For several years now, in fact well over a decade, we have been retracing the Journey of the British surveyor, Francis Buchanan.  Carried out in 1800-01, Buchanan’s Journey recorded several iron and steel smelting and other proto-industries including coarse blanket weaving, textiles and dyeing, glass bangle-making from across the Deccan plateau.  We were able to find remnants of these industries at the various locations mentioned by Buchanan including Channarayanadurga, Chikkanayakanahalli, Doddanayakanahalli, Matodu and Gattipura.

Some of these proto-industries, in particular, iron and steel and glass bangles required the construction of large furnaces in which raw materials like iron ore and silica had to be smelted.  The fuel used in this process was charcoal.  Although we could find pieces of slag and broken crucibles at these sites, the one object that continuously evaded us was smelting furnace.  In many places that we visited we would hear, much to our discontent, that remaining portions of furnaces could be found until the late 1990s and early 2000s but since then were completely destroyed.

Recently, while working on another project in Pavagada taluka, Shiva mentioned that Dr. Cheluvarajan, a historian based in Pavagada had mentioned a glass-making furnace in his work “Pavagada taluku ithihasa darshana”.  We decided to try and locate the furnace.

And we did.  In a small village, Hanumanabetta about 18 km from Pavagada town, nestled at the foothills of a hill covered with thick green vegetation of deciduous forests, we found a furnace, broken in half, more than 10’ in height and 12’ in width in dilapidated condition.  The furnace was constructed by using 2’’ thick bricks and the inside coated with ceramic clay.  Strewn around the furnace were fragments of crucibles with quartz slag and traces of glass.

It is likely that different types of ornamental bangles were manufactured here: green, red and black using different raw materials.  For instance, green glass bangles required broken glass, banaji kallu (powdered white quartz), loha (brass or copper), caricallu (iron ore stone with manganese), and impure soda (soulu).

But for us, what was most exciting was to actually see for ourselves a traditional furnace, perhaps 200 years old that has witnessed the cataclysmic changes that industry has undergone over time.

Shiva M is an avid field explorer of history and the environment. His blog, https://terrainnexplorer.com/ is a repository of fascinating stories and research.

 Sashi Sivramkrishna and Sreedhar S. are from FAIR, Bangalore.