The Ahar culture also is known as the Banas culture is a Chalcolithic archaeological culture on the banks of Ahar River of southeastern Rajasthan state in India, lasting from 2100 to 1500 B.C., contemporary and adjacent to the Indus Valley Civilization. Situated along the Banas and Berach Rivers, as well as the Ahar river Banas people were exploiting the copper ores of the Aravalli Range to make axes and other artifacts. They were sustained on a number of crops, including wheat and barley.
Typical Ahar pottery is a Black-and-Red ware (BRW) with linear and dotted designs painted on it in white pigment and has a limited range of shapes, which include bowls, bowls-on-stands, elongated vases and globular vases. The Ahar culture also had equally distinctive brightly slipped Red Ware, a Tan ware, ceramics in Burnished Black that were incised Thin Red ware, as well as incised and otherwise decorated Gray ware fabrics.
The pottery had a black top and reddish bottom, with paintings in white on the black surface. Because of these distinctive features, Ahar, when it was first noticed by R C Agrawal, was called the "black and red ware culture". This is in a way true, because this was primarily the pottery used by the inhabitants of Ahar for drinking and eating. They used fine and deluxe table-ware like the china- ware or stainless steel we use today. However, a subsequent and more extensive excavation showed that the Ahar people produced other kinds of fine and distinctive pottery as well.
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