Agra: They used huge swords, some of which were close to four feet long, and arms that had intricate, pointed forms like starfish. A fortuitous find beneath the ground in Mainpuri, UP, seems to indicate that our ancestors fought viciously and fiercely nearly 4,000 years ago. The discoveries have been dubbed “exciting” by archaeologists.
A farmer was levelling his two-bigha field earlier this month in Mainpuri’s Ganeshpur hamlet when he discovered a significant quantity of copper swords and harpoons buried beneath the ground. He believed they were valuable items made of gold or silver, so he took them all home. But after some villagers alerted the police, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) got to work.
Numerous swords, some of which had a hook at the bottom and are being referred to by archaeologists as “antenna swords and harpoons,” were discovered.
According to experts, a trove of 4,000-year-old copper weaponry found by accident in a field in Mainpuri, Uttar Pradesh, can be dated to the copper age.According to Bhuvan Vikram, director of archaeology at ASI, “These copper hoards date to the Chalcolithic period (copper age), and the existence of ochre-colored pottery (OCP) is directly related to this period.” Studies have shown that these hoard implements were predominantly fashioned from copper and not bronze, despite the fact that bronze was a specialty of the Harappan civilization, which was essentially an urban society during the copper age.
The typical dating range for OCP culture is between 2,000 and 1,500 BCE. The name “ochre pottery” comes from the fact that pottery from this time period had a red slip but appeared ochre to archaeologists who touched it. Vasant Swarnkar, ASI’s director of conservation and spokesman, claimed that a number of finds have demonstrated that the Mainpuri material was almost 3,800–4,000 years old. Samples collected from the neighbouring Sanauli (Baghpat), Madarpur (Moradabad), and Sakatpur (Saharanpur) sites were also subjected to a carbon dating test. According to the evidence, they date back to 2,000 BC, or 4,000 years ago.
The presence of weaponry suggests that people of this age were engaged in conflict, which may have been between two sizable groups over territory or legal rights. He continued. These weapons could not have been in the hands of the average person. It was a “chance discovery,” supervising archaeologist Raj Kumar Patel told TOI. What needs to be investigated is why the weapons were found in a cluster, according to Vikram, a participant in the excavations in the Saharanpur district’s Sakatpur village. Were the weapons being manufactured there or were they being transported?
Professor Manvendra Pundhir, a historian and archaeologist at AMU, stated that it appeared that these weapons “either belonged to warriors for combat between huge groups or were used for hunting.” The discovery of a “battle chariot” during earlier digs in Sanauli, however, lends credence to the warrior hypothesis. The results show that fighting was widespread throughout the copper period, but additional research is required.