Ancient site discovered in Bihar

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Ancient site discovered in Bihar

 

Manuwant Choudhary

 

Sunday, April 27, 2003 (Pandavsthan):

 

http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory.asp?

slug=Ancient+site+discovered+

in+Bihar&id=37419

 

After digging in the dirt for four years, archeologists in Bihar's

Samastipur district have finally hit luck. They have found a 3500-

year-old

site in Pandavsthan village and some 2000 artifacts that are said to

date to

around 1500-2000 B.C.

 

Charcoal samples from the site are being sent to the Birbal Sahani

Institute

of Paleobotany at Lucknow.

 

Pandavsthan's residents always believed their village got its name

from the

Mahabharata and that the Pandavas spent some time here. The

excavations

carried out by the K P Jaiswal Institute suggest that there may be

just a

bit of truth to this belief.

 

The artifacts found here suggest that the site is at least 3,500

years old,

making it the oldest site in the Mithila region.

 

"Earlier we had excavations at Balrajgarh in Madhubani and Katragarh

near

Muzaffarpur. But their antiquities could go up to 2nd and 3rd Century

BC but

here is a site that throws up the potentiality of antiquity going

back to

1500 BC to 2000 BC," said Dr Vijay Choudhary, K P Jaiswal Institute.

 

The city was spread over 200 acres. Its brick structures were

developed

during the Kushana period in the 1st Century A.D. And even now,

almost every

home in this village owns Kushana coins. At least one villager, a CRPF

employee, thought it fit to hand the coins back.

 

"After I retired and returned home I saw that excavations were on. I

saw

them take out the same coins I already had. I took it to sir and gave

it to

him since it's a national heritage," said Ram Swarth Singh, an ex-CRPF

employee.

 

It isn't just villagers and research students who're travelling to the

excavation site. The District Magistrate is keen to cash in on the

find and

wants to develop the site for tourism.

 

"First of all a museum should be constructed here and then, as Dr

Choudhary

was saying, the site should be preserved from the rain. A shed can be

placed

and a wall built around it," said Narmadeshwar Lal,

DM, Samastipur.

 

That northern Bihar had a medieval past is well known. These

excavations now

prove that the ground beneath the feet of Pandavsthan's villagers is

far,

far older than that.