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(8 months ago)
Phd Title:
Archaeometallurgical and Art Historical Studies on South India...
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Phd Title:
Archaeometallurgical and Art Historical Studies on South Indian metal icons: The enigma of the dancing panchaloha (five-metalled) icons'
Thesis combines materials science studies, archaeoymetallurgy and ethnoarchaeology related to south Indian bronze casting traditions
(1996) Institute of Archaeology, University College London
Presently Associate Professor, National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore. Archaeometallurgical and art historical investigations on south Indian bronzes: The enigma of the dancing five-metalled icons'
The dance tries to convey that the Phd attempted to study how medieval south Indian bronzes (c. 8th-18th century) such as the celebrated Nataraja bronze (of the Hindu God Siva dancing with the lifted leg) were made and that archaeometallurgical studies of the aspects of ancient mining and metallurgy, bronze metallurgy and making of bronze icons, were used to understand better the history of technology and also in the characterization of artifacts and their stylistic and provenance attributions. An image of the Nataraja bronze is also installed in the CERN cosmic lab and its imagery is often thought to convey metaphoric aspects related to cosmic creation and destruction. In its expressive aspects the dance also conveys how studies made by the researcher of the Nataraja bronze, often referred to as the Cosmic Dance of Siva, that its iconographic aspects may have been inspired by observations of the star positions in and around the Orion constellation. The dance also shows somewhere more at the beginning and also at the end the activities of ancient mining of digging, ore collection, washing, beneficiation and collecting of ore and smelting, using bellows and fire etc, retrieving metal and leaving behind slag which can be studied to understand the processes. In vivid detail, the processes of making of the bronze icons that were studied and re-constructed is evoked, the lost wax process whereby the model is carved of wax and then invested with three layers of refractory material of various grades, and then the wax melted out to leave behind a cavity into which the metal is poured to give the metal image, and the process of melting using bellows etc. It is also shown that the images are described metaphorically as five-metalled images and an attempt was made to study the elements. In the end for instance the process of polishing samples and the ways in which the minute constituents of the composition, trace elements, lead isotope ratios, of artifacts, ores and slags are used to understand the larger picture of the technology of the making of the images and the issues relevant to their art historical understanding of stylistic and chronological classification and provenance of metal. In the pure dance sequences an attempt is made to evoke in an artistic way the sounds and activities of chiseling and finishing of the bronze image and modeling in 3D of wax and the activities of tunneling shafts and mining (to collect the ore for smelting)
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