Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 23, 2003
The year is 300 B.C. A boat sails
into the port of Nani Rayan with wine in Roman amphoras. On its way back,
it would take home textiles, ornaments and pottery Over 2,300 years later,
pieces, probably from those amphoras surfaced as workers dug the ground
to create the Narmada canal through the sleepy hamlet of Nani Rayan, situated
on the banks of the Rukmavati, 4 km from the river's confluence with the
Arabian Sea.
The digging has unearthed a treasure
trove of archaeological artefacts-pottery, pieces of Roman period amphoras,
an iron smelting foundry and evidence of human settlement dating back to
about the 3rd century B.C., a contemporary of the Sunga-Kushana period.
"Although evidence of human settlements
had been found in and around Nani Rayan in the form of scattered pottery
and other artefacts at the surface level, revealed mostly during tilling
of the land, the excavation for the canal has revealed almost a whole city
between three and ten feet below the ground.
"The excavation has revealed walls
of houses, brick kilns and a foundry for iron smelting," says Pulin Vasa,
a physician based in Mandvi and adviser to the state department of archaeology.
"The town may have got buried due to siltation by the Rukmavati," says
Dr Vasa, who has written to Gandhingar about the find.
"This is, no doubt, a very important
find in Kutch, after the Harappan sites. It establishes the place as a
major trade centre as well as its close contacts with the Roman world.
The period when it flourished could be judged by distinct diagnostic traits
like the brick size, structural remains and terracotta pottery with animal
figurines," says head of the archaeology department of M.S. University
Y.S. Sotiawane.
"The artefacts found also reveal
the extent of mixing of eastern and western cultures. We have found a piece
of black pottery with an impression of two women, one playing the harp
and the other a mridang. Plenty of copper and silver coins of different
Khsatrap and Gupta rulers have also been found," says Dr Vasa.
He adds, "The inhabitants of Nani
Rayan recall the myth of Dada Dhoramnath, who meditated on the banks of
the Rukmavati and was angered when his disciple was refused alms. "Dattan
sopattan, maya so mitti," he is said to have remarked (May the town be
destroyed and buried and all its wealth turned to dust). Villagers, who
sit on the buried township, believe the saint's curse came true, says Dr
Vasa.
