[INDOLOGY] Experimental Archaeology and ancient India

[Jan E.M. Houben]

I thank Dean Michael Anderson, François Voegeli and Britta Schneider
for their helpful replies (on and off line) to my query.
Having re-read Harry Falk's article after I read it first in the mid-1990s
I now understand that the item that
was reconstructed was a "candidate" vajra that is ultimately rejected. It
deserves, in my view, mentioning
in the wikipedia-list of examples of experimental archaeology.
The question remains whether there are any more spectacular instances in
indology, the reconstruction of
an ancient boat and try it at sea, for instance, which could be joined
to the wiki-list or a similar one meant
for a larger public.
Best,
Jan


On 12 June 2013 07:23, Dean Michael Anderson <eastwestcultural at yahoo.com>
wrote:
>
> Mark Kenoyer at U Wisconsin at Madison has done a lot of work in this
area.
>
> Best,
>
> Dean
>
> --- On Wed, 6/12/13, Jan E.M. Houben <jemhouben at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Jan E.M. Houben <jemhouben at gmail.com>
> Subject: [INDOLOGY] Experimental Archaeology and ancient India
> To: "indology at list.indology.info" <indology at list.indology.info>
> Date: Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 2:49 AM
>
>
> Dear List Members,
>
> Experimental archaeology has been widely used to test hypotheses in
archaeological interpretation. A famous case is Thor Heyerdahl’s balsa raft
Kon-Tiki. A special type concerns archaeometallurgy. The term is also used
in connection with data in the history of science such as Leonardo Da
Vinci’s designs of a parachute and a tank.
>
> Wikipedia pages on experimental archaeology and experimental
archaeometallurgy and several examples:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeology#cite_ref-4
> and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experimental_archaeometallurgy
>
> These two webpages give NO EXAMPLE from Indian archaeology and history.
>
> Now my question:
> Is this absence accidental or has experimental archaeology indeed little
importance in the study of Indian antiquity?
>
> The closest we get to an Indian case according to these wikipedia pages
is “Attempts to manufacture steel that matches all the characteristics of
Damascus steel” ... “including ... reconstructions ... of the Sri Lanka
furnaces at Samanalawewa.”
>
> In this connection I am searching for a pdf of Harry Falk’s 1994
> "Copper Hoard Weapons and the Vedic vajra" which if I remember correctly
> contains a reference to a reconstructed vajra.
> Proc. of the Twelfth Int. Conf. of the European Ass. of South Asian
Archaeologists held in Helsinki University 5-9 July 1993. Ed. by A. Parpola
and P. Koskikallio. Vol. I, pp. 193-206.
>
> In many domains experimental archaeology COULD be imagined to be quite
useful:
> - seafaring with primitive vessels?
> - earliest minting technologies in India (esp. Taxila and NW India)?
> - do the ingredients in preparing the mahavira vessel contribute to its
capacity to undergo extreme circumstances of heat and pressure?
> etc etc
>
> Are there any (or even many?) well-attested examples of such experiments
having already been done?
>
> Any reference, pdf etc. will be greatly appreciated.
>
> Jan Houben
>
> --
> Prof. Dr. Jan E.M. Houben,
> Directeur d Etudes « Sources et Histoire de la Tradition Sanskrite »
> Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, SHP,
> A la Sorbonne,45-47, rue des Ecoles,
> 75005 Paris -- France.
> JEMHouben at gmail.com
> www.jyotistoma.nl
>
>
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> http://listinfo.indology.info
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INDOLOGY mailing list
> INDOLOGY at list.indology.info
> http://listinfo.indology.info




--
Prof. Dr. Jan E.M. Houben,
Directeur d Etudes « Sources et Histoire de la Tradition Sanskrite »
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, SHP,
A la Sorbonne,45-47, rue des Ecoles,
75005 Paris -- France.
JEMHouben at gmail.com
www.jyotistoma.nl


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.indology.info/pipermail/indology/attachments/20130614/0e31b290/attachment.htm>