding of wider
implications of technology’, and these archaeologists
tend to look to paleotechnology to elaborate on the
ancient world, establishing their interpretation in the
material sciences (Vidale 1998, 179).
Technology and Crafting
In the past two decades, paleotechnology (i.e., the
study of ancient technology) has dominated the
South Asian archaeological literature and imagination.
This approach utilizes archaeology, stratigraphy,
archaeometry, and ethnoarchaeology, arguing that
technical systems are most consistently and reliably
documented in the archaeological record (Bhan,
Vidale, and Kenoyer 1994; Kenoyer, Vidale, and
Bhan 1991; Vidale 1995). The significance of
paleotechnology in Indus studies also provided the
platform for work on the provenance and sourcing
of minerals and stones, allowing for tangible, scientific
data related to the movement of resources (Law 2005;
Law and Baqri 2003; Law and Burton 2006). The need
for archaeological information to be placed in a socially
viable interpretation provided the impetus to merge
considerations of paleotechnology with technological
systems (Lemonnier 1986; H. L. Miller 2007; Vidale
and Miller 2000). The link between Indus technologi-
cal systems as a value and social hierarchies became
a very important conceptual bridge allowing for a
merging of significant bodies of literature on technol-
ogy and politics (Miller 2007; Rizvi 2011). Current
studies related to technology and crafting within the
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 Chapter One
South Asian context now assume the social context
of technology, the use of technological systems, and
their interrelationship, whether it is to interrogate
specific technological applications like lamination
of iron in ancient India (Gullapalli 2013) or to
investigate the relationship of lithics to mobility and
subsistence on the Mewar plains (Raczek 2011).
The implicit interconnectivity of the discourses
of technology to economics is what allows for
resource extraction, provenance, and thus, the mineral
itself to inform consequences of social hierarchy
(Rizvi 2007; Sinclair 1995). In particular, this acuity
of the mineral or raw material also informs the
technological system as different levels of resistance
of the material may require distinct processes. Within
a technological system, whether specialized or not,
while the operational sequence may be one aspect
within many steps of technological production,
it is a crucial one as it focuses on the incorporation
of body techniques (Mauss 1979), making the act
of production a social phenomenon (Dobres 2000;
Gullapalli 2013; H. L. Miller 2007; Raczek 2013;
Rizvi 2013b; Vidale and Miller 2000). Often
implicit, but profoundly significant to this study, is
the idea that through an analysis of technical systems
both body and raw material become mediums of
negotiation among technology, society, materiality,
and economy. The relationship between technology
and crafting thus allows us to see how bodies and
raw materials are simultaneously mired in various
transformations, resistances and reformations
within a shifting social system that accommodates
those changes while informing the negotiations.
Style and Form: Thinking about the Function
of Aesthetics in Archaeology
The focus on systems within scientific approaches in
archaeology begs the question of functionality, and
within technology oriented archaeological work, a
refocusing on aesthetics of style and form has recently
emerged. Early archaeological work on style and
form had established that there was functionality to
style, i.e., the communication of cultural information
(Wobst 1977), which led to social knowledge informing
complexity (Conkey 1978). Despite cautions reminding
archaeologists that though social information may be
contained in material culture, that the relationship
between the two cannot be thought of as one-to-one
and may have more to do with social conditioning
and context (Hodder 1979), there was still a clear desire
on the part of archaeology to better understand the
linkage between complexity and the artefact.
20
Rivizi text.indd 20
Ethnoarchaeological studies posited individual
producers as conscious decision makers of style
in the production of particular objects, linking
both producers and users of each object to specific
language groups or groups that hold similar values
(Wiessner 1983). For other archaeologists, decisions
of individuals were shaped by the traditions within
which they were acculturated and, thus, had more
to do with the social context within which the produc-
ers produced (Sackett 1985). Located somewhere
between those two possibilities, ancient Indus social
units began to be thought of as possible ethnic groups
whose ‘salient cultural traits are material cultural
symbols, such as distinctive ceramic styles, used to
indicate membership in cooperative social units, and
organized to facilitate access to sources of production
and reproduction’ (Shaffer and Lichtenstein 1989,
119; see Hodder 1979). There were few after Jim
Shaffer and Diane Lichtenstein willing to discuss
Indus ethnicity because of its contemporary political
implications in India, but certainly the idea of com-
munity memberships as cooperative social units and
their relationship with economies of production and
reproduction have informed the framework for many
a South Asianist and have had a lasting impact on the
ways that belonging to a social group is understood.
In this equation, the significance of material cultural
symbols as aesthetic choices assumes a tacit collec-
tive agreement contextualized within questions of
religious ideology (Possehl 2002; Wright 2010).
The exceptions to this trend include studies of seals
that depict Indus unicorn ideology in which Mark
Kenoyer posits a relationship between aesthetic
forms of the unicorn and stages of urbanism (2013),
and an argument put forward by Marta Ameri for
Harappan regional diversity based on aesthetic
choices, i.e., the style and iconography of seals (2013).
Not traditionally coded in discussions of style
and form or aesthetics in archaeology is the literature
related to figurines. Discussions of style and form
have predominantly been focused upon non-human
forms, assuming that human representation could
be taken as a potential one-to-one ideal. It was the
feminist and queer approach to gender, sex and
sexuality that allowed for representation to be
problematised. Within the Indus context, Sharri
Clark’s work has articulated the significance of these
figurines as not explicitly rendering sex/gender/
sexuality, but rather that they ‘implicitly embody
conceptions of sex, gender, and sexuality in Indus
society’ (2003, 308). Clark’s study utilizes ‘shape,
the presence of sex attributes, dress, ornamentation,
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 Introduction to the Affect of Crafting
and certain postures’ to talk through possible
gender roles and the fluidity of identity (2003, 323).
There is an aesthetic dimension to implicit embodi-
ment (Geller 2009; Joyce 2005; Voss 2008).
Following the early work on gender, inspired by the
continued feminist critique, archaeology has also
understood the body as central in the discussions
of crafting (Dobres 1995; Hendon 1996; Joyce 1998;
Joyce and Hendon 2000). The tension between an
embodied artefact and the process of crafting is pivotal
to the analysis of the affect of crafting. Clark deals with
this tension when referring to how the ‘Harappans
physically engaged with and inserted themselves into
the fabric of their world through terracotta figurines’
(2009, 235). Embodiment and weaving one into
terracotta have been primarily discussed in relation
to human or anthropomorphic figures. The affect
of crafting imbues that possibility in all craft.
Craft Specialization and Production
As bodies, materials, and technologies are enmeshed
in a social fabric of reconstructed antiquity,
archaeological analysis of craft production hones in
on intentionality. Crafting presupposes a level of
expertise and intention on the part of makers and
of producers (Costin 1991; Sinopoli 2003). These
two factors underlie the archaeological desire to
understand crafting as a specialized activity, particu-
larly focused on questions related to trade, exchange,
and the structures of governance in place to support
those relations. Craft specialization became a way
by which archaeologists entered into discussion about
the organization of production, which included the
distribution of raw materials, the nature of technology
and the divisions of labour. Cathy Costin argued for
the distinction of specialization to be understood
as ‘a differentiated, regularized, permanent, and
perhaps institutionalized production system in which
producers depend on extra-household exchange
relationships at least in part for their livelihood,
and consumers depend on them for acquisition of
goods they do not produce themselves’ (1991, 4).
Importantly, she drew our attention to issues the
scale and contexts of production.
As mentioned previously, these questions were
and continue to be vital in the archaeology of South
Asia (Bhan, Vidale, and Kenoyer 1994; Kenoyer,
Vidale, and Bhan 1991; Law et al. 2012; Rizvi 2007).
In a South Indian context, Shinu Abraham utilizes the
study of craft production ‘to materially reconstitute
the still-poorly understood social, political and
economic systems of early Tamil South’ (2013, 240).
21
Rivizi text.indd 21
Within Indus scholarship this manifests as a focus on
complexity and its impact on society, politics and the
economy through an investigation of intensification,
diversification and specialisation of the region’s
agro-pastoral and craft-producing economy (Wright
2010, 145). It is through such foundational studies that
broader questions related to craft specialization and
the relationships between divisions of labour, ques-
tions of identity, and social value can be investigated
(Clark 2007; Clark and Parry 1990; Costin and Wright
1998; Shaffer and Lichtenstein 1989). The concept
of identity allowed archaeologists interested in gender
and division of labour to consider the relationship
between the state and the individual (Costin 1996).
Carla Sinopoli, in discussing the crafting of
empire in Vijayanagra, highlights the significance of
political economy when thinking about specialized
craft labour, specifically demonstrating how they
impact one another. Sinopoli articulates how different
scales of craft may have differing levels of socio-
complexity and political economy associated with
them (2003). Along similar lines, Teresa Raczek draws
attention to everyday, non-specialist craft production
in relation to Mewar lithic manufacture, focusing
on objects ‘produced primarily for use by the maker
and his or her household instead of for circulation’
(2013, 342). Circulation in this capacity does not mean
the movement of things, but rather their explicit
movement within economic systems, and presumes
a direct relationship between the complexities
of economic and political systems. In so far as there
is specialisation of craft, there is intentionality to
the use and labour of the body, and I would argue,
the mineral/raw material and the landscape within
which the crafting occurs. Thus, labouring bodies
and minerals are circulating in the same social,
political and economic systems as finished objects/
commodities, which inform the identity of those
bodies and their relationship to materials.
Distinguishing Crafts: Rituals, Aesthetics,
and Metallurgy
It is assumed that although the economic processes
and systems within which craft specialization occurs
may have similar impacts on complexity, each
form of crafting is itself distinct and involves various
actants in multiple capacities. Compared to most
other crafts, the crafting of metals has a unique
position within archaeological worlds. Christian
Jürgensen Thomsen introduced the three age system
(stone, bronze, and iron) into archaeological discourse,
intertwining typologies with chronologies and
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 Chapter One
materiality with progress (1836). However, the high
status given to metals within techno-archaeological
imaginaries can be specifically traced back to
V. Gordon Childe’s Huxley Memorial Lecture for
the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
and Ireland in 1944, entitled Archaeological Ages
as Technological Stages. In this lecture, Childe posited
stages of human technological evolution as cultural
evolution linked primarily to metallurgical acuity,
illustrating the sociological implications of each
process of crafting tools. For Childe, the technological
tradition as seen in material culture could be under-
stood as social tradition (for more on Childe and
cultural history, see J. Thomas 2004, 112–113).
Implicit in the materially linked categorization of
the Ages was an evolutionary, progress oriented,
and scientific aspiration that categorized prehistory
worldwide. The impact of these archaeological ages
continues to be felt even in contemporary populations
in the postcolony and with othered populations.
I have argued elsewhere that there is a clear connection
between the continued uncritical use of such archaeo-
logical labels to describe the behaviour of populations
of people, exemplified by the common phrase
‘they still live in the Stone Age,’ and contemporary
indigenous/Adivasi politics in India (Rizvi 2013a).
Ironically, although Childe’s framework found
its basis in tradition, the cultural historical frame-
work did not encourage any non-technical aspect
to crafting metal, such as cultural rituals associated
with crafts—and archaeological interpretations about
ancient smithing and smelting became resolutely
about scientific metallurgy. Science, technology, and
the industrial nature of the person, the ore, and the
socio-political landscape became inextricably linked
to each other, impacting archaeological interpreta-
tions and assessments of civilisational strength. The
erasure of the non-technical elements in the deep past,
however, could not erase the history of metallurgy
in, for example, Britain prior to the industrial revolu-
tion, which had magic and ritual as a central aspect
of crafting (Budd and Taylor 1995).
By the time ethnoarchaeological research became
mainstream within the archaeological imaginary
(the 1990s), many examples, particularly from the
global south, provided counter-balance, and techno-
logical research could include traditional and ritualized
aspects. For example, in some cases in Sub-Saharan
Africa, the transformation of ore into metal and
subsequently into an object, indexing a control of fire,
is coded as a dangerous act, with possible interference
of ancestral spirits and acts of sorcery of fellow mortals
22
Rivizi text.indd 22
(Childs and Killick 1993; Cooper 2006). Smelting
operations were carried out far from villages, required
special protective charms and medicines, and were
restricted to specific individuals, usually those with
particular kin ties and with specialised training. While
mining and smithing were more public enterprises,
they also often required special precautions and rituals
(Childs and Killick 1993, 325).
In terms of craft specialization, intentionality,
and questions of identity related to the labouring
bodies and minerals, Reid and MacLean’s (1995)
ethnoarchaeological study of smelting in Igurwa, an
iron smelting centre in Karagwe, a nineteenth century
kingdom in contemporary northwestern Tanzania,
outlines precautions taken during crafting that have
to do with gender and exclusion. In this context,
the smelter and the smith are always male, the act of
smelting is conceptualized as a procreative act, and
the smelters, the furnace, and bellows take on the
roles of sexual partners. Women, in particular fertile
women, threaten the act of smelting, and they are
excluded, except postmenopausal women. Children,
male and female, are not excluded. The exclusion of
women manifests spatially through the isolation
of smelting sites away from settlements (1995, 149;
see also Schmidt 1997).
The materiality of the raw material is also sig-
nificant as it carries socio-symbolic referents (Sinclair
1995). Dorothy Hosler’s work in western Mexico
provides an example in which the raw material
is considered in relation to the sound and aesthetics
of the metal (1995). Analyzing the crafting of bells,
Hosler uses ethno-historic and linguistic evidence
to argue that the sound of the bells was linked to
protection during conflict and war. Furthermore,
the particular sound also played a significant role in
structuring rituals around fertility and regeneration.
Specific metallic colours, in particular gold and
silver, were associated with solar and lunar deities,
and the shimmering quality of these metals
represented a form of sacred paradise. In this
particular case, both aural and optical qualities of
the metals engendered a sacred experience.
Shereen Ratnagar’s work on early Indian tech-
nology draws our attention to the specificity of the
raw material and how the distinction of each object
is contingent upon the types of material utilized
(2007). Ratnagar’s focus maintains the technological
apparatus as co-determining the outcome and an
assumption of a utilitarian/functional aspect to the
understanding of the raw material. One of the key
studies on the socio-symbolic aspects of copper and
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 Introduction to the Affect of Crafting
Ancient India is Nayanjot Lahiri’s ethnographic work
on metals and metal related artefacts as cultural
signifiers (1995). She posits the purity of the copper
alloy as representing conscious decision-making,
as cultural signifiers evoking symbolic capital and
individual agency to choose, produce, and consume
pure copper alloy vessels. Laihiri outlines three
positions upon which she constructs an argument for
a particularly Indian cultural situation. First, the domi-
nant tradition of working in copper of high purity
recorded in the early Indian archaeological record fits
in with what she indicates is the ritual importance of
pure copper in ancient Indian texts. The continuity of
this tradition and the relative position of superiority
of craft-persons working in pure copper over those
working with various alloys in the caste hierarchy are
highlighted in her study. Second, Lahiri draws our
attention to traditions of recycling objects and scraps
of old metal, arguing that it must be considered a
factor in the variation of elemental compositions of
Indian metal artefacts. Finally, she draws attention to
how metal or metal related objects are focused around
specific historical events and folk beliefs; the stories/
myths and artefacts are linked in ways that suggest that
the artefacts function as signifiers of social and cultural
beliefs. Her study allows for an understanding of the
production of symbolic value in which the materiality
of the artefacts contains meanings and manifestations
of social relationships and social control (1995).
Contextualising Crafting: Materiality
and New Materialisms
Deeply influencing this project is the concept of
objectification or the view that people make them-
selves in the process of making things. Daniel
Miller, borrowing this idea from Hegel, argues that
objectification is the foundation for a dialectical
theory of culture, and so the dualities that exist are
the ways in which culture is constituted and vice
versa (1987). This core concept repeats in many other
forms, particularly within gender/sexuality studies
that analyse ancient figurines as representations of
the body (S. Clark 2009; Meskell 1998; Nakamura
2005). Particularly in the study of figurines, there is a
tension between the politics of representation and
intentionality. Framing the question of intentionality
within an analysis of materiality allows both cognitive
and psychological studies to be utilized as they
inform behaviour. Lynn Meskell posits materiality
to be how we meaningfully engage with the world,
intermingling, negotiating, constituting, and shaping
culture in both embodied and disembodied ways
23
Rivizi text.indd 23
(2004). What is unique about the idea of representa-
tion of the body as figurine is precisely the issue of
intentionality of crafting a form of representation.
In looking at Harappan figurines, Clark argues that
in hand modelling the representations of human
bodies from two clay pieces, the makers were actually
more focused on the process and ideology rather
than the more pragmatic aspects of the craft, thus
suggesting an intentionality to the form (2009).
Complicating that apriori assumption related to
intentionality, Carrie Nakamura and Lynn Meskell’s
work on figurines from Çatalhöyük points out that
in the act of making, either in terms of deification
or self-making, there are potentially other concerns
that might inform the manner in which the represen-
tation is formed (2009).
Theorising figurines in relation to intentionality
forces one to contend with meaning embedded in
materiality. Artefact design is then a distinct
behavioural approach to material culture, which
not only provides a biography of the artefact but
contextualizes it within interactions and technical
choices made, and what the behavioural significance
of such choices might be (Schiffer and Skibo 1987;
Skibo and Schiffer 2008). Related to fields of
behavioural science, psychological studies related to
skills acquisition, particularly through apprentice-
ships, have been considered in relation to Harappan
carnelian beads and knapping practices (Roux, Bril,
Dietrich 1995). In that particular study, ancient skill
sets were reconstructed based on contemporary bead
knapping in Khambhat, India. These psychological
studies looked at value constructed and relationship to
socio-economic status through an examination of how
the actors handled the complexity of the tasks and
their duration, and how this impacted apprenticeship
(Roux, Bril, Dietrich 1995).
However, some caution needs to be taken when
considering these questions of intentionality in
relation to behaviour and its link to psychology or
cognition. As Lambros Malafouris has pointed out,
the question of intentionality, causality and action
stems from a Cartesian mode of thought (2013, 234).
‘Intentional states’, he argues, ‘are of or about things,
whereas things in themselves may not be of or about
anything’ (2013, 235, italics in original). By
placing the conditions of intentionality upon the
thing, the thing becomes a passive recipient of human
intention, thus losing its agency (Rizvi 2015). Also
utilizing knapping as an example, Malafouris argues
that intentionality ‘is essentially constituted through
an act of collaboration between human and material
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 Chapter One
agency’, which supports ontology that thinks
through and with matter (2013, 236). Malafouris’s
claim impacts discourses of craft specialization with
regards to the production of tools, crafts, spaces,
and bodies. Although he is prescient in his discussion
of intentionality, it is somewhat difficult to utilize
his theoretical tools critically within current archaeo-
logical frameworks. Be that as it may, the caution
related to intentionality is very important, and lingers
around the affect of crafting.
Within this mesh of thinking through and
with matter, the human body maintains a distinct
relationship with what it produces. An argument
posited by philosopher Per Otnes focuses on the
bodily components of production, in which, for
example, one’s hands may be thought of as tools but
are not in the same categories as other tools since they
themselves (hands) are not produced or consumed
(1997, 64–65). This nuanced distinction allows us
to consider a skilled hand as a relation, rather than
as a product unto itself. This shift places technology
and tools in a separate category from the body and
argues for distinct manners of contending with each.
It is significant to conceptualize the body as
whole, moving away from the mind/body split,
in particular when considering representations
of internalized schema. A representation cannot
only be thought of in terms of what the craftsperson
wants it to say, but rather, must be conceptualized
as a dialog or a relation between bodies and materials.
During the act of crafting, the craftsperson may be
thinking through and with matter, and it is up to
archaeological interpretation to attempt the same in
its reconstruction of the past.
In considering the relationship of power to
materiality, Elizabeth DeMarrais (1997) argues that
materialization is related to the production, control,
and manipulation of highly visible, elaborate symbols
and icons, events, and monumental architecture
within the context of elite ideology and power. For
DeMarrais, the materialization of ideology is the
materialisation of culture (see also Sinopoli 2003).
Materialisation is conceived of as a transformation
of intangible values into material being (DeMarais,
Castillo, and Earle 1996). Leroi-Gourhan’s chapter
on Technics and Language (1993) explores this
transformation as a relationship between emotion and
graphic expression. His work compliments the focus
on intentionality of process and its relationship to cog-
nitive, psychological, and behavioural archaeological
approaches, and links well with Alfred Gell’s work on
art and the agentive properties of things (1992, 1998).
24
Rivizi text.indd 24
Within a framework of Peircean semiotics,
Gell’s theory of art easily influenced archaeological
research (see Graves-Brown 1995). Gell encouraged
archaeology to consider art as a technology in its own
right that creates an aura of enchantment, magic,
and fetish around the thing itself. Art’s ‘technical
virtuosity’ is embedded in its ability to elicit affective
responses. Archaeological research has subsequently
utilized Gell’s theories to consider various forms of
archaeological artefacts and features thought to embed
within themselves capacities to evoke emotions,
from pilli miti as building material in households
in Balathal, India (Boivin 2008) to the materiality
of Indian Buddhism (Fogelin 2015).
The influence of Charles Sander Pierce within
archaeology is well demonstrated by Robert Preucel
in his book on archaeological semiotics (2006). Three
points made by Preucel are significant in framing
my approach to this study: first, that archaeological
interpretations themselves are a social semiotic
act; second, that material culture can be understood
not as a passive reflection of human behaviour but
as an active social practice constitutive of social order;
and finally, that materiality or material agency can
be defined as the social constitution of self and society
by means of the object world. Preucel argues that by
looking at materiality, our focus shifts from material
culture to material engagements with the world,
and a Peircean framework provides a manner of sense
making that is cognizant of these concerns. Most
relevant for the approach adopted in this study is
the manner by which Peircean semiotics provides
a deeply contextual, situated, experiential and
sensorial approach to the past (for other sensorial
approaches to the past see Hamilakis 2015; Ryzewski
2012; Witmore 2005).
On Crafting Resonance
The act of crafting produces an affective and
embodied response. This volume focuses on one
type of affective response, that of resonance.
Resonance is theorized as an intangible affect that
the material thing has beyond its formal physical
boundaries within larger planes of perception,
creating dynamic relationships among humans/
nonhumans and illustrating cultural decisions of
material as vibrant matter. This definition of
resonance is indebted to concepts of power and
vibrant matter discussed in Jane Bennett’s work,
specifically her use of Spinoza’s ascription of
vitality to bodies as thing-power, even though I do
not use that phrase explicitly (2010, 2–3).
20/09/2018 11:12:59
 Introduction to the Affect of Crafting
If material has vibrancy and frequency it has the
capacity to evoke an emotional and affective response
to similar material, style and/or form. Such response
may be coded as a sensory aesthetic empathy that
relates to constituting subjective belonging in the
ancient world.
Such a framing creates a space within which
to take into account our various entanglements,
whether related to shifts in value from crafted artifact
to meaningful signifying sets of relations (N. Thomas
1991) or the many ways in which things, humans and
actions are dependent/co-dependent on each other
to create meaning (Hodder 2011). Recognizing the
scales of entanglements with ancient things provides
insight into the development of ancient subjectivities.
This aspect will be further developed in chapter four.
On Crafting Materials and Places
Ruth Tringham has argued (1991, 1994) that arch-
aeological places should be understood as deliberate
creations of past actors that, as places, are in a
continuous process of becoming. The simultaneity
of a crafting of both material and place is unique
in that in links the act of placemaking to specific
technological motions and movements, each
repetitive practice in the space helping to produce
the place. If the location of a site is determined with
special regard to function within a production system
(however loosely defined), the craft practiced there
becomes a significant framework/subtext to most,
if not all, aspects of the individuals who live, operate
in, and move through these spaces, and the place
itself can be defined by its function (Binford 1982).
The materiality of the craft and the processes of
production are intricately linked to the ways in
which the craftspeople and associated populations
who inhabit the site begin to identify themselves
(Sinopoli 2003). In this manner, producing place
is directly linked to forms of social identity (Kealhofer
1999). The place becomes personal as the body is
intimately involved in social practices undertaken
in that area, even if they are not technologically
or functionally relevant. Often placemaking in
archaeological scholarship is linked to more sensual
and memory-based stimuli (e.g., Ingold 1993;
Tilley 1994; Witmore 2006). Within contemporary
archaeological practice, placemaking, as a theoretical
consideration, has also been linked to an act in the
present of recognising or acknowledging the past
(e.g., Rubertone 2008). Places become on a continuum
of experience; on one hand, places are formed
through locally specific daily usage, and on the other
25
Rivizi text.indd 25
are interventions of control enacted by political
elite. It is the constant reproduction of experience
at multiple scales in the place that situates and
engenders a sense of belonging, producing sensorial
and affective meanings that link bodies to local
geographies (Harmansah 2014).
Current research in South India has paved the
way for linking past actors to landscapes (e.g., Bauer
2010, 2011; Johansen 2011; Morrison 2009; Sugandhi
2008). Kathleen Morrison’s study of water reservoirs
and the production of landscape histories in the
Daroji Valley highlight how places are constructed
and reconstructed through time, linking archaeology,
land use and social history (2009). Building upon
the ability to utilize landscapes’ connections to
political and social decision making, Andrew Bauer’s
work (2010, 2011) highlights the link between the
social significance of landscape creation and the
(re)production of social relationships, specifically
in terms of megalithic ritual spaces at the Iron Age
(c. 1200–300 BCE) site of Hire Benakal. In a related
study, Peter Johansen (2011) investigates the Iron
Age settlements in the Tungabhadra Corridor in
order to better enunciate the political architectonics—
specifically the politics of constructing, maintaining
and contesting social differences—of the region.
In each of these studies, the past social actors’ active
decision making with regards to placemaking is
highlighted in an effort to better contextualise their
cultural traces upon the landscape.
Critical social theory on space and place focuses
on urban formations (e.g., de Certeau 1984;
Harvey 1990; Lefebvre 1991; Soja 1989). However,
demonstrated by the work discussed above, there is
no reason to assume that placemaking can only occur
in such contexts. The relationship between spatial
definition and placemaking allows for a multi-scalar
and multi-contextual framework in which, particularly
in the case of the GJCC, the functionality of the site
as a site of crafting may be a possible indicator for the
way in which space is defined and place is made by
active decisions undertaken by community members,
even in a non-urban, ancient context. Recognizing
the nature of community decisions in an archaeo-
logical context is contingent upon recognizing the
functionality of the site; if one is producing copper
artefacts and requires specific types of raw materials,
where the site is placed is an active decision.
Through these interwoven discourses I have
established a framework that allows us to better under-
stand how things shape and are shaped by cognition,
sensorial experiences, materiality and place. These
20/09/2018 11:12:59
 Chapter One
mutual transformations are at the core of understand-
ing the complexity of ancient sociality and allow us to
situate the study on resonance and placemaking within
an interdisciplinary archaeological scholarship.
The Copper Collection from Ganeshwar
This volume documents the largest copper corpus
from the Indian subcontinent from the third to second
millennium BCE. These artefacts were collected
from the site of Ganeshwar (Tehsil Neem Ka Thana;
District Sikar; geo coordinates N 27° 40’ 46”, 75°
48’ 93” E), Rajasthan. The site of Ganeshwar is one
of the two type-sites of the GJCC. Each artifact listed
in the 1978–79 Ganeshwar excavation register is
documented in this volume (see Appendix 2 for a list).
There are many different artefact types in this collec-
tion, and I have chosen to honour the original naming
of the artefacts to maintain the interpretive stance
taken at the initial moment of the registry construc-
tion. This study focuses on the artefact type described
as “arrowheads” because it constitutes almost half
of the collection. The records utilized in this project
are the original reports recorded in the official
excavation registers at the offices of the State
Department of Archaeology and Museums in Jaipur,
Rajasthan, between 8 March and 10 June, 1979. In
2003, I was granted access to this collection between
21 February and 10 April, dependent upon the avail-
ability of two museum personnel, Zafarullah Khan
(acting excavation officer) and Daya Ram Shankar
(assistant to the officer), who were required to be
present with me at all times during the documentation
process. After the documentation of this material,
I presented the State Department of Archaeology and
Museums with multiple copies of the data (as CDs),
along with the (negotiated) agreement that I would
wait a decade before publishing the material myself.
This register includes 943 copper artefacts of which
432 are noted as arrowheads in the original document;
of those, only 133 were used to construct the typology
presented in chapter three.
The region of focus is the northeastern sector
of the state of Rajasthan, India, between the contempo-
rary cities of Jaipur and Delhi. In 2003, I conducted
a series of collaborative and cooperative archaeological
surveys with villages in this region (Rizvi 2006, 2007).
Because of its history of excavation, one of the main
sites surveyed was Ganeshwar (Rizvi 2007). The GJCC
Survey 2003 provides some context for the collection
documented and analysed in this
2
For colonial accounts
volume as it was recorded from
of copper exploitation Ganeshwar during the 1978–79
in this region, see: excavation field season.
Imperial Gazetteer of
India: Rajputana 1908,
pp. 52, 71.
26
Rivizi text.indd 26
The GJCC settlements cluster within the regions
of the Aravalli Hill Range, primarily along the Kantli,
Sabi, Sota, Dohan and Bondi rivers. This part of India
is known for its farming and pastoral resources, as
well as for minerals, the most important of which is
copper. Khetri, the largest copper source in Rajasthan,
has been exploited since antiquity and continues today
as one of the major resources for copper production
in India.2 This region tends to be sandy, with some
areas of alluvium underneath the topsoil. Due to soil
type, vegetation tends to be thorny and with short
trees. These thorny forests are scattered mainly in the
arid areas, covering the districts of Nagaur, Pali, Sikar,
Jhunjhunu, Ajmer, Jodhpur and Jaisalmer. Some of the
dominant species of plant cover in this region include:
Prosopis, Capparis deciduas, Acacia, Leucophloca,
Acacia nilotica, Salvadora oleoides, Balanites, Ziziphus,
and Calatropis. During the rainy season, the vegetation
also includes: Tephrosia purpurea, Boeharrvia diffusa,
Tribulus terrestes, Crotolaria, Achyranthus aspera,
Lecus molussiama, Corchrus depresus, Heliotropium
strigosum, Digera; grasses like Setaria glauca, Digitaria,
Sangunials. Tetrapogon tenellus, Brachina ramose and
Eragosties pilosa; climbers and twines like Cocculus
pendulus, Vallaris solinacea, Cryptostegia grandifolia,
Ipomea, pestigrides, Rhychosia minima and Vigna
catjag; and finally, the winter annuals are Argemone
maxicana, Pontella supine, Chenopodium alubum,
Polygorum plebeguin, Heliotropium ecchwaldii
and grasses like Eragostis ciliaii, Cymbopogon and
Sporobulus tremulis (Jain 1992, 68–69; Saxena 1995,
34–45). By far, the most prevalent bird species in the
region today are the grey partridge (Francolinus pon-
dicerianus), two specimens of quails (Coturnix coturnix
and C. coromendelica), and a common sandgrouse
(Pterocles exustus) (Rana and Mittal 1992, 104).
Archaeological evidence for the GJCC has been
primarily located in the districts of Jaipur, Sikar and
Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan (Figure 1.2: map of survey
area). The sites are found in and around the Aravalli
hill range and in close proximity to copper resources.
This hill range is broader in the south, while the
northern track is more akin to separate hills, resulting
in lower elevations. The range is composed of Delhi
System rock formations that start in Delhi in the
north and run through Ajmer to Palanpur in the south.
In the north, between Delhi and Jaipur, the ridges
composed of Delhi quartzite and schist comprise an
intricate system of hill masses convex to the southeast.
The main axis of the ridge is in the region of Khetri
and Sambhar (Dave 1995, 21).
The Delhi System rock formation is recognized
as the primary source of copper mineralization.
20/09/2018 11:12:59
 Introduction to the Affect of Crafting
Rajasthan
0 62.5 125 250
N Kms
Figure 1.2
Map of Rajasthan with district lines and explored GJCC sites marked
The main copper deposits occur in Khetri and
Singhana in Jhunjhunu District and Dariba and Kho
in Alwar District. Some of these copper deposits are
associated with small co-deposits of cobalt minerals.
Among the non-metals present in the Delhi System
are deposits of barites at Sainpuri and Bhankher in
Alwar District and steatite near Dausa (Dave 1995, 22).
In total, 385 GJCC sites have been recorded;
the compilation of these sites comes from the survey
conducted by the GJCC Survey team (myself and
collaborating partners) and other archaeologists,
and is roughly spread over 34,000 square kilometres,
with an estimated settled area at 12.51 square
kilometres (see Appendix 1; Hooja and Kumar 1997).
The survey includes settlement sites, vitrified metal
waste sites, mining sites and raw material processing
sites, often found in close proximity to each
other, each providing a different specialized activity
or resource (Figures 1.3–1.5: GJCC survey maps).
The integration of the various types of sites
contextualizes their clustering. The high number of
recorded sites in a relatively small geographic region
suggests a high density of population and activity.
Further, increased social and political complexity
27
Rivizi text.indd 27
Explorations
Rajasthan Border
India
is reflected by the spatial practices of the GJCC
communities that formed around copper extraction
and production technologies (Rizvi 2007).
The placement of sites is a decision that can be
documented archaeologically through site patterns.
The GJCC site patterns illustrate a separation of smelt-
ing sites and settlements index active decision making
by the community of producers. The Ganeshwar
copper arrowheads are products of a cultural context
that provides meaning and value to the artefact. Their
process of production is infused with a practice that is
also culturally specific and may have roles and rituals
associated with it that fall along gender or age lines—
making each corporeal experience equally significant
to the larger process of production. Also important to
keep in mind is the community-based aspect of
production which, as Ratnagar has argued, ‘was a
technology that no single household could manage
on its own’ (2007, 121). Thus, spaces in which copper
production took place were spaces in which the
roles from society and culture mapped on to those of
production. These roles could possibly be negotiated
in ways that in turn affected society, thus impacting
our understandings of ancient sociality.
20/09/2018 11:13:01
 Chapter One

Chapter Summary and Introduction

Sites with
Vitrified to Other Chapters
Metal Waste
Materials This introduction sets the framework within which
this volume will now unfold. Shifting the focus
of research in this region from solely determining
settlement complexity, the GJCC is analysed through
Sites w. Vitrified
Metal Waste site placement and a study of the copper corpus,
Rajasthan Border in particular the copper arrowheads. In doing so,
Rajasthan this research illuminates the many relationships
and forms of communication between copper and
humans that produce practices, styles and traces
on bodies, materials and landscapes. The chapter
0 12.5 25 50 75 100
N Kms began with a consideration of the artefact as part of
the discourses of colonialism as an object of desire
Figure 1.3 and its transformation to an object of science. By
Satellite map of GJCC Survey sites based on 2003 situating technology and crafting within the South
Survey that document vitrified metal waste material
Asian context, this chapter presented the function
of aesthetics in archaeology, and the heightened
focus on craft specialization within regional literature.
Metal
Production In order to place the crafting of copper within
Sites
those discourses, this introduction then moved
through scholarship about metallurgy and the role
of symbolic, cognitive and behavioural models for
interpreting crafting. This volume chooses to
Metal Production
Sites engage with crafting through discourses related to
Rajasthan Border materialism and new materialisms in order to posit
Rajasthan the crafting of resonance. Resonance is only one
of two affective conditions related to crafting
considered in this volume. The second is placemaking
delivered through the crafting of materials, bodies
0 12.5 25 50 75 100
N Kms and landscapes. To take into account the latter, this
introductory chapter ends with a short note on the
Figure 1.4 copper corpus from Ganeshwar.
Satellite map of GJCC Survey sites with evidence It is the following two chapters (chapters two
of smelters
and three) that provide much of the archaeological
data relevant to the discussion of crafting in the
Mining and
GJCC. Chapter two provides basic archaeological
Raw Material information related to the GJCC, as well as a section
Sites
specifically dedicated to paleo-climate, irrigation
and subsistence agriculture. This section specifically
challenges the notion that the GJCC was not a
sedentary agricultural community. Archaeological
Mining and Raw
Material Sites evidence in the form of storage space, grinding
Rajasthan Border stones and saddle querns, in addition to favourable
Rajasthan conditions for agriculture based on the climatic
indices and the suggestion of irrigation canals, all
index the possibility of agriculture as a form of
subsistence. Their sedentary lifestyle, however, may
0 12.5 25 50 75 100
N Kms have been a result of investment in a landscape not
just for agriculture but also for mineral resources,
Figure 1.5 and it is important to recognize that these stakes are
Satellite map of GJCC Survey sites with evidence not mutually exclusive.
of raw material procurement

28

Rivizi text.indd 28 20/09/2018 11:13:02

 Introduction to the Affect of Crafting
In order to understand the relationships among
sites and how they link to notions of placemaking,
chapter two also provides primary data of the
2003 GJCC survey. Different kinds of sites were
coded based on their functionality as a mining site,
habitation site, vitrified metal waste site, or raw
material processing site. These type sites were
selected because this was what was visible on the
surface for survey. The sites also clustered in specific
formations, and based on cluster analysis and
discussions with community members in the villages
of both Ganeshwar and Jodhpura, five complexes
were identified. The context of the copper corpus
represented in this volume is the final section of
chapter two, which synthesises the excavation reports
from the site of Ganeshwar. The excavation reports
provide context for chapter three, which focuses
specifically on the material culture and regional
comparisons of form, utilized to build chronology.
Providing an overview of the ceramics, with
short notes on microliths and some miscellaneous
finds, the bulk of chapter three discusses the copper
material from the site of Ganeshwar. It provides a
typology for the arrowheads and shorter descriptions
of the other copper material found at the site. This
detailed description is necessary as it allows us to then
contextualise and compare it to other copper material
from the region and analyse similarities not only as
indicators of politics, but also as forms engendering
belonging. The chronological comparisons of copper
found in different contexts suggest cultural resonance
is produced as an affective response to crafting. And
this resonance may have been influenced by bodies,
minerals and landscapes as each plays an important
role in intersectional identity formation. The data
and chronology lead us into the final chapter (chapter
four) that focuses on the affect of crafting and its
relationship to ancient sociality.
This final chapter first contends with the
ontology of the corpus prior to investigating crafting
bodies. The first section of the chapter deals not
only with issues related to labour and craft, but also
the ways in which the labour of crafting crafts the
labouring body itself. Moving through all the steps
of production, this section illustrates the corporeality
of each body situated in the act of crafting.
Keeping in mind that embodied practices unfold
in specific places, the section that follows analyses
the labour of landscapes. Using the survey data and
focusing on the ways in which the land is transformed
by, and works in relation to, the labouring and crafting
body provides an intertextual understanding of the
29
Rivizi text.indd 29
many simultaneous affects involved in the production
of the copper corpus. These links between the labour-
ing bodies and landscapes aid our understanding
of complexity of the third millennium BCE GJCC.
These concerns are all related to those crafting
the materials and cannot, on their own, account
for those not engaged in such labour. Even if one
did not craft copper, one existed in the space of an
affect that was simultaneously crafted. This aesthetic
empathetic response evoked a sense of belonging
to a crafting community, or to the vibrancy of the
mineral itself. The intimate evocative sense of
belonging to a community is what I argue is the
crafting of resonance. Also linked to this larger
conceptual framework, which accounts for bodies
involved and not involved in crafting, are ways to
understand the crafting of place. The discussion of
crafting place can be considered a metadiscursive
element of the labouring places, maintaining within
it the ability to talk about place complexity as one
more form of crafting community.
The larger project that this volume addresses is
the question of how one belongs to the GJCC, and
that is the final aspect of chapter four. In this section,
I parse through the many ways in which things
belong within sets of relations, collective memory,
and social life. That sense of belonging might also
give rise to forms of nostalgia and ways in which a
material diaspora might be understood. All of these
possible analyses exist around the vibrancy of the
copper mineral and the corpus itself. In order to
visually re-present the copper vibrancy and aesthetic
form, Part Two of this book is a catalogue of copper
artefacts. In the first section of the catalogue each
copper arrow head is reproduced individually, but
grouped based on typology. The second section cata-
logues all copper pieces from the 1978–79 collection.
20/09/2018 11:13:03
 Chapter Two
Contextualising the
Ganeshwar Copper
Corpus: Archaeological
Practice and Research
The collection of copper material analyzed in this
volume was collected from the site of Ganeshwar,
one of the type sites for the GJCC. This chapter
outlines the archaeological research which informs
and contextualizes the interpretation of the collection.
GJCC is synonymous with the Ganeshwar
Culture, Jodhpura Culture, Ganeshwar-Jodhpura
Copper Complex, and the Ganeshwar-Jodhpura
Culture (Agrawal, Dhir, and Krishnamurthy 1978;
Agrawala and Kumar 1982, 130; Dikshit and Sinha
1982, 120; Hooja and Kumar 1997, 323–324). The
name ‘GJCC’ is based upon the initial reports by R.
C. Agrawala and V. J. Kumar about a complex based
on the two type sites, Ganeshwar (Tehsil Neem Ka
Thana; District Sikar; geo coordinates N 27° 40’ 46”,
75° 48’ 93” E) and Jodhpura (Tehsil Kot Putli; District
Jaipur; geo coordinates: N 27° 35’ 51”, E 76° 06’
85”). Choosing to name the cultural area as a complex
simultaneously honours Agrawala and Kumar’s
terminology and does not limit the understanding
of the area as connected to one site or function.
Archaeological research conducted by the
Rajasthan State Department of Archaeology, under
R. C. Agrawala as director and Vijay Kumar as excava-
tion officer, at the site of Jodhpura, commenced
with a field season in 1972–73. The initial documen-
tation of copper material from Ganeshwar took place
in 1977, which led to three seasons of excavations
at the site between 1979 and
1 1984 (Agrawala 1978a, 72–75;
It should be noted that
Indian Archaeological Review
access was not granted to
study ceramics from the
1972–73, 29–30; 1979–80, 62–65;
excavations of Ganeshwar 1981–82, 61–62; 1983–84, 71–72;
or Jodhpura at the
Department of Archaeology
and Museums during the
time of this study.
30
Rivizi text.indd 30
Kumar 1977, 28–33). Both sites are multiperiod,
large settlement sites. With no final excavation
reports published, information about these sites
is primarily drawn from reports in the Indian
Archaeological Review (IAR), along with discussions
of the material culture and excavations in other
select publications. Most of the material from the
excavations is available at the Jaipur office of the
Rajasthan State Department of Archaeology and
Museums, with examples of some ceramics and
copper artefacts on display at Hawa Mahal Museum
(Jaipur) and the Sikar Museum (Sikar).1
The complex is defined as a discrete cultural entity
based on a distinctive ceramic sequence and the use
of copper. Scholars date this archaeological culture to
the third millennium BCE (c. 2500–2200 BCE) based
on carbon samples from the upper levels at Jodhpura,
which corroborate the stylistic chronological marker
based on copper implements found at Ganeshwar
that resemble those of the Harappan culture (Agrawala
1978b, 123–124; 1979a, 91–92; 1979b, 159–160;
Agrawala and Kumar 1982, 123, 127; Sinha 1997,
264–274). A detailed discussion about material culture
and chronology is provided in chapter three. The
links created by the stylistic resemblance of copper
implements found at Ganeshwar-Jodhpura and the
Indus simultaneously signify many sets of relations
taking place in antiquity.
The archaeological literature has predominantly
understood the GJCC as a hunting gathering
society due to the evidence of microliths and copper
arrowheads (Agrawala and Kumar 1982, 127).
I argue elsewhere (2007) that the GJCC illustrates
20/09/2018 11:13:03
 an indigenous development that sustains a larger
regional economic need for copper products. As early
as 2900 BCE, the GJCC emerges as a community with
subsistence strategies, including fishing and hunting,
evidenced by fishhooks and faunal remains, as well
as some early farming as suggested by paleo-climate
reconstructions, burnt grains and seeds, and grinding
stones found in early contexts (Rizvi 2007, 186).
This region’s relationship with both the Harappan
and the Ahar Banas cultures makes it particularly
interesting. By occupying the space between two
major cultural forces of the time, the GJCC emerges
as a resource specialised community, a complex
community that has connections with both of the
larger cultures (Figure 2.1: map of region; Porter
2013). Active interactions with surrounding cultures
(Harappan, Ahar Banas, and at an earlier time
period, Bagor) are indicated through copper materials
excavated in these disparate contexts. In particular,
c. 2500 BCE (shift from Period II phase I to Period II
phase II) at Ganeshwar indicates a substantial hike
in the copper production at the site, also illustrated
through the higher percentages of stylistically Figure 2.1
similar copper implements documented from these Map of region with GJCC, Ahar Banas, and Harappan sites
surrounding areas (see chapter three for stylistic marked. Map courtesy of G. L. Possehl

comparisons). This time period also marks an increase

in the production of copper based on the more
complex organization of the resource specialized
community complexes within the GJCC. The mainte-
nance of some form of cultural cohesion seems to stem
from the creation of an economic niche, a sensory
aesthetic empathy coded as cultural resonance, and
community placemaking as a mode of belonging.
The copper corpus presented in Part Two of this
volume is chronologically linked to this specific time
period (c. 2500–2200 BCE). As the GJCC moves into
later phases there seems to be a shifting of cultural
emphasis, especially c. 1800 BCE (Rizvi 2007, 72–73).
Paleo-climate, Irrigation,
and Subsistence Agriculture
The western districts of Rajasthan (Jaisalmer, Barmer,
Bikaner, Ganganagar, Choru, Jhunjhunu, Sikar,
Nagaur, Jodhpur, Pali, and Jalore) are considered
to have arid climate. This region has low and highly
variable levels of rainfall (50mm to 100mm). In
contrast, the semiarid districts to the east (Alwar,
Jaipur, Bharatpur, Ajmer, Tonk, Sawai Madhopur,
Bhilwara, Bundi, Kota, Chittorgarh, Udaipur, Sirohi,
Dungarpur, and parts of Jhalawar) have a higher
level of rainfall (Khurana 1992, 124; Rao 1992, 38).
Attempts to reconcile the paleo-climate with the
archaeological record have been problematic. In a
general sense, studies conducted on paleo-climate
of the northern part of the Indian subcontinent
suggest a shift from wetter to drier climate which
most paleo-climatologists posit as the reason for
the ‘collapse’ of the Mature Harappan culture (Pant
and Rupa Kumar 1997; Staubwasser et al. 2003).
In contrast, archaeologists discuss the shift from an
Urban Harappan culture to a Post-Urban Harappan
culture as one marked by changes in settlement
pattern, number of sites, and wide spread dry-
cropping (Possehl 1997). This is not to suggest that
these paleo-climatic studies are incorrect, but to assert
that such changes did not result in the devastating
‘collapse’ effects posited in the scholarship.
More significant, however, is the incompatibility
of the assumptions of this data with the archaeological
record and palynological studies of the specific sites.
Studies conducted at the sites of Balakot (McKean 1983,
v), Malvan (Vishnu-Mittre and Sharma 1973), Nal
Lake (Vishnu-Mittre 1974), Mehrgarh (Costantini
and Biasini 1985), Sindh Kohistan area (Harvey and
Flam 1993), and Rojdi (Weber 1991) suggest that the
environmental conditions and climate in the mid
to late Holocene were not inconsistent with contem-
porary conditions in those same regions.

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 Chapter Two

Table 2.1
Summary of estimated dates and studies for paleo-climate of Northern India during mid/late Holocene

BP date c. BCE Environment Source/Study

2000–500 Increase in rainfall/monsoon Ramaswamy, 1968
3500 (uncal) 1900–1800 Dry/desiccated Lake—aridity that Singh, Joshi, and Singh, 1972; Agrawal & Sood, 1982; Swain,
continues to today Kutzbach, and Hastenrath, 1983; Pant and Rupa Kumar, 1997
4000 (uncal) 2550 Ephemeral Lake Singh, Wasson, and Agrawal, 1990
4000–3500 (cal) 2150–1750 Decrease in summer monsoons— Phadtare, 2000
weakest monsoon event of Holocene
record
4200 (cal) 2800 (uncal) Reduction in Indus River discharge Staubwasser et al., 2003
or 2250 (cal) and isotopic analysis suggests drier
conditions
5300 (cal) 7150 Aridity starts, number of short term Prasad and Enzel, 2006
onwards climatic events from then on

Table 2.1 illustrates published paleo-climate agricultural practices in place in Northeastern

studies in terms of the environment and a range of
dates posited for the mid to late Holocene. These
studies broadly indicate that during the Holocene,
Northern India went from a wetter to a dry and arid
climate, which continues today. These studies also
demonstrate climatic variability, and so it is difficult
to identify or create consensus about when this
variability occurred and how dramatic its effect may
have been. The archaeological record illustrates a
shift from cities to smaller towns in c. 2000 BCE,
a disruption to the economy practiced, a shift in
the systems of settlement and subsistence, and in
material culture—which taken together indicate a
larger change in the cultural form of the Harappan
civilisation. These shifts, however, cannot solely
be attributed to a change in climate. Whether the
changes in the lakes came from lack of monsoonal
rains, increase in evaporation due to solar variability,
a tectonic shift causing rivers to shift courses, or
subsurface drainage, it is clear that there were events
that took place in the mid to late Holocene that altered
the environmental landscape. How directly those
environmental changes affected, or altered, human
cultures is yet to be determined (For current,
interdisciplinary, and robust approaches see Petrie
et al. 2017).
Based on the arguments presented above it is clear
that we need a more rigorous
2
Indo-French Expedition chronological comparison.
included the following Palynological work conducted at
persons: R. S. Bisht, archaeological sites suggests that
M. A. Courty, H. P.
the paleo-climate of the GJCC
Francfort, P. Gentelle,
K. P. Gupta, V. Roux, region, in fact, was very similar
A. K. Sharma, J. R. to the climate in the area today.
Batra, A. K. Sinha, Given that framework, it is easy to
P. Singh, S. Singh.
imagine sustainable dry-cropping
3
The report does not
specify what sites n.144
and n.197 are.
32
Rajasthan during the third millennium BCE.
These climatic data contextualize the excavation
reports which, in addition to the faunal material from
Ganeshwar, also include information about structural
features, including mud platforms with partitions,
storage pits and floors with post-holes. A deposit of
burnt material over floors appears to be an indication
of fire at various levels of occupation (IAR 1983–84,
71–72). Storage pits suggest the existence of a grain
surplus. Although there has been little written
about agricultural subsistence, the large number of
mortar and pestles, saddle querns and other grinding
stones suggests that there were, in fact, agricultural
subsistence strategies in place.
In an effort to shed more light on agricultural
subsistence in the region, an Indo-French expedition
aimed to study ancient drainage and agricultural
irrigation systems, conducting an overview of archaeo-
logical sites, visiting known sites like Kalibangan,
Banawali, Siswal, Mitathal, Agroha, Ganeshwar,
Jodhpura, Didwana, Paoli, and Rakhigarhi. 2 In
1983, this group investigated the Kantli and Dohan
valleys, examining 69 wells and sections found there.
Preliminary analysis of this area suggests that the
natural drainage systems in these valleys dried up dur-
ing the Early Holocene. Drier phases followed during
which dunes were formed and Aeolian deposits and
monsoon flooding progressively filled up the river
paleo-channel. The major alleviation phase was over
before the Pre-Harappan period (sites like n. 144 and
n. 197 are lying on eight to ten meters of deposits
filling the paleo-channel).3 In general, there has been
no import alleviation since this period, except locally
by monsoon floods in the Bhadra depression. And
finally, soils of different fertility were well cultivated
by the population through time (IAR 1983–84, 95–96).

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 Contextualising the Ganeshwar Copper Corpus:
Archaeological Practice and Research
Distribution patterns of Pre-Harappan, Late
Harappan, and Painted Grey Ware (PGW) sites illus-
trate higher density along branches of irrigation canals
as these sites were in lines not necessarily following
the paleo-channels of the Chautang (IAR 1983–84, 97).
This report published by the Indo-French expedition
suggests that there were agricultural subsistence
strategies in place. In addition to these studies,
investigations of paleo-climate in this region have also
suggested a high potential for agricultural subsistence.
These studies have relied on analysis conducted
on sediment samples from Malhar Rann, Gudlai,
Chamu and Chirai (for example, Agrawal et al.
1978). The analysis from Malhar Rann sediments
in the region shows significant fluctuations in the
lake levels, reflecting climatic changes in the past.
Gudlai, Chamu and Chirai sediment profiles reveal
an alternation of wet and dry phases that can be
dated to 7,000 +- 500, 15,000 +- 2000 and > 40,000
(B.P.) respectively. At 7,000 B.P. there is a wet phase
in the northern salt lakes of Rajasthan coinciding
with the wet phase period at Gudlai (Rao 1992, 42;
Singh et al. 1972). In a similar vein, Pant and
Maliekal (1987) reported that the climate of Rajasthan
and Northwest India was subjected to large-scale
fluctuations during the last 10,000 years and that the
recent arid phase goes back about 3,000 years.
Singh (1971) reconstructed the climate of
Rajasthan through pollen analysis taken from deposits
from bogs and lakes and has indicated that during
the third millennium BCE, the mean rainfall was
between 500 and 800 mm. These indices point to the
high potential for an agricultural base for this region.
Archaeological evidence in the form of storage
space, grinding stones and saddle querns, in addition
to the favourable conditions for agriculture based
on climatic indices and the suggestion of irrigation
canals, all index the possibility of agriculture as a form
of subsistence. This is important because it allows us
to situate the copper arrowheads in an environment
that was capable of agricultural subsistence and
storage. This challenges earlier interpretations of the
GJCC being a hunting and gathering community and
allows us to place the crafting of the copper material
in a complex community.
Ganeshwar Jodhpura Cultural Complex:
Archaeological Surveys
Archaeological surveys in northeastern Rajasthan
first reported sites in 1972-73 with GJCC material
culture near the site of Jodhpura (IAR 1972–73, 28–30).
This was followed by the first season of excavations
33
Rivizi text.indd 33
there by the State Department of Archaeology and
Museums, headed by R. C. Agrawala and V. J. Kumar
(IAR 1972–73, 28–30). Since then various scholars
have continued to conduct surveys in this region in
an effort to better understand the cultural area and
settlement patterns of the GJCC.
Spread over roughly 34,000 square kilometres,
with an estimated settled area of 12.51 square
kilometres, the GJCC sites documented during the
2003 survey (directed by the author) include settle-
ment sites, vitrified metal waste sites, mining sites
and raw material processing sites (Figure 2.2: map of
2003 GJCC Survey). These sites are often found in close
proximity to each other, with archaeological evidence
of different specialized activity or resources. Although
a very basic ground survey methodology was
employed in the 2003 survey, in which five by five
meter transects were walked in high density artefact
regions and ten by ten meter transects between those
areas, it was an enriching experience, yielding different
kinds of research questions because a decolonized
methodology was put in practice, thus impacting the
interpretation of the region.
Survey Methodology
The methodology employed in the 2003 Survey
was developed as a mode of decolonization
(Rizvi 2006). Decolonizing methodology through
conversations with individuals and communities
was an active decision that was realized by incor-
porating community-based archaeology and public
archaeology, and involved a change in the education
and training of archaeologists (Atalay 2006; Little
2002; Marshall 2002; Merriman 2004a&b; Rizvi 2006,
2008). A collaborative, community-based model
worked very well in the village-to-village survey.
Preliminary survey work took place in the summer
of 2000, and in 2003 the full survey project com-
menced with 10 team members, including doctoral
students from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur,
and the New School University, New York.
Collaborative projects were formed with partici-
pating villages and communities in order to conduct
the archaeological survey. Collaboration was realized
through archaeological practices of survey, but
also included eight after school programs, 64
panchayat4 meetings, and countless discussions
with individuals of all ages who joined us on our
surveys. Publics formed around the discourse
of tourism, heritage management
and the use of archaeology in the 4
contemporary world (Rizvi 2006). Panchayat is the village
council made of five
villages. It is an
official body recognized
by the state.
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 Chapter Two
Sites Explored
0 12.5 25 50 75
N Kms
Figure 2.2
Satellite map of GJCC survey sites based on 2003 Survey
Each new survey began with a visit to the village
sarpanj5 to discuss the overall project. This visit
would often result in a discussion with other pan-
chayat members and interested community leaders,
including farmers. Through such discussions these
individuals became stakeholders in the overall
project. In most cases, local history teachers would
also join in the discussion, and their classes would
join our surveys. In some instances, these students
would actually become part of after-school programs
in which the GJCC survey team would teach them
survey techniques and give lessons in the general
archaeology of South Asia.
Our work involved interacting with a range
of persons: officers of the Archaeological Survey
of India (ASI); the state government of Rajasthan;
the secretary of Tourism, Art and Culture; the
Directorate of Archaeology and Museums; the
district magistrate; the assistant district magistrate;
tehsildars; patwaris; police officers at the stations
where artefacts were stored after a chance find;
the panchayat; individual sarpanj; school teachers;
community leaders; elders; heads of households
and farmsteads; interested
5
The Sarpanj is the head
of the panchayat. This
is an elected office.
Rivizi text.indd 34
Sites Explored
Rajasthan Border
Rajasthan
100
passersby, and most of all, children (Figure 2.3: Reading
maps with the sarpanj, patwari and others, Jodphura).
Working on archaeological projects with com-
munities has proven to be an effective dismantling
of research-based power structures (Greer, Harrison
and McIntyre-Tamwoy 2002; Marshall 2002; Moser et
al. 2002; Rizvi 2006, 2008). Such methodology
necessitates active engagement with community
concerns. In many of these cases, simultaneous to
the archaeological research is a development of
heritage and tourism. The management and public
presentation of archaeological and other heritage
resources created a situation in which heritage
tourism might have been able to directly benefit local
communities rather than multinational corporations.
For example, the Neem Ka Thana Development
Project, a public interest archaeology/heritage
initiative, emerged from the many workshops and
meetings held during our work at Ganeshwar (Rizvi
2006). As I have written about this project elsewhere,
I will not go into details here, except to say that it
was rare that we ever met with indifference during
our discussions of archaeology and heritage in these
communities. Even though public interest projects
34
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 Contextualising the Ganeshwar Copper Corpus:
Archaeological Practice and Research

Figure 2.3
Sarpanj, Patwari and others discussing mapping at Jodphura, Rajasthan

did not develop in every context, that was not reflec-
tive of a lack of interest, rather it was more indicative
of livelihood priorities in that moment, such as a
focus on the lack of water during the drought or on
generational issues in relation to passing on craft.
It was through these experiences of running
workshops and engaging in conversations while
conducting survey work that I owe much of my
theoretical underpinnings for this study. In particular,
there was one instance that stood out among
many: outside the village of Tiskola in northeastern
Rajasthan, I was speaking to metal smiths about their
interaction with materials and asked how they knew
which piece of ore was better to use. Their response
underlined heavily in my field notebook, is something
I have since revisited many times: (translated from
Hindi) ‘You know when you pick up the piece of
ore; it tells you what it can become. You just have
to listen to it. You have to take the time to listen to
it. This is what our children do not have the time to
hear’. At the time I could not have predicted how
this conversation would lead me to contextualise
third millennium BCE copper artefacts. But ever
since I heard this statement, the idea that there is a
communicative interaction between the materials
and the metalsmiths, one that could be passed on
through and link generations, has stayed with me,
transforming my approach to materiality and the past.
GJCC Survey
As mentioned previously, in total there are 385
sites surveyed and reported as GJCC sites in
Rajasthan (Appendix 1). These sites are located
in the districts of Sikar (244 sites), Jaipur (99 sites),
Jhunjhunu (32 sites), Bharatpur (3 sites), Bhilwara
(3 sites), Tonk (1 site), Sawai Madhopur (1 site),
and Jaisalmer (1 site).
The 2003 survey was conducted primarily
in three districts: Sikar (48 sites), Jhunjhunu (30
sites), and Jaipur (51 sites). Additionally, sites were
also documented in the districts of Tonk (4 sites)
and Alwar (2 sites). In all, 135 sites were documented
during the 2003 survey (Figure 2.2: map of GJCC
survey sites). Sixty-one sites are attributed to the
GJCC based on the presence of diagnostic ceramics.
One hundred and ten sites have vitrified metal
waste material (like slag, fuel ash, etc.). Sites with
vitrified metal waste were documented in Sikar

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 Chapter Two

(60 sites), Jhunjhunu (25 sites), Jaipur (24 sites),

and Tonk (1 site) (Appendix 1; Figures 2.4, 2.5, 2.6).
Seventy-one of the 110 sites have been recorded
as having both characteristic GJCC ceramics and
vitrified metal waste material.
Related to the sites just mentioned are sites
that have evidence of furnaces or smelters in situ.
Of the 27 such sites documented in the 2003
survey season, 15 have characteristic GJCC ceramics
associated with pyrotechnical features. These sites
are located in Sikar (14 sites), Jaipur (9 sites), and
Jhunjhunu (4 sites) (Figures 2.7, 2.8, 2.9). There are
also sites with evidence of raw material procurement
or processing. In total, 14 such sites were documented
Figure 2.4 in Sikar (4 sites), Jaipur (4 sites), and Jhunjhunu
Ladala ki Dhani VI (GJC #012). Vitrified metal waste (6 sites) (Figure 2.10, 2.11).
deposits in activity area
The site sizes vary, with most settlements
being larger in area than the specialized activity sites.
Clustering the sites by size, the GJCC has 50 sites
less than one hectare in size, a second grouping of
30 sites between one and three hectares, a third
grouping of 21 sites between 3 and 14 hectares, and
eight sites between 19 to 21 and 25 to 80 hectares.
The large number of less-than-one-hectare-size
sites is due to the large number of vitrified metal
waste material sites in the region. Only 66 sites
have an estimated site size. Based on those sites, the
average site size of GJCC sites is 3.25 hectares, with an
estimated settled area of 1,251.34 hectares (Table 2.2).
There are four different site types often found in
proximity to each other, each providing a different
specialized activity or resource. The site typology
Figure 2.5 includes GJCC settlement sites, vitrified metal waste
Section of mound covered in vitrified metal waste. material sites, raw material processing sites and
Singhana, Jhunjhunu District
mining sites. These sites are generally found adjacent
to a water source, as water is required for metal
production. Mark Kenoyer and Heather Miller have
Sites with
Vitrified provided indicators for metal processing at sites,
Metal Waste including fragments of ore; kilns or fragments of kilns
Materials
attributed to metal processing; metallurgical slag from
the reduction of ore to metal; tools used for metal
processing, such as crucible fragments with metal
Sites w. Vitrified
Metal Waste
prills, moulds, anvils, stakes, hammers, chisels, and
Rajasthan Border so forth; and metal objects, including smelting and
Rajasthan melting ingots and semi-finished and finished objects
(Kenoyer and Miller 1999, 121; H. L. Miller 1994).
Based on this typology, only 31 percent of sites
are settlement sites, 44 percent showed evidence for
N
0 12.5 25 50 75 100 vitrified metal waste, and only 14 per cent had visible
Kms
surface evidence for furnaces (Table 2.3). Table 2.4
Figure 2.6 illustrates the overlap between these sites. Out of 61
Satellite map of GJCC Survey sites based on 2003 Survey GJCC sites, 56 had evidence for vitrified material/
that document vitrified metal waste material

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 Contextualising the Ganeshwar Copper Corpus:
Archaeological Practice and Research

Metal Mining and

Production Raw Material
Sites Sites

Metal Production Mining and Raw

Sites Material Sites
Rajasthan Border Rajasthan Border

Rajasthan Rajasthan

0 12.5 25 50 75 100 0 12.5 25 50 75 100

N Kms N Kms

Figure 2.7 Figure 2.10

Satellite map of GJCC Survey sites based on 2003 Survey Satellite map of GJCC Survey sites based on 2003 Survey
that document evidence of furnaces or smelters that document evidence of raw material procurement

Figure 2.8 Figure 2.11

Metal production feature. Rasali, Sikar District Copper source. Dhowri ki Dongri, Jaipur District

Total Sites 385

Sites with Size Estimate 66

Settled Area of Sites with Known Sites 214.59

Sites with Size Unknown 319

Average Site Size 3.25

Estimated Settled Area of Sites without Size 1,036.75

Estimated Total Settled Area 1,251.34

Figure 2.9 Table 2.2

Metal production feature. Burjiwala, Jaipur District Estimate of settled area for the GJCC (in hectares)

37

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 Chapter Two
Table 2.3
7% 31%
Percentage of types
of sites (based on
Mining Sites / GJCC
2003 Survey) Raw Material Settlement Sites
Table 2.4 GJCC Sites 61
Comparisons of number
of GJCC multifunctional GJCC & VMW 56
sites
GJCC &
10
Production Area
waste, and 18 of those had visible furnaces. The multi-
functionality of the sites suggests that in many cases
there was little separation of life and labour, which
suggests a centrality of the copper as a material. Copper
is entangled with the production of copper artefacts,
labouring bodies, and placemaking in the GJCC. The
significance of copper can also be seen in the clustering
of the different types of sites that together make up
complexes. Each complex consists of multiple sites
in proximity, including settlement and production
centres. These complexes were determined through
cluster analysis and in tandem with discussions with
community members from Ganeshwar and Jodhpura.
There are five main complexes identified in the GJCC:
Ganeshwar Complex/Ladala Ki Dhani
This complex is located in the geographic proximity
of the site of Ganeshwar (GJC 001), Neem Ka Thana,
Sikar. The site of Ganeshwar is 8.4 hectares and is
the largest habitation site within the complex. Within
a kilometre are associated sites, including vitrified
metal waste sites of Ganeshwar I-V (GJC 002, 006),
Ladala Ki Dhani I-VI (GJC 007–012, see Figure 2.4)
and the habitation site southeast of Ganeshwar,
Tuma’at (GJC 013). Outside this radius are the sites
of Maliyavali (GJC 021), Umrawala (GJC 022),
Salawala (GJC 023) and Bhojpura (GJC 024). These
sites are habitation sites with evidence for production
of metals, illustrated through vitrified metal waste
material, pieces of furnaces, and the existence of
copper implements. The site of Baleshwar (GJC 088,
089) is a large copper resource near Ganeshwar; the
two sites are separated by a hill. Littered all around
the base of the hills near Baleshwar are vitrified metal
waste scatters and evidence of furnaces.
38
Rivizi text.indd 38
14% 44% 4%
Production VMW Cu Hoards
Centers (Furnaces)
Jodhpura Complex
This complex is located off the site of Jodhpura
(GJC 031), Kot Putli, Jaipur. The site of Jodhpura is
approximately 7.4 hectares in size. The complex is
distinct from others in that there are fewer metal
production sites associated with it. Sites in this
complex include Mandha (GJC 057), Bhankri (GJC
059) and Kiradot (061), where 28 copper bangles
were discovered during construction of the road
between Kot Putli and Jodhpura (site/village). Found
along the side of the new road, the copper hoard was
sent to the local police station, and subsequently to
the Department of Archaeology and Museums, State
Department of Rajasthan. We were unable to gain
access to this hoard for documentation and study.
Cheeplata/Neerja Complex
This complex is just south of the Ganeshwar complex
and is comprised of a number of habitation and
metal processing sites. The primary sites are Cheeplata
(also spelt, Chiplota)/Neerja (GJC 091–093) in Neem
Ka Thana, Sikar. Together the Cheeplata/Neerja sites
(GJC 091–093) are approximately 80 hectares in
area. This is the largest complex of interrelated sites
combining habitation, mining, processing, smelting
activity areas in one coherent site. The Cheeplata sites
associated with GJCC ceramics and metal production
include Chokhali Dhani (GJC 094), Na’al(d)a (GJC
095), Dharora (GJC 096), Bor Deowra (GJC 097),
Dharora (GJC 098), Manjhaira (GJC 099), Rasali
(GJC 100), Johadri (GJC 102), and Motawali ki Dhani
(GJC 103). In stark contrast to all the other complexes
in this region, this complex is demonstrative of
economic complexity based on site sizes.
20/09/2018 11:13:05
 Contextualising the Ganeshwar Copper Corpus:
Archaeological Practice and Research
Kilarli Complex
Close to the Jodhpura complex, the Kilarli complex is
comprised of the main sites Kilarli I–III (GJC 035–
037). Though just under a hectare, each is comprised
of clearly demarcated copper smelting and processing
activity areas. Kilarli I (GJC 035) has five activity areas
identified, each with its own radial configuration
emanating out from the circular smelter remains. Sites
in this complex also include Khatiwala Dhani (GJC
033), Tiskola (GJC 042), Kali Dantali (GJC 034), Khag
(GJC 038), Bhurjiwala (GJC 039), and Bhariya (GJC
041). Evidence of copper smelting was found on the
surface of each of these sites.
Khetri Complex
This complex is situated in and around the Khetri-
Singhana region in Jhunjhunu District, an area that
has a history of copper production.6 There are 20
surveyed sites from the third millennium BCE
in this region (GJC 111–134, see Figure 2.5). This
is the most loosely constructed of the complexes.
Its comparable lack of concentration of sites is likely
due to the fact that not all parts of it have been
surveyed. Surveying has also been complicated due
to the history and contemporary nature of constant
occupation in this region. This complex is defined
more as a region of copper mining than habitation.
Each production complex within the GJCC is
economically self-organized and self-sufficient.
It has its own distinct formation and number of sites,
with all the sites providing key functions for the
production of copper implements, from mining
to their use. For example, within the Ganeshwar
Complex, Ganeshwar and Tuma’at are the two main
habitation sites with documented evidence of finished
copper implements and bangles. The sites at Ladala
Ki Dhani evidence production through extensive
vitrified metal waste products, sections of smelters/
furnaces, and evidence of copper ore that could
potentially have been mined from the nearby hills.
Evidence for a complete simple economic
system—including production, distribution and
consumption—is found within the complex itself.
This evidence of an economic system suggests three
key points:
1. Although each complex may have had a distinct
organizational aspect, in terms of number of sites,
site sizes, and so forth, the centrality of copper in
their lives would be similar.
39
Rivizi text.indd 39
2. Copper implements found at the habitation
sites suggest that the residents of the GJCC
sites were producers and consumers of the
copper implements.
3. The segmented, individual complexes of
differential copper production suggest that
this activity happened on the household to
community-based level rather than under
the control of a larger centralized authority.
These complexes are resource specialized
communities, defined as communities that emerge
within highly circumscribed natural resource
localities (Scarborough, Valdez, and Dunning 2003,
xvi). The study of the GJCC communities relies on
data collected from copper crafting activity areas in
the most basic form. While the present data make
it difficult to conceptualize the activity at the level
of the household, connections between settlement
plans and craft production allow us to hypothesise
at the level of community, and it is within this
framework that complexity may also be addressed,
specifically in relation to crafting. These communities
developed through copper production. The produc-
tion of the craft simultaneously produced their
identities/bodies and sites.
The GJCC seems to display attributes character-
istic of ‘communal complexity’ where ‘small scale
societies possess flexible production routines and
leadership strategies that allow them to adapt to
shifting contingencies’ (Porter 2013, 134). Within
a heterarchical framework, the complexes within
the GJCC can be understood to operate as multiple
interconnected groups which provide the possibility
of many different lateral arrangements of power.
Though all the complexes lie within
6
the larger cultural framework of
John Percy (1861) re-
the GJCC, each has the potential lates how nineteenth
of escalating political power. These century copper smelting
complexes are formulated based practices in Khetri used
cow dung as an organic
on economic activity and spatial
reagent mixed in with
clustering; each is able to internally a reducing agent, which
control levels of production and mixture served to stick
site planning. The economic the crushed ore together
in order to retain
autonomy arising from being a
some space between the
resource specialized community reagents. Once the pro-
based in copper production allows cess was underway in
for enough power to ensure that, the retorts, the organic
material would char and
as it was during the third millen-
lose its adhesive prop-
nium BCE at least, the cultural erty. Percy’s narrative
integrity of the GJCC is maintained. is significant also for
its aid in reconstructing
the practice of copper
smelting.
20/09/2018 11:13:05
 Chapter Two
If the GJCC were economically regressive or in a
different political arrangement, it is likely that either
of the two adjacent contemporary cultural forces,
the Harappan and the Ahar Banas, would have been
able to subsume the GJCC and control the minerals,
bodies, and landscapes.
Archaeological Excavations at Ganeshwar
The sites of Ganeshwar and Jodhpura were explored
and excavated in 1972 and the early 1980s (Agrawala
1978a, 72–75; 1978b, 123–124; IAR 1972–73, 29–30;
1979–80, 62–65; 1981–82, 61–62; 1983–84, 7172;
Kumar 1977, 28–33). While the sites have been reported
in IAR, with characteristic material culture discussed
in a series of publications, no final excavation report
of either site has been published. However, most
of the material from the excavations is available at the
Jaipur office of the State Department of Archaeology
and Museums, with some examples of ceramics
and copper artefacts on display at Hawa Mahal, Jaipur,
and the Sikar Museum. The copper corpus that is
the subject of this study was documented from the
excavation registers from the site of Ganeshwar.
The site of Ganeshwar was first discovered in
late 1977, when archaeologists from the State
Department of Archaeology examined the area where
the ‘Neem-ka Thana Treasury Hoard’ was found.
This hoard consisted of 58 flat copper celts and two
barbed arrowheads (Agrawala 1978b, 123–124; IAR
1981–82, 61). In the sub-sequent excavations of
the site, over 1,000 copper implements have been
uncovered in association with characteristic GJCC
ceramic assemblages. These copper artefacts included
arrowheads, beads, rings, bangles, fishhooks, pins,
spearheads, celts and balls. The excavators contend
that these artefacts were made from local copper
sources, as chalcopyrite ore is prevalent in the region
(IAR 1981–82, 61).
A conservative estimate of the size of the
ancient site of Ganeshwar is approximately 8.4
hectares and 500 meters in elevation (Figure 2.12).
The modern village of Ganeshwar interrupts the
ancient site as it sits between the ancient habitation
and metal activity areas. The full size of the ancient
site is difficult to establish.
The excavation reports for the site have been
published in IAR, and they provide initial periodiza-
tion and cultural characteristics (IAR 1981–82, 61–62;
1983–84, 71–72; 1987–88, 101–102; 1988–89, 76–78).
While the first report is not
7
In conversation during
specific about the number or
the 2003 survey, location of trenches at the site,
H. C. Misra reported
that only one trench
was opened during the
first season.
40
Rivizi text.indd 40
subsequent reports provide that information.7
The second excavation report includes a discussion
of seven trenches laid out, three on mound 3, two
on mound 4 (eastern slope hillock), and two on
mound 5. Excavations revealed a 1.4 meter deposit
(IAR 1983–84, 71–72). During the third season of
excavations at Ganeshwar, six trenches were laid out
(Q, R, S, T, U, and V) on the eastern and central part
of the main mound with the aim of re-examining the
sequence of cultures in the lower levels (IAR 1987–88,
101–102). Additionally, two sections were scrapped on
the mound’s southwest corner. In the fourth season,
five trenches were excavated (near the contemporary
area of Galvashram) exposing 4.5 meters of habitation
(H. C. Mirsa, personal communication, 2003;
IAR 1988–89, 76). The aim of the fourth season of
excavation was to understand the metallurgical
aspect to copper production at Ganeshwar.
There are three main periods at Ganeshwar,
with the second period further subdivided into
two phases, based on corresponding excavations
conducted at Galvashram-Ganeshwar (IAR 1988–89,
76–78). This is in contrast to the three phases
described by Hooja and Kumar (1997), in which
Period I is Phase I; Period II phase I, is Phase II; and
Period II phase II, is Phase III. The table (Table 2.5)
illustrates the overlap. This volume utilizes the
terminology provided in the IAR publication.
Period I is marked by a deposit of 30 to 50 cm. This
layer is characterized by a large number of microliths
and animal bones, which lead the excavators to
identify it as the Mesolithic or Late Stone Age level
(Hooja and Kumar 1997, 328; IAR 1987–88, 101–102).
The raw materials used for the microliths were primar-
ily chert and quartz (IAR 1987–88, 101–102). There is
a noticeable lack of ceramics in this early level.
The tool industry includes types that are
retouched, and blunted back blades, obliquely blunted
blades, triangles, points, crescents, trapezes and
arrowheads. Scrapers and burins made of flakes occur
in small numbers. A distinctive feature of the industry
is the complete absence of the crest guided ridge
technique. The excavation reports suggest that the
manufacturing of these tools most likely took place on
site, due to the close proximity of the finished
tools to the waste and debris (Hooja and Kumar 1997,
329; IAR 1981–82, 61–62; 1987–88, 101–102).
While the lowermost levels of Period I contain
a high number of bones of small game and birds,
the later levels have larger animal bones present.
The bones recovered from the excavation have been
20/09/2018 11:13:05
 Contextualising the Ganeshwar Copper Corpus:
Archaeological Practice and Research

Road to
Ganeshwar Site Plan Neem Ka Thana
2003 Survey
0 25 75
m

Nala 3
N

Mound 1 Nala 2

Mound 3

Nala 1
Mound 2

Bhudoli Road

Gopal’s
Tea Shop
School
Yard

Road to
Ganeshwar Village

Figure 2.12
Map of site of Ganeshwar, drawing with community members

41

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 Chapter Two
Table 2.5
Periodisation of Ganeshwar based on excavations
Chronological Affiliation IAR Reports
Mesolithic/ Late Stone Age Period I
Chalcolithic Period II Phase I
Chalcolithic Period II Phase II
Iron Age Period III
attributed to wild fauna. Unlike the smaller bones,
the larger ones are nearly always charred and broken
and often split open, which is suggestive of marrow
extraction (Hooja and Kumar 1997, 329; IAR 1981–82,
61–62; 1987–88, 101–102).
Period II is a deposit of 40 to 60 cm, and is distinct
due to the change in material artefacts uncovered.
Based on the Galvashram-Ganeshwar excavations,
this period has been subdivided into two phases.
Period II phase I continues to document high
numbers of microliths and animal bones, has few
documented copper implements, and has a distinct
ceramic assemblage. Additionally, the excavations
uncovered evidence of circular hut outlines and
floors paved with river pebbles and schist slabs, most
likely quarried from the nearby rocks (Hooja and
Kumar 1997, 329; IAR 1981–82, 61–62; 1983-84,
71–72; 1987–88, 101–102).
The copper from this phase is not in very large
quantities. The finds include five arrowheads, three
fishhooks, one spearhead and an awl (IAR 1987–88,
101–102). The excavators concluded that this phase
marks the introduction of copper to Ganeshwar, and
a transition from a predominantly Mesolithic to a
Chalcolithic way of life (Hooja and Kumar 1997, 329).
Two major ceramic types were documented in
Period II phase I. The first was a pink to buff coloured,
thin walled, lightly fired ware. Small to medium size
kitchen vessels, including vases and jars, which are
footed and ring based, with narrow and short incurved
rims. The painted decoration on the ceramics includes
a black base coat overlaid with dots, dashes, and curves
in white to highlight the underlying layer. Primarily
illustrating geometrical motifs,
8
The dating of the iron/ the designs on these vessels in-
iron slag is a conten- clude volutes, wavy lines, oblique
tious issue. I was unable lines, balls, triangles, crosses and
to access the original
broad bands. The second type
reports or documents
related to the excavation
was a thicker, sturdy ware best
to gain additional clar- represented by basins. These red
ity on the chronology or
on what sorts of evidence
much of the IAR reporting
was based upon.
42
Rivizi text.indd 42
Hooja and Kumar 1997
Phase I
Phase II
Phase III
ware vessels are decorated with incised designs.
With a finer texture and surface treatments, the
colour of the ware seems brighter and well distributed.
Other forms include dish on stand, troughs, jars,
vases and bowls (IAR 1988–89, 76–78).
Period II phase II at Ganeshwar is distinguished
by the high percentage of copper implements
found in the excavations; a remarkable 99 percent
of the entire artefact assemblage from this phase is
copper. The copper artefacts include arrowheads,
rings, bangles, chisels, balls and celts (IAR 1981–82,
61–62; 1988–89, 76–78). The ceramic assemblage
from this phase includes goblets, beakers, handled
bowls, elliptical vases, cylindrical vases, lids, jars,
offering stands, dishes, basins, and miscellaneous
pottery. Scholars have assumed these forms to have
some Pre-Harappan influence/affinity (Hooja and
Kumar 1997, 329). Period II phase II also documents
the presence of round terracotta cakes, an artefact
often used to denote Harappan pyro-technology
(IAR 1987–88, 101–102).
Period III at Ganeshwar is represented by second
millennium BCE material (based on the ceramic
index) at Galvashram, with the presence of iron
smelters and iron slag (IAR 1988–89, 78).8 The
excavators have documented two smelters that
included open hearths and bellows (IAR 1988–89, 78).
There is some confusion in the reports as to
whether the iron smelting was from the second
millennium BCE or, more likely, from the context
of the monastery on the site dated to the middle
of the first century AD (Kharkawal, personal
communication, 2003). The ceramics documented from
this period are wheel thrown, red ware, with medium
to fine fabric, treated with a wash or slip.
Initial excavation reports documented three
stone platforms in successive phases, leading the
excavators to speculate about protective measures
against flooding (IAR 1981–82, 61–62). This feature
was a 3.08 meter structure running across the
20/09/2018 11:13:06
 Contextualising the Ganeshwar Copper Corpus:
Archaeological Practice and Research

mound from north to south, parallel to the river

Kantli, with an estimated length of 30 meters and
an average thickness of four meters (IAR 1988–89, 78).
Although the reports suggest the wall can be dated
to the third millennium BCE, the excavators now
say that the stone wall was a modern addition (V. J.
Kumar, H. C. Misra, personal communication, 2003).
This chapter has provided multiple scales of
context in both method and research for the copper
corpus material that is the focus of this book. On a
regional scale, this chapter provided research results
related to the paleo-environment, paleo-climate,
irrigation, sustainable agriculture. As the scale
of analysis became more focused on the GJCC, a
decolonised survey methodology was discussed in
order to better situate access to the copper as material
and to the landscape. The 2003 survey was discussed
in detail in order to establish the entangled nature
of labouring minerals, bodies and landscapes
and the centrality of copper in imagining ancient
sociality. And finally, the synthesis of the Ganeshwar
excavation reports focused this book on the site
itself. The excavations provide a relative chronology
and context that situate the copper arrowheads
and how the ancient communities belonged to the
landscape through the production of the copper itself.
In the next chapter the material culture of the GJCC
will be presented in an effort to provide even more
nuance to the centrality of copper, particularly in
relation to an aesthetic form, and how that form is
related to bodies, minerals and landscapes.

43

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Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Mrs. Wright, with her daughter Katrina, had decided to remain
with us in Yokohama for the summer, so we took a cottage together
on The Bluff, a high foreign residence section of the city, and
prepared to make ourselves most comfortable.
Two days later the Commissioners and the rest of the party went
aboard the Hancock and we waved them good-bye from a harbour
launch as they steamed away toward Manila.
 CHAPTER IV
IN JAPAN

To be quarantined in a house too small for the number of its

occupants, behind closed doors, each one of which bears aloft a
sinister yellow placard across which is printed in large, black letters:
“Diphtheria,” is no way to begin a visit to a strange and interesting
country.
No sooner had Bessie, Charlie’s nurse, been released from
quarantine by the doctors in Yokohama than our older boy, Robert,
developed suspicious symptoms which, upon diagnosis, were
pronounced to be diphtheritic. The sore throat began before Mr. Taft
left for Manila, and he was loathe to go, but as the new serum
treatment for diphtheria had robbed the disease of much of its terror,
and as we were in the hands of an excellent American physician, Dr.
Eldridge, I felt confident there was no cause for serious
apprehension.
We sent Helen and the baby to be taken care of at the Grand Hotel,
while Mrs. Wright, Maria and I resigned ourselves to a long and
tedious period of isolation. Robert’s diphtheria did not develop to a
dangerous stage, but the sore throat persisted and it was three weeks
before we were released upon a none-too-welcoming world. Our long
quarantine had marked us as objects to be avoided—in a social sense
—even after the doctors had pronounced us safe.
Mrs. Wright and my sister and I spent that entire three weeks only
wishing that we were in our own land where some friendly voice
might at least shout an inquiry about us from a distance, and not in
this far-away place where only strange and very foreign sounds came
floating in to us from curious and crowded streets whose every nook
and corner we were aching to explore.
 Our house was charming. All the “foreign” houses in Japan seem
to me to be charming. The solidity of Occidental construction, with
the light touch of Japanese interior decoration, make a fascinating
combination, especially in that environment. The Japanese
landscape is—well, peculiarly Japanese, and the gardens, however
“foreign” they may be, have an air quite unique and unmistakably
oriental.
The Foreign Settlement in Yokohama consists of a broad business
section, solidly built, on the low lands fronting the harbour, and The
Bluff. The Bluff is a garden of beautiful homes. At one end it rises
high above the bay and commands a wide view of harbour, town and
Pacific Ocean, while the other end runs inland to meet the higher
hills beyond and forms a deep valley in which has been built up a
teeming native quarter full of colour, of picturesque outline and of
never-ending oriental clamour. Around this village are terraced,
bright-green rice paddies and high hills covered with dark, Japanese
pines which grow at curious angles.
Our house, a spreading bungalow in a large and well-kept garden,
was on the inland side and overlooked this valley. From a Buddhist
temple on the opposite hill, a quaint structure with uptilted roof and
great stone torii gateway, came the ceaseless drone of a priest
repeating over and over an endless invocation to the constant,
measured tum-tum accompaniment of little wooden drums, while
from the narrow streets below rose the strange cries of itinerant food
venders. Throughout the whole long evening sounded the long wail
of the blind masseurs who, with their thumping bamboo sticks,
tramp from door to door seeking patronage. At intervals the single
low tong of a great temple bell set the hills to vibrating.
We rented the house from an Englishman who was “going home”
on vacation, and with it we rented a complete ménage, including a
most efficient little Japanese woman named Matsu who served us
both as waitress and housekeeper and answered to the call of
“Amah!”—meaning either nurse or maid. Besides the Amah, there
was only a cook, an excellent one, but the two contrived to run the
house with a smoothness and an economy which I have never seen
equalled. They were so economical, in fact, that we had difficulty in
getting them to serve to us enough of their well-prepared food. There
were six of us in family, not including Charlie, or Baby San as he was
called, and at each meal Matsu would bring in just six portions of
whatever there was, six chops, six croquettes, six little fishes, always
six—no more. We resorted to strategy sometimes and announced,
well in advance, that there would be guests.
“How many, O Ku San?” says Matsu cautiously.
“Well, maybe two,” says we.
Whereupon we would get eight little chops, or eight little
croquettes, or whatever it might be. But we couldn’t play this game
very often because we were afraid that if too many guests failed to
materialise the time would come when we really would be giving a
party and be forced to act out the “Wolf! Wolf!” story to our own very
great embarrassment. I’m glad to say this never occurred; Matsu
always obeyed orders; but when an unexpected guest dropped in we
had to exercise the principle of “family hold back” in real earnest.
However, while Matsu was in command none of us had any cause
for complaint. She had plenty of native shrewdness and didn’t
neglect her own interests to any appreciable extent, but she displayed
none of the traditional oriental duplicity which we had been warned
to look out for in all Japanese servants. She relieved us of all the
responsibilities of housekeeping and left us free to wander around
among the fascinating shops and to go off on long sightseeing
expeditions at our pleasure.
While we were still in the midst of the miseries of quarantine I got
my first letter from my husband, and as he had sailed away into what
to me then was a very far distant and somewhat unreal world, I was
exceedingly glad to hear from him.
The Hancock had stopped at Kobe and had then gone on to
Nagasaki where it had to lie for two days taking on coal. The
Commissioners seem to have begun by that time to chafe at delays
and to long for their settled, definite employment. But they had to go
to Hongkong on some business matters and it was from Hongkong
that my first long letter came. They were received by the British
authorities with the usual formality; pompous calls to be returned as
pompously; dinners, luncheons, club privileges, launch parties and
much entertaining gossip; but they were interested, principally, in
meeting for the first time the genus Filipino irreconcilable.
 The Filipinos, after three centuries of Christian education, which
had taken the form of religious instruction only, had, with reason,
risen in revolt against the Spanish system of friar domination and
had demanded some measure of freedom and a voice in the control
of their own affairs. This is a long and complicated story which can
only be touched upon here.
They were engaged in a hopeless struggle with Spanish authority
when the Spanish-American War, unexpected, undreamed of,
suddenly turned the tables and placed them in an entirely new
situation. They saw Spain defeated and turned from the islands she
had held since Magellan’s first voyage, while another flag quickly
rose above their ancient forts and strongholds. Then it was that the
handful of ambitious “illustrados,” or well-to-do and educated ones,
began freely to preach independence and were encouraged by not a
few Americans, including some in official relation to the situation,
who, in complete ignorance of real conditions, approved the so-
called aspiration and gave hope of its early fulfilment.
The idea of these Americans was that our forefathers had fought
for independence and that it was against our most cherished
principles to hold any people against their will. But they didn’t take
into consideration the fact that the Filipinos were Malays, not ten per
cent. of them with even a primary education, used only to a
theocratic and absolute government and without any experience in
the rule of the people. Nor did they consider that our forefathers had,
for a century and a half before the revolution, been carrying on what
was really self-government and were better fitted by training and
tradition to make self-government work than any people in the
world. They indulged in sentiment to the exclusion of thought; and
so the situation was created.
The idea of complete independence was never shouted from the
housetops in Spanish times, but the new flag represented free
speech, a free press, and such freedom generally as the Filipinos had
never dreamed of in their wildest aspirations and the “illustrados”
and the men who had tasted power in the insurrection against Spain
were not slow to take advantage of it. An alluring conception of
independence, freedom from all restraint and the enjoyment of
luxurious ease, really, was sent abroad among the densely ignorant
masses by the handful who had education, with the result that by the
time the American government was free really to face the issue, the
demand for our immediate withdrawal was unanimous, or nearly so.
But it couldn’t be done. Aguinaldo tried his hand at a government
for six months and failed miserably. Corruption was rife. Chaos
reigned; the country was impoverished and absolutely unprotected;
and it didn’t take the Americans long to recognise the fact that
“independence” meant nothing more nor less than the merciless
exploitation of the many by the few and the establishment of worse
conditions than any the people had ever known.
So we stayed; there was nothing else to do; and the insurrection
against constituted authority was taken up where it left off when
Admiral Dewey steamed up Manila Bay. It was hopeless from the
start, and one after another of the leading insurrectos, as the months
went by, abandoned the struggle in favour of prosperous peace and
came in to Manila to take the oath of allegiance to the United States.
But as pacification progressed a few of the leaders declared
themselves to be “irreconcilable” and either took to the hills with
marauding bands of ladrones, or went over to Hongkong and joined
the little Filipino colony there. This colony in Hongkong—which still
exists, by the way—was known as the “junta” and its business in life
was to hatch schemes for murderous uprisings, smuggle arms and
incendiary literature into the islands, raise money for carrying on
hostilities and make itself useful generally.
The methods employed by these “irreconcilables” were peculiarly
their own. They consisted, mainly, of coercion and threats of
assassination among Filipino people who were staying at home and
endeavouring to keep out of trouble. Then, too, they were reported to
have made a great deal of money by compelling Filipino hemp and
tobacco planters to sell to them these valuable products at prices
fixed by themselves, and later disposing of them in Hongkong at the
regular market price which gave them a tremendous margin of profit.
These were the conditions—merely sketched—which existed in the
Philippine Islands when the second Commission was sent out, and
the first Filipinos Mr. Taft ever met, he met in Hongkong. They were
not members of the “junta” but were high-class, wealthy, non-
combatant refugees named Cortez, who lived under a threat of
assassination, who had had all their property confiscated because of
their sympathy with the insurrection against Spain, had secured
restitution through the government at Washington, and who came
now to beg the Commission for protection against their own people
and for the speedy establishment of peaceful American rule in the
islands.
Then came Artacho. Artacho had been Aguinaldo’s rival in the
insurrection against Spain and he very much resented the selection,
by the Americans in command, of Aguinaldo as the leader of the
Filipino forces when Dewey went into Manila. He was sufficiently
annoyed to leave the country and take refuge in Hongkong. He
professed entire ignorance of the activities of the “junta” and
unqualified loyalty to the government of the United States, but, as he
had with him a “secretary” who very carefully listened to all he had to
say, and as he seemed to be very cautious in all his expressions, Mr.
Taft decided that he was being watched and was, if not actively
connected with the “junta,” at least “on the fence” and in his call only
“casting an anchor to windward” in case the Americans should
succeed in pacifying the Islands and establishing a government there
with which it would be very nice indeed to be connected. It must
have been a very diplomatic, a very soft-spoken and a most amusing
meeting.
Among other things the Commission had to do in Hongkong was
to secure Chinese servants. They had been told that this was
absolutely necessary because the unsettled state of affairs in Manila
made Filipino servants entirely undependable.
Captain McCalla, of the Newark, had given to my husband in
Yokohama, a letter to one L. Charles, a Chinese who ran a sort of
employment agency in Hongkong, but when L. Charles came out to
the Hancock, in response to a message from Mr. Taft, he brought
with him the surprising news that the servants had already arrived
from Shanghai and had been waiting for several days. Mr. Taft was
greatly astonished, as he was unconscious of having made any
arrangements at all, but L. Charles smilingly explained to him that
Admiral Dewey had attended to it. Then Mr. Taft remembered that,
sure enough, Admiral Dewey had, several months before in
Washington, offered to secure servants through his own Chinaman,
Ah Man, but he, himself, had forgotten all about it.
However, he sent for the men and when they came aboard one of
them proudly produced a note from the flag officer of the Brooklyn,
enclosing a note to Ah Sing, the steward of the Brooklyn, from Ah
Man, Admiral Dewey’s servant. It read:
My dear Ah Sing:

It is a new Governor-General coming up to Manila City. His name is Mr. Wm. H.

Taft and he is going to sail from here first of April. The Admiral asked me to write
to you and ask if you please find him some good Chinese servants for Mr. Taft. He
like to have a very good cook just like myself the Admiral said and two men to wait
on table a butler and second man just like you. Now would you be so kind as to try
to find some very nice people that will take good care and will understand their
business. The Admiral will be very much oblige to you I am

Your truly friend,

Ah Man.

This is an example of what is known in the East as “flen-pidgin,”

which may be literally translated as “friend-work.” It is a Chinese
system, but it has been adopted by the representatives of every
country in the world to be met out there and it is by no means the
least of the elements which enter into the charm of the Orient.
One of the objects for stopping in Japan was to enable the
Commissioners to get white duck and linen clothes for the tropics
and Mr. Taft had the worst of luck in getting anything to fit him. In
the beginning we had some rather heated discussions as to the style
of dress that he should adopt. He had been assured that the most
comfortably dressed men were those who wore “straight button ups”
as they are called. These are coats which have a high, round collar
and button straight down from the chin—plain military jackets, in
fact. They are worn without shirts, collars, ties or anything except
underwear and trousers and are, no doubt, very nice for the tropic
heat. But I did not consider that such a severe style would bring out
the lines of my husband’s figure to the best advantage, so I prevailed
upon him to have all his clothes made with sack coats which should
be worn with the usual accessories. It was a sad experience in
Yokohama, but he left for Hongkong full of hope, having been told
that the tailors there were much better. He wrote in utter disgust.
The tailors were not good; he had been to every shop in town looking
for wearing apparel of all kinds and could find nothing large enough
for him. He said he had imagined that Englishmen were, as a rule,
large enough to demand men’s sizes,—but evidently not. He had to
have everything, shoes, stockings, underwear, shirts, collars and hats
made to order—and then they didn’t fit.
My husband’s letter, full of strange names, of assassination, of
smuggled arms, of dark intrigue and unrest generally, left a vague
impression in my mind that he was going into a country where he
would be subjected to murderous attacks every few minutes. Then I
reflected that he was not quite alone; that General MacArthur and
about seventy thousand American troops were down there too, and
that they could probably be depended upon to do everything in their
power to protect him.
Our life in Yokohama was very placid. It was some time after our
yellow placards were removed before our neighbours began to call on
us, and we didn’t blame them. No doubt they felt that it would be
foolish to risk getting diphtheria just for the sake of being formally
polite. We were delightfully entertained, both before and after the
Commission sailed, by Mr. and Mrs. T. Williams McIvor, who are
among the old American residents of Yokohama. Mr. McIvor had
been American Consul General, but when we met him he was
engaged in a private law practice, representing the American
Tobacco Company and other large foreign concerns. As Consul
General he had taken care of the Chinese during the Japan-China
War and had sent about eight thousand of them out of the country.
He was now representing the foreign business community in its
dispute with the Japanese government as to whether or not the
property known as the Foreign Concession, or The Settlement, was
taxable. This area had been granted by the Japanese government on
perpetual lease at the time the first treaties with Japan were made,
and the holding of it by foreigners was conditioned on the payment
of a ground rent to the government which, it was provided, should
never be increased beyond a certain amount. But now Japan was
greatly in need of money, was taxing its own people in every way
possible, and eventually decided to levy a tax on the houses and
improvements upon this land, on the theory that improvements on
land are not a part of the land itself. But by the Civil Law and the
Common Law the provision in the treaties that no tax should be paid
on the property greater than that fixed in ground rent would have
prevented the levying of any tax on the buildings because, by such
laws, improvements are considered to be a part of the land. But in
Japanese law it was said they were not so regarded and the question
was whether the treaties were to be construed according to Japanese
law or according to the laws of foreign governments. The subject was
one of endless discussion while we were there, and Minister Buck
had already referred the question to the State Department at
Washington.
We also dined with Mrs. Scidmore, whom I was to meet many
times in after years. Mrs. Scidmore is the mother of Eliza Ramaha
Scidmore, the well known writer about Far Eastern countries, and is,
I suppose, the most notable foreign figure in the Orient. She had
lived in Japan since the early days, not so long after the country’s
doors were opened to the world. Her son was in the Legation service
when I met her and she had a charming house on the Bund, in which
was gathered a remarkable collection of Japanese curios and objects
of art. Mrs. Scidmore was then nearly eighty years of age I think, but
she was as bright and young as a woman of fifty. The last time I saw
her she was nearly ninety and she entertained us at luncheon in
Nagasaki, where her son was American Consul. She dresses with as
much care and is as interested in fashions and fabrics as any girl, and
it is a rare pleasure to see her, with her snowy hair piled up on her
head and a white silk gown spread out about her, sitting in the centre
of a group of people discussing, with great animation and entire
comprehension, general topics of current interest. She afterward
went to “keep house” for her son in Seoul, Korea, where he became
Consul General, and she continues to be a sort of uncrowned queen
of foreign society.
Leaving our children at the bungalow with their nurses, Mrs.
Wright, Maria and I went about, to Nikko, to Kamakura, to Kyoto
and other interesting places, and we spent the intervals, indeed all
our time, in restraining our intense desire to purchase everything we
saw in the extraordinarily attractive little shops.
About the last of July, when the heat began to be rather more than
we could stand, we left Yokohama and went up into the Hakone
Mountains to Miyanoshita. The trip to Miyanoshita includes a two
hours’ climb in ’rickshas up a steep incline from a village on the
railway, where there was then no sort of accommodation for
“Europeans,”—only Japanese inns which, though they may have
been excellent from a Japanese standpoint, did not seem to us to
have been built for inn purposes. When we got out of the train it was
seven o’clock in the evening. There were Mrs. Wright and her maid,
her daughter Katrina, my sister Maria, the three children, Bessie the
nurse, and I. We wanted dinner above all things else and we decided
to get it. It all had to be prepared “European style” at one of the little
inns, so by the time it was served and disposed of the night was upon
us, and, I may say, the blackest night I ever remember seeing. We
debated at length the possibility of taking the two hours’ ’ricksha ride
in such darkness, but the chattering coolies, mainly by gesture and
facial expression, succeeded in convincing us that it was the most
desirable thing in the world to do. Incidentally, and aside from our
objection to the bedless inns, we were most anxious to reach our
journey’s end. So—we set out, in eight ’rickshas, six for us and two
piled high with hand luggage. I put Helen and Robert together in one
and took Charlie in with me, and each of us had an extra man behind
to push, also two men each for the baggage ’rickshas, which made
sixteen men in all. We made quite a cavalcade and I felt fairly
satisfied, not to say mildly festive, until we got away from the lights
of the town and discovered, to our amazement, that for some reason
or other, the ’ricksha men had failed to bring lights. I believe the idea
was that they could keep the road better without them. We went
along for a short distance in the Stygian darkness, then Maria
decided that she wouldn’t have it. Whatever we might do, she was
going back for a lantern. We were not in an argumentative mood, so
we let her go without a word, while we plunged on.
 HELEN TAFT IN JAPANESE COSTUME

By that time the wind was tearing down through what seemed to
be a very deep, and what certainly was a very dark, canyon, and it
was raining steadily. My coolies lagged behind and the first thing I
knew I found myself entirely alone. The others had gone so far ahead
that I couldn’t even hear the sound of their ’ricksha wheels, though
the ’ricksha of those days was a very noisy little vehicle. I had been
nearly two months in Japan, had had plenty of experience with
’ricksha coolies and I knew them to be the most inoffensive little men
in the world, but the darkness and the wind-driven rain and the
discomfort generally, must have got on my nerves because I began to
be perfectly sure that my two men were nothing less than brigands
and that the separation from my party was a prearranged plan for
murder and robbery. I didn’t know how wide the road was, but I
knew that on one side there was a very deep chasm because I could
hear the roar of a mountain torrent far down and directly below me.
Then the coolies chattered and grunted incessantly, as Japanese
coolies always do, and I was convinced that they were arguing about
which should take the initiative in violence. But I sat tight and said
nothing, which was the only thing I could do, of course—except to
soothe Charlie who was crying with discomfort and fright—and after
awhile—ages it seemed to me—I came upon the rest of my party
where they had halted in the road to give their men a breathing spell.
I couldn’t see them; I couldn’t even make out the outlines of a
’ricksha, but I could hear Helen sobbing and stammering something
about having lost her mother for good and all.
The coolies were chattering at each other at a terrific rate and I
judged, from their tones, that they liked the night no better than we.
While we were standing close together in the road, all talking at once
and trying to tell each other what horrible experiences we had had,
we saw a faint glimmer away in the distance, growing more and more
distinct as it came up the long hill. It was the dauntless Maria with a
light. We fell upon her with the warmest welcome she probably ever
received in her life, and everybody at once cheered up. Even the
coolies got happier and seemed to chatter less angrily in the lantern’s
dim but comforting yellow glow. Nor did we separate again.
Everybody wanted to keep close to that light. It revealed to us the
reassuring fact that the road was, at least, wide enough for safety,
and so we rolled soggily along, with no other sound but the rattle of
many wheels and the splash of mud, until we arrived at the Fujiya
Hotel, sometime after ten o’clock, in a state of utter exhaustion.
I am not going to describe Miyanoshita because it has been very
well done by scores of writers, but I will say that the Fujiya Hotel,
away up in the mountains, at the head of a glorious canyon, is one of
the most splendidly situated, finely managed and wholly delightful
places I ever saw.
And there are plenty of things to do. We were carried in chairs over
a high mountain pass to Lake Hakone, which, still and bright as a
plate-glass mirror, lies right at the base of Fujiyama and reflects that
startlingly beautiful mountain in perfect colour and form.
Then there are temples and wayside shrines, and tea-houses—tea-
houses everywhere. We were coming back from a tramp one day and
stopped at a tea-house not far from our hotel where we encountered
an Englishwoman who gave us our first conception of what the
terrible Boxer Insurrection was like. She entered into talk with us at
once and told us a most tragic story. She was a missionary from the
interior of China and had been forced to flee before the Boxers and
make her way out of the country in hourly peril and through scenes
of the utmost horror. Her husband had elected to remain at his post
and she didn’t then know but that he might already have died under
the worst imaginable torture. She made our blood run cold and we
were tremendously sorry for her, though she did tell her harrowing
story calmly enough. It seems she had with her a young Chinese
refugee who was a convert to Christianity and, because of that fact, in
even more danger in China than she.
We expressed our sympathy and good wishes and continued on
our way. But we hadn’t gone far when we heard a frantic shouting
behind us:
“Have you seen my Chinaman! Have you seen my Chinaman
anywhere on the way!”
It was the missionary, distracted and running violently after us;
and, we had not seen her Chinaman. She rushed past and up into the
woods faster than one would have thought she could run, and all the
time she kept calling, “Joseph! Joseph!” at the top of her voice. We
decided that Joseph was the Chinaman’s new Christian name since
we had heard that they all get Biblical names at baptism. We
hastened along, thinking she might have gone suddenly mad and we
wondered what in the world we should do. But as we came around a
bend in the road we saw her coming toward us with a grinning little
queued heathen marching meekly before her. She was looking very
much relieved and stopped to explain her rather extraordinary
conduct.
“I was perfectly certain that boy had committed suicide,” she
began.
“Why, what made you think that?” I asked.
“Well, he wrote that, and I found it!” And she thrust into my hand
a piece of paper on which was scrawled in printed characters:
Just as I am, without one plea,
Save that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.
 She explained that Joseph had had a great deal of trouble; was
away from his people; that Chinamen didn’t care anything about
their lives anyhow; and that she had been afraid for some time that
he would grow despondent and do something desperate.
But there stood Joseph, broadly smiling and looking for all the
world like an oriental cherub who would have liked very much to
know what all the commotion was about. Poor chap, he didn’t
understand a word of English and had been merely trying to learn
the words of an English hymn by copying them, in carefully imitated
letters, on bits of paper.
In the meantime my husband had arrived in Manila and had
already sent me several letters through which I came gradually to
know something of the situation he was facing.
The principal impression I received was that between the
Commission and the military government, in the person of General
Arthur MacArthur, there did not exist that harmony and agreement
which was considered to be essential to the amicable adjustment of
Philippine affairs. In other words, General MacArthur seemed to
resent the advent of the Commission and to be determined to place
himself in opposition to every step which was taken by them or
contemplated. It was not very easy for the Commissioners, but as far
as I can see now, after a careful reading of all the records, they
exercised the most rigid diplomacy at times when it would have been
only human to have risen up and exercised whatever may be
diplomacy’s antithesis.
The description of the arrival of the Commission made me rather
wish I had accompanied them;—except for the heat. It was June and
my husband said the sun beat down upon and came right through
the heavy canvas awnings on the decks of the Hancock. The men
had, by this time, become accustomed to their ill-fitting white linens,
but they had not yet mastered the art of keeping them from looking
messy, and they must have been a wilted company during their first
few days in Manila.
They came up into the harbour on Sunday and during the course of
the day received many interesting visitors. General MacArthur was
not among them, but he sent a member of his staff, Colonel Crowder,
to present his compliments and make arrangements for the going
ashore ceremony the next day. Then came the Americanistas, as the
Filipinos who sympathised with American control were called. These
had been recognised by General Otis before General MacArthur had
arrived and many of them have always been prominently associated
with the American government in the Islands. Among others were
Chief Justice Arellano, Mr. Benito Legarda and Mr. Pardo de Tavera.
The Commissioners talked about the situation with these gentlemen,
through Mr. Arthur Fergusson, the Spanish Secretary of the
Commission, and found them not altogether despondent, but
certainly not optimistic about the outcome. They thought the
Commissioners were facing very grave problems indeed, if not
insurmountable difficulties.
The next day—“just when the sun got the hottest,” wrote Mr. Taft—
all the launches in the harbour gathered around the Hancock, many
whistles blew, many flags and pennants fluttered, and the
Commission was escorted to the shore. They entered the city with
great pomp and circumstance, through files of artillerymen reaching
all the way from the landing at the mouth of the Pásig River, up a
long driveway, across a wide moat, through an old gateway in the city
wall and up to the Palace of the Ayuntamiento where General
MacArthur, the Military Governor, had his offices. But it was not a
joyous welcome for all that. All the show was merely perfunctory; a
sort of system that had to be observed. Their reception was so cool
that Mr. Taft said he almost stopped perspiring. There were few
Filipinos to be seen, and as General MacArthur’s reception to the
Commission was anything but cordial or enthusiastic they began to
feel a discomforting sense of being decidedly not wanted.
If they had any doubts on this point General MacArthur soon
cleared them up. He frankly assured them that he regarded nothing
that had ever happened in his whole career as casting so much
reflection on his position and his ability as their appointment under
the direction of the President. They suggested that he could still
rejoice in considerable honour and prestige as a man at the head of a
division of more troops than any general had commanded since the
Civil War and that he was, moreover, still enjoying the great power of
Chief Executive of the Islands.
“Yes,” said he, “that would be all right if I hadn’t been exercising so
much more power than that before you came.”
 Whereupon Mr. Taft gently reminded him that he had been
exercising that power for about three weeks only and said he hoped
he had not become, in that time, so habituated to the situation as to
prevent his appreciating the rather exalted position in which he
would still be left. They afterward exchanged some correspondence
as to what powers each did have, but they seemed to have disagreed
from the first.
General MacArthur succeeded General Otis in command of the
United States Army in the Philippines and he had fallen heir to a
policy with which he was entirely out of sympathy. General Otis had
scattered the troops in small divisions and detachments all over the
Islands, and General MacArthur found himself in command of about
seventy thousand men, but with only a few regiments where he could
lay his hands on them for action in his own immediate vicinity. He
believed that the only way to get rid of the predatory bands and bring
order out of a chaotic state, was to concentrate the army on the
island of Luzon where most of the active insurrectos operated. And
he thought it would be many years before the Filipinos would be
ready for anything but the strictest military government. But the
trouble was that thousands of Filipinos all over the Islands had
already sworn fealty to the United States, or had gone quietly back to
work, and it was known that the lives of many of these would not be
worth a moment’s purchase if the protection of the American troops
was withdrawn from them. That was the situation.
The last engagement between real insurgents and American troops
had taken place in February before the Commission arrived. There
had been men of some ability and real patriotism in Aguinaldo’s
cabinet and among his followers at Malolos, but by this time the best
of them had come in and taken the oath of allegiance to the United
States, others were in prison slowly making up their minds as to
whether they would or would not follow this course, while still others
had gone over to Hongkong to join in the activities of the “junta.”
Aguinaldo was still roaming around the mountain fastnesses of
Luzon, posing as a dictator and issuing regular instructions to his
lieutenants for the annihilation of American regiments; but the
insurrection had degenerated.
The companies of men who still kept the field did so, for the most
part, because they found that the easiest way to make a living. Money
was getting scarce and the people were steadily refusing to contribute
to the cause. A letter from one of Aguinaldo’s lieutenants was
intercepted in which he said that he had found a certain town
obdurate and that he thought it would be necessary to take four or
five lives before the people could be induced to give money. Murder
and rapine, torture and robbery; these were the methods employed,
and very little of the money realised ever found its way into the
general revolutionary coffers. Most of the remaining “patriots” had
become ladrones and were harrying their own people much more
than they were opposing the American forces.
These conditions led the Commission to think the time had come
to organise a native constabulary, under American officers, with
which thoroughly to police the Islands. But General MacArthur did
not agree with them; thought it would be folly to trust any Filipino
with arms and cited instances of where those who had been armed as
scouts had proved entirely untrustworthy. But the suggestion was
received by many of his own officers with the utmost approval and
one man, in the Ilocos country in northern Luzon, said he had only to
issue a call and he could have five thousand as loyal men as ever
wore uniform enlisted in twenty-four hours. I may say here that the
Filipino people are divided into a number of distinct tribes and that
some of these never did take much, if any, part in the insurrection.
The insurrection is to-day referred to as the Tagalog rebellion, the
Tagalogs being one of the principal tribes, though not the largest.
There had always been a great number, a majority in fact, of
Filipinos who did not like the awful conditions created by the
insurrection and who easily could be persuaded to an attitude of
loyalty toward any decent and peaceful government; and it was from
this number that the Commission wanted to recruit a native
constabulary. But no. The Commission would not begin to exercise
such powers as it had until September and in the meantime General
MacArthur was absolute and in answer to this proposition he merely
reiterated his belief that the only way to meet the situation was with
additional American troops.
In my husband’s earliest letters he characterised the Filipino
people much as he did after years of experience with them. He wrote
me that of the six or seven millions of Christian Filipinos about two
per cent. were fairly well educated, while all the rest were ignorant,
quiet, polite people, ordinarily inoffensive and light-hearted, of an
artistic temperament, easily subject to immoral influences, quite
superstitious and inclined, under the direction of others, to great
cruelty. He thought them quite capable of becoming educated and
that they could be trained to self-government. He was inclined to
think that they had, because of their environment and experience
under Spanish rule, capacity for duplicity, but he did not think they
had the Machiavellian natures which people attributed to them.
Some of those who call themselves “illustrados”—the higher class—
took to political intrigue with great gusto.
Almost the first experience which the Commission had with
Filipino Machiavellian methods involved them in a complication
which might have proved quite serious. If there is one thing in the
world that the Filipino people, as one man, love, it is a fiesta. A fiesta
is a holiday, a celebration with music, marching, many flags, best
clothes and plenty of high-flown speech-making. Now there was one
Pedro A. Paterno, an unctuous gentleman, who, while he had taken
the oath of allegiance and had fairly put himself in the pocket of
American authority, was still supposed to be more or less in
sympathy with Aguinaldo. He made himself the mediator between
General MacArthur and Aguinaldo and occasionally promised
Aguinaldo’s surrender. Nobody ever knew what he promised
Aguinaldo, but it was known to a certainty that he was “carrying
water on both shoulders” and doing his best to keep in well with both
sides. He had played the same rôle in Spanish times. He made what
is known in history as “The Peace of Biacnabato,” between the
insurrectos and the Spanish government, by the simple means of
“interpreting” to each the demands of the other in perfectly
satisfactory terms. He did all the translating, on both sides, himself
and the “Peace” was signed. Then before its irregularities were made
clear he asked of the Spanish government, as his reward, a dukedom
and a million dollars upon which to live up to the title. His letter to
the Spanish governor is still extant.
This gentleman one day, out of a clear sky, proposed what he
called an Amnesty Fiesta; a grand banquet in honour of General
MacArthur to follow a day of celebration and all-round relaxation
from the strain of hostilities. General MacArthur didn’t see that it
would do any harm, but said he would not attend the banquet in his
honour and that all the speeches that were to be made would have to
be carefully censored. To this Pedro readily agreed and went
immediately to work to make elaborate preparations for the
occasion. He got a committee together and sent them to wait on the
Commission with an invitation to the banquet. Only three of the
Commissioners were in town, but these, after making careful inquiry
as to the nature of the entertainment and discovering that no
incendiary speech-making was to be allowed, decided to accept the
invitation. Paterno was in high feather and nothing but the fiesta and
the banquete was talked about for days. But gradually information
began to reach the ears of Mr. Taft that all was not as it should be. He
learned that arches were being erected across certain streets bearing
inscriptions that were insulting to the American flag. One arch, in
front of Malacañan Palace, where General MacArthur lived, had a
picture of President McKinley on one side and a picture of Aguinaldo
on the other, and it was said that General MacArthur had ridden
under this arch without noticing it. That would be taken for sanction
by an ignorant Filipino. But as soon as notice was called to them all
the objectionable features of the arches were removed and
preparations went on. But rumours kept coming in about the
speeches until Mr. Taft became curious. He went to General
MacArthur and asked who was doing the censoring.
“Why, Pedro Paterno,” said the General; as much as to say, “What
more could you ask?”
Mr. Taft went back to the office and straightway set about to get
copies of those speeches. And, he got them. Some of them were
already in type at a local newspaper office and were to be printed in
full the next morning. This was the day of the fiesta and it was
proving a very quiet affair. There was little enthusiasm on the streets,
but there was plenty of interest in the coming banquete. The
Commissioners looked over all the speeches and found them,
without exception, seditious in the extreme. So, of course, they could
not go to the banquet. They could not sit by and listen to
misrepresentations without getting up immediately and making
vigorous denial and protest and they could not lend the sanction of
their presence to an entertainment that had been so arranged. The
banquete was in General MacArthur’s honour and the speeches