Lashkarshah is situated 1 kilometre southeast of the ancient fortified town of Khambhat in Anand district, Gujarat. The name Khambhat is derived from the Sanskrit word Khambavati (city of the pillar) and Khambhat is also known as Cambay, it is a fortified medieval town and an important maritime trade centre. The earliest references to the maritime activities of Khambhat are made by Arab geographer Khurdaben in his work, “The book of roads and state” written in 856 A.D. The medieval site proved to be extremely useful in our understanding of Glazed ceramic production as the site revealed a large amount of craft indicators.

Location of Lashkarshah and other historical sites in Gujarat

Exploration at Lashkarshah

Destructed Area of the Site

The craft indicators from the site include:

Ceramics

The ceramics from the site include glazed ceramics, unglazed ceramics, painted ceramics and decorated ceramics. The vessel shapes include dishes, pots, bowls, miniature pots, channel spouts, bowl on stand and basin. Open-mouthed vessels like dishes are the most common shape at the site. A few unglazed ceramics from Lashkarshah were probably used for domestic purposes such as cooking. Soot marks/smoke clouding on the vessels is indicative of domestic use.

Decorated Glazed Ceramics

A ceramic glaze is a particular kind of glass; it is a highly viscous non-crystalline coating. This is fused with the surface of the ceramic at a high temperature (1710°C). They are primarily composed of fine glass-forming oxides, mostly silica (SiO2), which on vitrification melt and fuse to the vessel surface. A number of metallic oxides have the ability to act as fluxes to produce a stable glaze. They include oxides of iron (Fe), sodium (Na), potassium (K), lead (Pb), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), zinc (Zn) and aluminium (Al). Basically, drab green, blue, red and brown colour glazes were found at Lashkarshah. Many metallic oxides act as colourants in the production of glaze. They are,

• Iron Oxide (FeO)- Yellow, Brown, Red, Grey (acc. Quantity)
• Copper Oxide (CuO)- Green, Blue
• Cobalt Oxide (CoO)- Blue, Blue Green, Violet
• Manganese Oxide (MnO)- Purple, Brown, Violet or Black
• Chromium Oxide(CrO)- Red, Pink
• Nickel Oxide (NiO)-Green or Brown

Setters

The setters used to keep wares separated from one another or from bats or shelves on which they stand.  The site of Lashkarshah is littered with thousands of setters of various sizes. Some of them were found sticking to the vessels.

Setter from Lashkarsha

Stone Crushers

Recoveries of crushing stones from the site were mostly used to reduce all the ingredients to sufficiently fine particle size. As the name refers, crushers were generally used to crush the colouring materials like geological minerals and colourant rocks. Crushers are simple crushing stones made of granite rocks having many small rounded hit/crush marks. In addition to preparing colourants, these kinds of crushers were probably utilized to crush the minerals of glaze.

Crushing stones from Lashkarshah

Vitrified/Melted Clay Kiln-Lining

The vitrified clay lumps from Lashkarshah might be from the enclosing wall of the kiln, which due to the high temperature got vitrified and melted.

TERRACOTTA LAMP

The terracotta oil lamp is used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source.