Which statement best describes the pottery of the mature Harappan civilisation?
- A.Handmade grey ware painted in white
- B.Wheel made red ware with designs painted in black
- C.Glazed blue ware made of quartz powder
- D.Unpainted glossy black deluxe ware
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is B, wheel made red ware with designs painted in black. Mature Harappan potters used the fast wheel and fired their pots well, producing a sturdy red ware on which they painted in black over a red slip. The repeated motifs are intersecting circles, the pipal leaf, fish scales, chequerboards and peacocks, and the typical shapes are the dish on stand, the S shaped jar, the pointed base goblet and the perforated jar.
Option A is wrong because grey ware painted in black, not white, belongs to the much later Painted Grey Ware culture. Option C describes Blue Pottery of Jaipur, a medieval Turko Persian technique that reached India thousands of years after the Harappans. Option D describes Northern Black Polished Ware of the first millennium BCE. Harappan pottery is therefore neither grey, nor glazed, nor glossy black.
Read the full article: Pottery Traditions of India: Harappan Ware to NBPW
Practice Questions
View allPainted Grey Ware is generally associated with which period of Indian history?
- A.Mature Harappan period
- B.Later Vedic period
- C.Mauryan period
- D.Gupta period
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Painted Grey Ware is a fine, thin, wheel made grey pottery decorated with simple black lines, dots and spirals, dated roughly between 1100 and 600 BCE.
Read the full explanation →Northern Black Polished Ware is the characteristic pottery of which phase?
- A.The Neolithic villages of Mehrgarh
- B.The Chalcolithic cultures of the Deccan
- C.The Mahajanapadas and the Mauryan empire
- D.The Delhi Sultanate
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Northern Black Polished Ware, usually shortened to NBPW, is a very fine clay pottery with a glossy, almost mirror like surface in steel grey to jet black.
Read the full explanation →Ochre Coloured Pottery has mainly been found in which region of India?
- A.Upper Ganga and Yamuna doab
- B.Kerala coast
- C.Brahmaputra valley
- D.Konkan coast
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Ochre Coloured Pottery, usually abbreviated to OCP, is a worn, ill fired, orange to ochre pottery whose colour rubs off on the fingers because the surface has been damaged by water.
Read the full explanation →Rouletted Ware found at Arikamedu is evidence of which kind of contact?
- A.Trade with the Roman world
- B.Trade with Central Asia over the Silk Route
- C.Migration from the Tibetan plateau
- D.Contact with the Harappan cities
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Rouletted Ware is a wheel turned dish with concentric rows of small impressed dots on the inner surface, made by holding a toothed tool against the turning pot.
Read the full explanation →Jorwe ware, a matt painted black on red Chalcolithic pottery, is mainly associated with which present day state?
- A.Maharashtra
- B.Odisha
- C.Punjab
- D.Assam
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The Jorwe culture is named after the village of Jorwe in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra, and its pottery is a matt surfaced, black on red painted ware found in large quantities at Inamgaon, Daimabad, Nevasa and Chandoli.
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