Unable to acquire any artifact in the last two decades from private collectors, doubting their authenticity, the National Museum has embarked on an excavation mission on its own for the first time in its history. It has already excavated artifacts of pre-Harappan era dating back to 7,000 BC from Kunal site in Fatehabad in Haryana. Normally, excavation is the domain of the Archeological Survey of India (ASI).
“Of course, excavation is purely the mandate of the ASI from which we have been loaning the excavated artifacts for years. However, since we had not acquired any antiquity or artifact for the more than two decades because of various reasons, originality being the major one, we have decided to undertake excavation and exhibit the excavated items at our museum itself” said BR Mani, DG National Museum.
The museum which was inaugurated way back in 1949 at present holds approximately 2, 06,534 objects of a diverse nature including the rarest of the rare variety, from across the country as well as abroad, and its holdings cover a time span of more than five thousand years of Indian cultural heritage.
Mani, an archeologist, who had retired as Additional Director General of the ASI before joining the National Museum, said that hearths, potteries, beads, copper rings and other remains excavated from the site reveal presence of pre-Harappan civilization at Kunal.
A bunker type structure has also been found at the site which shows that Neolithic settlement had also existed, signaling continuity of the culture, said Mani who as ADG in the ASI had successfully led various excavation across the country and in some other nations as well.
The artifacts and antiquities recovered from the site has been sent to various labs for carbon dating to estimate their age. Soon, the National Museum will start second phase of excavation at the site itself at the Kunal village which came in limelight in the 1980s and 1990s following excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Directorate of Archaeology & Museums, Haryana.
According to an ASI report of 2014 which is based on C-14 dating done at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeobotany in lucknow, the largest and oldest sites of the Harappan civilization were both located in Haryana; the oldest being at Bhirana village, also in Fatehabad district, dated to 7,570-6,200 BC, and the largest being Rakhigarhi, a village close to Bhirana, spread over 400 hectares, nearly double the size of Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan.