Bhubaneswar: Three huge stone blocks claimed to be belonging to 11th century were unearthed near the Meghanand Pacheri, the boundary wall of the Lingaraj temple, during the ongoing demolition drive in the Old Town area of Bhubaneswar.
While removing the rubble of the demolished buildings opposite the Uttara Dwara, the northern gate of the Lingaraj temple, the excavators stumbled upon two huge blocks that were buried under the soil. The authorities would have damaged the blocks in the attempt to remove those, but the machines could not displace those due to sheer weight and size of the slabs.
Prafulla Swain, a local heritage enthusiast who has earlier protested the demolition of the Samadhis of the Shiva Tirtha Mutt, reported the matter to the authorities concerned.
The two excavated slabs are nearly 40 ft in length and 3 ft in breadth. Those are estimated to weigh more than 12 ton each. The pair along with another block which lay half exposed is identical in size.
According to Anil Dhir, the project coordinator of INTACH, the slabs date back to the 11th century and are contemporary to the period of the construction of the Lingaraj Temple. The hard and evenly carved stone blocks were used for the plinth, columns and beams of the temple. These hard stone blocks were also laid at the bottom to create a level as the temples were built on alluvium soil, he said.
Dhir, who has examined the stone blocks, said those are rejected slabs which were not used in the temple as they were honeycombed and had small hollow portions, a few of which can be seen on the surface.
“The expert temple-makers could detect any hollow and honeycombed stones by just tapping those with their hammers and chisels. They studied the resonance and determined if those were solid,” Dhir said.
A similar stone block is found near the Aswadwara, the southern gate of the Jagannath temple in Puri. Similar in size, this huge stone is popular with the pilgrims who rub a coin at one end and hear the sound at the other end.
Dhir has contacted the Archaeological Survey of India’s Bhubaneswar office to ensure the safe removal of the stone blocks from the site.
Stating that rampant demolition drive without any proper impact assessment is destroying valuable heritage, Dhir reiterated a proper heritage impact analysis for the development of Puri and Bhubaneswar.
The Assam government has recently decided to bring legislation to protect various heritage sites in the state. The draft bill was placed in the ongoing Cabinet meeting and will be passed soon. The Assam Heritage (tangible) Protection, Preservation Conservation and Maintenance Bill, 2020 was prepared by the Assam Directorate of Archaeology.
Amiya Bhusan Tripathy, the state convener of INTACH holds that such legislation is the need of the hour in Odisha too.
Noted environmentalist and heritage activist Dr. Biswajit Mohanty said though the Parliamentary Affairs department had issued a notification to form a ‘Heritage Cabinet’ in July 2018, not a single meeting of the Cabinet has taken place in spite of the fact that massive modernisation drive was undertaken in both Puri and Bhubaneswar.
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