Painted Grey Ware

The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age culture of the Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra valley, lasting from roughly 1200 BCE to 600 BCE. It is contemporary to, and a successor of the Black and red ware culture. Characterized by a style of fine, grey pottery painted with geometric patterns in black, this culture is associated with village and town settlements (but without large cities like those of the Harappans), domesticated horses, ivory-working, and the advent of iron metallurgy. But this point of view may change as fresh surveys by archaeologist Vinay Kumar Gupta suggest Mathura was the largest PGW site around 375 hectares in area. Among the largest sites is also the recently excavated Ahichatra, with at least 40 hectares of area in PGW times along with evidence of early construction of the fortification which goes back to PGW levels. Two periods of PGW were identified recently at Ahichhatra, the earliest from 1500 to 800 BCE, and the Late from 800 to 400 BCE. Total number of PGW sites discovered so far is more than 1100.

It probably corresponds to the middle and late Vedic period, i.e., the Kuru-Panchala kingdom, the first large state in South Asia after the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization. It is succeeded by Northern Black Polished Ware from c. 700-500 BCE, associated with the rise of the great mahajanapada states and of the Magadha Empire.

The PGW culture cultivated rice, wheat, and barley, and domesticated cattle, sheep, pigs, and horses. Houses were built of wattle-and-daub, mud, or bricks, ranging in size from small huts to large houses with many rooms. There is a clear settlement hierarchy, with a few central towns that stand out amongst numerous small villages. Some sites, including Jakhera in Uttar Pradesh, demonstrate a “fairly evolved, proto-urban or semi-urban stage” of this culture, with evidence of social organization and trade, including ornaments of gold, copper, ivory, and semi-precious stones, storage bins for surplus grain, stone weights, paved streets, water channels and embankments.

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