Sankarjang

Sankarjang (20°52’08“N; 84°59’19“E), Odisha, India is an archaeological site near Angul, a former cemetery and settlement with large, worked stones but no one knows what they were made for, although some people think they might have been part of a lithophone .

This site was test excavated by the State Archaeology Department of Odisha after a chance find of 20 long unfinished chipped and ground, lithic bars and axes of basalt, together with human skeletal remains and metallic artifacts, by a shepherd in 1971.

The elegant lithics from Sankarjang resemble elaborate ones from eastern Asia and the South Seas.

The incisor teeth of nine bodies interred in the graves had a "shovel" form which suggests Mongolian affinities.

Yule and Bemmann thus tentatively identified the stone bars as being part of South Asia's earliest known musical instrument.