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Art and Architecture
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The extensive use of iron during this period bears testimony to the advancement made in the technical knowledge of smelting and forging iron implements. The excavations at Ujjain serve as evidence of it. The manufacture of weapons like lances, spears, javelines, arrow-heads and daggers proves that people were better equipped for war purposes than before. For both war and domestic purposes, pans, lamps, nails, knife blades, clamps, etc. began to be prepared from iron. Further, the use of iron implements brought momentum into the field of agriculture, as a result of which ploughing and harvesting became easy with iron plough, sickle, and loe. Tools, such as drills, adze, and chisel which boosted the woodcraft of the period, began to be manufactured
While the use of iron increased, that of copper became limited. It was now used in the production of punchmarked and cast coins and also for manufacturing antimony rods, toys, rings, and beads. The use of silver is also attested by the discovery of silver punchmarked coins. BONE AND STONE OBJECTS
A large number of bone objects have been uncarthed from different archaeological sites. These are points, styluses, arrow heads, etc. Perhaps bone points and arrow heads were used in hunting small birds. Some polished stone celts have been discovered from Sonpur, Chirand, Vaiśāli, and Oriup in Bihar, Jaugada and śiśupālagarh in Orissa and Taxila in the North West. These were employed to cut dowu forests and bring wider areas under cultivation and settlement in the neighbourhood of urban centres. SYMBOLS ON COINS
Punchmarked coins in the sixth century B.C., such as Kärshāpaņas, have a number of symbols punched upon them by different punches one after another. These symbols arc important from the artistic point of view. They are known to us from the coins of Bihar mound hoard of Taxila, Paila hoard, Ahaura hoard, and Golakhpur hoard. The Sun, the six-armcd symbol, a hill above a tank with two fish, a peculiar symbol surrounded with fivc taurincs, a harc and a bull on a
