Sambalpur: A team of experts from the Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI) has visited Barpali area in Odisha’s Bargarh district to decide on taking over the excavation carried out by a university at a site.
ASI experts will visit the area again to conduct a thorough study and take a decision on their next course of action as the site witnessed growth of vegetation following rainfall, reports said.
Artefacts of post-Mauryan period, believed to be of Asurgarh settlement, were recovered during the excavation carried out by the History Department of Gangadhar Meher University (GMU) earlier this year.
In June, Union Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, who hails from Odisha, had written to Union minister of Tourism, Culture and Development of North Eastern Region, G Kishan Reddy, seeking his intervention in giving direction to ASI to take over the excavation of the site.
According to officials of GMU, the History Department of the varsity had selected the spot for archaeological study in June this year to ascertain the cultural sequencing of the site.
Cultural sequencing is a relative dating method in which artifacts from numerous sites in the same culture are placed in a chronological order.
During the excavation undertaken by the university, 2,000-year-old artefacts, dating back to the post-Mauryan period, were unearthed from the site, they said, adding that ancient artefacts like coins, seals, iron weapons, fragmented terracotta figurines, black slipped ware (BSW) and red slipped ware (RSW) were retrieved from the site.
A large number of knobbed ware pottery, indicative of early urbanisation and trade and commerce, were also found. The excavation also yielded iron smelting hearth. Other important antiquities like saddle querns, arrow heads, fragmented crucible, microlithics, polished stones, beads of semi precious stones were found.
“We have inspected the site. Rainfall has caused growth of vegetation in the area. We will visit the area again during summer for our next course of action,” Superintending Archaeologist, Excavation Branch-4, Bhubaneswar, Dr Susant Kumar Kar was quoted by PTI as saying.
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