Lost-wax metal casting
AI-drafted · awaiting admin review
Is the oldest known lost-wax casting a 6,000-year-old amulet from the Indus region?
Disputed: evidence incompleteTechnology & engineering
Indian claim
A small copper wheel-shaped amulet from Mehrgarh (Balochistan, in the Indus region, today in Pakistan), about 6,000 years old, is the earliest known object made by lost-wax casting — the method later used for the Harappan 'Dancing Girl' and Chola bronzes.
Evidence for the Indian claim
- A 2016 study in Nature Communications by Mathieu Thoury and colleagues (CNRS, SOLEIL synchrotron) showed the amulet was cast in one piece from very pure copper by the lost-wax method.
- The researchers described it as the earliest known lost-wax cast object.
Commonly credited to
Lost-wax casting also appears very early in the Near East, for example in the Nahal Mishmar hoard (Southern Levant, 4th millennium BCE).
Evidence for the other claim
- Lost-wax castings from the Levant are of broadly similar date, so the technique may have arisen in more than one place.
What historians and scientists say
The Mehrgarh amulet is described by its researchers as the oldest lost-wax casting yet identified, which makes the Indus region a very early home of the technique. Near Eastern castings of overlapping date mean it may have developed more than once, so 'first' is not settled.