60 
rows of tiny impressed punctures and there can be little 
doubt that it is of early Brahmanical age. 
(z) 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 chank-bangle industry in Gujarat and 
Kathiawar, namely :—(a) Sigam, Hiran Valley, Baroda 
Prant, (6) Kamrej, on the Tapti, (c) Mahuri, on the left 
bank of the Sabarmati, Baroda State, with (¢@) Ambavalli, 
(ec) Damnagar, (f) Kodinar, and (g) in and on the 
alluvium of the Shitranji river above Babapur, all four in 
Amreli Prant, Kathiawar, also (£) Valabhipur in Vala 
State, Kathiawar. Atall these places working fragments 
of chank shells have been found. The most important 
sites appear to have been those at Mahuri in Gujarat and 
Ambavalliand 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 Ambavalliand 
Valabhipur fragments of finished bangles are especially 
plentiful and as may be seen by reference to pl. IV. 
where two bangle fragments from Mahuri (No. 3310), 1 
from Babapur (No. 3615), 10 from Valabhipur (No. 
3493), 1 from Kamrej (No. 3066), and to pl. II] 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 tang 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. 
