56 



figurine head modelled on classic lines, earthen spindle 

 whorls, and several polished black potsherds, one 

 piece having distinctive decoration similar to a frag- 

 ment found near Srinivaspur in Mysore, associated with 

 several fraoments of chank banor]es. 



Guntitr District. 



The great Buddhist remains of Amaravati occur in 

 this district and have been the scene of much careful 

 and well-rewarded labour on the part of Mr. Rea. The 

 chank fragments here discovered are very numerous and 

 important, giving evidence that the chank bangle in- 

 dustry was carried on in this locality even earlier than 

 the construction of the Buddhist buildings. They 

 consist in the main of large numbers of fragments of 

 working sections of the shell together with a very few 

 pieces of finished and ornamented bangles. Besides 

 these are numerous waste pieces — shoulder and oral 

 rejects, showing that the methods of cutting up were 

 identical with those of the present day. The whole of 

 these fragments were found beneath the foundations of 

 buildings which the most competent authorities date 

 circa 200 B.C., hence these bangle fragments are antece- 

 dent thereto and must be over 2,100 years old. It may 

 be that these remains constituted part of the town's rub- 

 bish heap before the erection of the Buddhist buildings 

 which have survived to the present time and that this 

 rubbish heap was employed in making or raising the 

 ground prior to the putting in of the foundations, or it 

 may be that an old village site, including the waste of a 

 village bangle factory was selected as a site by the Bud- 

 dhist architects of Amaravati. 



Besides bangle fragments, a few rudely carved 

 chank finger rings figure among the remains, together 

 with small discs of f inch diameter sometimes perforated 

 in the centre , the latter were used in the fashioning of 

 necklaces. At Peddamudiyam in Cuddapah, Mr. Rea 

 has found complete necklaces formed of spherical chank 

 beads alternating with chank discs of the pattern here 

 referred to. The perfectly circular outline of these 

 small discs is remarkable. 



