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.

Selected lithics from Sankarjang.
Sonorous stones from a lithophone