History and Archaeology of Black-and-Red Ware

The black-and-red ware, distinguished by a fully black interior and partially black and largely red exterior, is one of the chief ceramic industries of ancient India. It authentic association in the early days with the megalithic burials of south India had given a strong funerary personality to the ware. For a long time, this ware was supposed to belong to early historical horizon and was generally termed as the Satavahana ware. However, recent excavations, especially in Gujarat (e.g., Pandu Rajar Dhibi), Maharashtra (e.g., Chir and) West-Bangal (e.g., Pandu Rajar Dhibi), Maharashtra (e.g., Prakash), and Karnataka (e.g., Tekkalakota), where it has been found in the proto-historic context, have convincingly c’emolished its exclusive burial character and has demonstrated further that this ware carries a chalcolithic character, too, besides pushing back its antiquity to the Harappan times. More recently, this ware has been reported from the Neolithic horizon as well at Chirand and Koldihwa. Thus, its wide occurrence in different regions and in different levels ranging from the harrappan times down to the early centuries of the Christian era at several sites in India has given manifold facets to its character. So far, scholars have studied this ware in terms of shapes of the pots, thus overlooking its ancillary cultural components, chronological assignments and technological constituents. Obviously, their studies have fallen short of a fuller assessment of the personality of this ware. The present work, therefore, happens to be the first comprehensive work wherein the author has competently investigated the manifold facets of this ware-vis-?-vis the various cultural properties and technological characteristics of diverse cultural and chronological horizons associated with this ware. He has delineated the data and discussed the central theme quite exhaustively and explicitly. The book is adequately illustrated with a map, a line-drawing and a few photographs.