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Revisiting Indian Rouletted Ware and the impact of Indian Ocean trade in Early Historic south Asia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2010

Peter Magee
Peter Magee*
Affiliation:
*Department of Archaeology, Bryn Mawr College, 101 North Merion Avenue, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, USA (Email: pmagee@brynmawr.edu)
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Abstract

Indian Rouletted Ware pottery is the iconic marker of the overseas reach of the subcontinent at the turn of the first millennium AD. In the mid twentieth century this was naturally seen as prompted by the contemporary Roman Empire, while the later post-colonial discourse has emphasised the independence and long life of Indian initiatives. In this new analysis the author demonstrates a more complex socio-economic situation. While Greyware is distributed long term over south India, Rouletted ware is made in at least two regional centres for coastal communities using a new ceramic language, one appropriate to an emerging international merchant class.

Keywords

IndiaSri LankaMauryan EmpireRoman EmpireRouletted wareIRWGreywareArretine warePrincipal Components Analysis
Type
Research articles
Information
Antiquity , Volume 84 , Issue 326 , December 2010 , pp. 1043 - 1054
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 2010

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