Author: Times News Network
Publication: The Times of India
Date: November 18, 2004
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/927409.cms
Is Gujarat sitting on a treasure
trove of history? When residents of Hathijan on the outskirts of Ahmedabad
stumbled upon a 'vav' (step-well) while digging for a wall recently, they
touched history, literally.
Digging, either for ordinary construction
or for canals, has thrown up several artefacts from the past - from the
fossilised eggs of dinosaurs that walked the earth 65 million years ago
to a city that bustled with life 2,000 years back.
"It came as a surprise," says Baldev
Solanki, who was digging with others to build the wall, and found what
archaeologists identify as a 'vav' belonging to the Maratha period.
"Gujarat is indeed perched on a
rich past. According to estimates, one- fourth of the state's nearly 18,000
villages and many of its cities are on mounds that conceal much of our
history," says director of the state archaeology department, YS Rawat.
Construction workers in Balasinore,
who found a "hard, round object" while digging early this year,were also
pleasantly surprised. The "object" later turned out to be a fossilised
dinosaur egg, found at a distance from Raiyoli, the original dinosaur site.
"The discovery of the first dinosaur
egg in Gujarat also happened by chance. It was in the '70s that a Geological
Survey of India team found tribals in Dahod district worshipping a round
stone. They had the stone tested and found it to be a fossilised egg, a
find that led to a major dinosaur hunt in the state," says Rawat.
And, when workers dug a canal to
help the Narmada waters reach Kutch, little did they know that they were
working on a 2,000-year-old city which had trade links with the Roman world.
"The excavation for the canal has revealed a whole city between three and
10 feet below the ground in Nani Rayan village. It has revealed walls of
houses, brick kilns and a foundry for iron smelting,'' says Pulin Vasa,
adviser to the state department of archaeology.
In Vadodara,what was routine construction
work - part of the Baroda Model District project a couple of years ago
- left district collectorate officials in a tizzy. Digging in the collectorate
campus led to carved slabs that included part of the 'shikhar' of a temple,
a semi-circular stone structure which formed the 'amalaka' and a square
structure which was the base of a pillar.
"The findings seem to belong to
the 12th century," says MS University archaeology department head VH Sonawane.
"Excavations in the Akota area have
revealed settlements dating back to the 7th and 8th centuries. We had discovered
bronze statues, particularly of the Jain faith," says Sonawane.
