The Bronze Age was a period when the notion of ‘frontiers’ was fluid and contacts were wide ranging. In a situation of considerable movements of people and objects, what probably also travelled were technologies. This article looks at different drilling technologies in the Bronze Age from Egypt to the Indian subcontinent. The adoption or rejection of different types of drilling mechanisms in different regions reminds us that technologies have to be socially acceptable in the first place before they could be adopted.
AstonB. G.HarrellJ. A.ShawI.‘Stone’, in NicholsonP. T.ShawI., eds, Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, Cambridge, 2000, pp. 5–77.
2.
BhanK. K.VidaleM.KenoyerJ. M., ‘Harappan Technology: Theoretical and Methodological Issues’, Man & Environment, XIX(1–2), 1994, pp. 141–57.
3.
ChildeV. G.The Bronze Age,Cambridge, 1930.
4.
ChildeV. G.‘Rotary motion’, in SingerC.HolmyardE. J.HallA. R., eds, A History of Technology, Volume I, Oxford, 1954, pp. 187–215.
5.
CiarlaR.‘Bronze Age Crafts at Failaka: Some Preliminary Observations on Stone Vase Fragments’, East and West, 35(4), 1985, pp. 396–406.
6.
CoghlanH. H.‘Metal implements and weapons’, in SingerC.HolmyardE. J.HallA. R., eds, A History of Technology, Volume 1, Oxford, 1954, pp. 600–22.
7.
GorelickL.GwinnettA. J.‘A History of Drills and Drilling’, New York State Dental Journal, 53(1), 1987, pp. 35–39.
8.
HodgesH.Technology in the Ancient World, New York, (1992 [1970]).
9.
KenoyerJ. M.‘Shell industries at Moenjodaro, Pakistan’, in JansenM.UrbanG., eds, Interim Reports Vol. I. Reports on Field Work Carried out at Mohenjodaro, Aachen and Rome, 1984, pp. 99–115.
10.
KenoyerJ. M.‘Trade and Technology of the Indus Valley: New Insights from Harappa, Pakistan’, World Archaeology, 29(2), 1997, pp. 262–80.
11.
KenoyerJ. M.VidaleM.‘A new look at stone drills of the Indus Valley tradition’, in VandiverP.B.DruzikJ. R.WheelerG. S.FreestoneI. C., eds, Materials Issues in Art and Archaeology, III, Pittsburgh, 1992, pp. 495–518.
12.
KohlP.‘The ancient economy, transferable technologies and the Bronze age world system: A view from the northeastern frontier of the ancient Near East’, in RowlandsM.LarsenM.KristiansenK., eds, Centre and Periphery in the Ancient World, Cambridge, 1987, p. 16.
13.
LawR. W.Inter-Regional Interaction and Urbanism in the Ancient Indus Valley, Current Studies on the Indus Civilization, Volume VIII, Parts 1 and 2, Delhi, 2011.
14.
MackayE.‘Bead Making in Ancient Sind’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, No. 57, 1937, pp. 1–15.
15.
MackayE. J. H.Chanhudaro Excavations 1935–36, Connecticut, US, 1943.
16.
MackayE. J. H.Further Excavations at Mohenjodaro, New Delhi, Archaeological Survey of India, 1938.
17.
MarshallJ.Mohenjodaro and the Indus Civilization, London, 1931.
18.
MooreyP. R. S.Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries, Oxford, 1994.
19.
NyeD. E.Technology Matters. Questions to Live with. Cambridge (US), 2007.
20.
PipernoM.‘Micro-drilling at Shahr-i Sokhta: The making and use of the lithic drill-heads’, in HammondN., ed., South Asian Archaeology, London, 1973, pp. 119–29.
21.
PipernoM.‘Grave 77 at Shahr-i Sokhta: Further Evidence of Technological Specialization in the 3rd Millennium BC’, East and West, 26(1–2), 1976, pp. 9–12.
22.
PipernoM.‘Bead-making and boring techniques in 3rd millennium Indo-Iran’, in TosiM., ed., Prehistoric Seistan I, Rome, 1983, pp. 319–25.
23.
PipernoM.TosiM., ‘The Graveyard of Shahr-i Sokhta Iran’, Archaeology, 28(3), 1975, pp. 186–97.
24.
PrabhakarV. N.BishtR.S.LawR. W.KenoyerJ. M., ‘Stone Drill Bits from Dholavira—A Multi-faceted Analysis’, Man & Environment, XXXVII(1), 2012, pp. 8–25.
25.
RaoS. R.Lothal, a Harappan Port Town (1955–62), Volume II, New Delhi, Archaeological Survey of India, 1985.
26.
RatnagarS.Understanding Harappa, New Delhi, 2001a.
27.
RatnagarS.‘The Bronze Age: Unique Instance of a Pre-industrial World System’, Current Anthropology, 42(3), 2001b, pp. 351–79.
28.
RatnagarS.Trading Encounters from the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age, New Delhi, 2004.
29.
ReevesR.Ivory Works in India through the Ages (upto the End of Nineteenth Century), Census of India, Volume I, Part VII-A, New Delhi, 1961.
30.
RyeO. S.EvansC., Traditional Pottery Techniques of Pakistan, Washington, 1976.
31.
SalvatoriS.VidaleM., ‘A Brief Surface Survey of the Protohistoric Site of Shahdad (Kerman, Iran): Preliminary Report’, Rivista di Archeologia, VI, 1982, pp. 5–10.
32.
StocksD. A.Experiments in Egyptian Archaeology: Stoneworking Technology in Ancient Egypt, London and New York, 2003.
33.
TosiM.‘Excavations at Shahr-i Sokhta. Preliminary Report on the First Campaign’, East and West, 18(1), 1968, pp. 9–66.
34.
TosiM.‘Excavations at Shahr-i Sokhta. Preliminary Report on the Second Campaign, Sep-Dec 1968’, East and West, 19(3–4), 1969, pp. 283–386.
35.
TosiM.‘The Joint ICAR/IsMEO Delivering Program: A Constrained Return to Shahr-i Sokhta’, East and West, 34(4), 1984, pp. 466–82.
36.
UsherA. P.A History of Mechanical Inventions, Boston, 1959.
37.
VidaleM.The Archaeology of Indus Crafts, Rome, 2000.
38.
WrightR.‘New tracks on ancient frontiers: Ceramic technology on the Indo-Iranian borderlands’, in Lamberg-KarlovskyC. C., ed., Archaeological Thought in America, Cambridge, 1989, pp. 268–79.
39.
WrightR. P.‘Revisiting Interaction Spheres—Social Boundaries and Technologies on Inner and Outermost Frontiers’, Iranica Antiqua, XXXVII, 2002, pp. 403–17.
