Short notes on Black and Red Ware (BRW)

Excavations at Atranjikhera in Uttar Pradesh in the early 1960s revealed a distinct pottery. Similar pottery system was later excavated at other places. This pottery is called Black and Red Ware (BRW) and is sandwiched between OCP and Painted Grey Ware (PGW).

The characteristic features of BRW are the black color inside and near the rim on the outside, and red color over the rest of the body. This color combination was produced by inverted firing.

Though the majority of the potteries are wheel turned, there are some handmade potteries also. Made of fine clay, BRW has a fine fabric with thin walls. BRW pottery with paintings has also been found in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal.

BRW pottery has a wide regional distribution. It also covers a vast time span from 2400 BC to the early centuries of the Christian era.

The sites have yielded objects like stone fragments, fragments of chips and waste flakes, cores of quartz, agate, chalcedony and carnelian, a shell and a copper bead, a ring of copper comb, a bone spike (Jodhpur), an iron piece, a terracotta bead and a bone spike (Noh).