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94 ORIGIN AND SPREAD OF THE TAMILS copper and bronze; knives and celts sometimes of these mctals; sometimes of chert or other hard stones. For the crushing of grain they used the muller and saddle-quern but not the circular grindstone. Their domestic vessels were commonly of earthenware turned on the wheel and not infrequently painted with encaustic designs, more rarely copper, bronze, or silver. The ornaments of the rich were made of the precious metals or of copper, sometimes overlaid with gold, of faience, ivory, earnelian, and other stones ; for the poor they were usually of shell or terracotta. Figurines and toys, for which there is a wide vogue, were of terracotta. Shell and faience were freely used, as in Sumer and the West generally, not only for personal ornaments but for inlay work and other purposes. With the invention of writing the Indus peoples were also familiar, and employed for this purpose a form of script which, though peculiar to India, is evidently analogous to other contemporary scripts of Western Asia and the Near East." (Ref. to John Marshall, Indus Civilization; M. S. Vats, Excavations at Harappa, Vol. I, pp. 5-6). 18. O. G. S. Crawford, Antiquity, VI, 259. A bead of amazomite from the Nilgiris was only up from a pre-diluvian layer at Ur. It may also be noted that green felspar was also in Egypt from predynastic times. 19. Arch. Survey of India, Annual Report, 1902-3, p. 120. 20. Ernest Mackay takes a definite view that the Mesopotamian beads are of Indian origin (J.R.A.S. for 1926, pp. 696-701). The same must be said of the Kish beads of Japiz lazuli -(vaidūrya) which should be traced to Salem District of South India. . 21, The Worship of the Mother Goddess : The personification and worship of the earth was widespread among the ancient peoples. Among the ancient Aryans