6o 



rows of tiny impressed punctures and there can be little 

 doubt that it is of early Brahmanical age. 



(a) Kheralu. A single fragment of a sawn working 

 section of chank shell was found on the surface of the 

 loess at this place. 



Eight sites can clearly be indicated as probable 



centres of the c hank-bangle industry in Gujarat and 



Kathiawar, namely : — (a) Sigam, Hiran Valley, Baroda 



Prant, (d) Kamrej, on the Tapti, (c) Mahuri, on the left 



bank of the Sabarmati, Baroda State, with (d) Ambavalli, 



(e) Damnagar, (/) Kodinar, and (^) in and on the 



alluvium of the Shitranji river above Babapur, all four in 



Amreli Prant, Kathiawar, also {/i) V^alabhipur in Vala 



State, Kathiawar. At all these places working fragments 



of chank shells have been found. The most important 



sites appear to have been those at Mahuri in Gujarat and 



Ambavalli and Valabhipur in Kathiawar. The unworked 



sections and waste pieces of shells found at these three 



places are so numerous, and so characteristic in their 



form of stages in shell-bangle manufacture, that we are 



perforce compelled to admit these sites as having been in 



old times locations of important factories, a conclusion to 



which further weight is given by the discovery at each of 



these places of fragments of completed bangles, in many 



instances of highly decorated patterns. At Ambavalli and 



Valabhipur fragments of finished bangles are especially 



plentiful and as may be seen by reference to pi. IV. 



where two bangle fragments from Mahuri (No. 3310), 1 



from Babapur (No. 3615), 10 from Valabhipur (No. 



3493), I from Kamrej (No. 3066), and to pi. Ill where 17 



fragments from Ambavalli are figured, ornamentation is 



well executed and exhibits considerable taste, a high 



degree of skill, and undoubtedly the employment of 



effective tools of several sorts — saws, drills and files. 



Iron is the only metal suitable for making tools fit for 



carving the extremely hard substance of chank shells 



and it is of the greatest interest and significance that at 



the Ambavalli site, associated with the many fragments 



of worked and unworked chank circlets found there, an 



iron knife with a tangr was discovered which from 



... 

 personal examination I am satisfied may well represent 



such a chank-saw as is to-day in common use in Bengal 



chank factories for cutting patterns upon the bangles. 



