Ancient relics found at Amtola
STAFF REPORTER
The upper brick paving of western embankment of the tank GUWAHATI, Feb 2 – Relics dating back to 8th and 9th Century AD have been found in the course of an excavation carried out by a team of archaeologists of the State Archaeology Directorate at Amtola, about 3 km from the Hojai Railway Station...
more... in Nagaon district. Excavation is going on at the site and it is expected that further excavation would be able to throw more light on the Kopili-Jamuna Valley Civilisation.
The State Directorate of Archaeology is conducting excavation at the site since December 8 last. The site lies at 26º15´ East Latitude and 92º5´ North Longitude.
At present there exists a modern Siva temple at the site. According to Deepi Rekha Kouli, Director in-charge of the Directorate of Archaeology, local people used to say that once there were two huge mounds having evidences of stone and brick structures.
But due to damage by the human activities, both the mounds have disappeared from the site. There are two historic tanks at the site in eastern and western direction respectively. The eastern tank is known as Ngthem Pukhuri and the western tank is called Jirimo Pukhuri by local inhabitants, Kauli said.
The excavation carried out by Nabajit Deori, Technical Officer and Chabina Hassan, Exploration Officer and staff of the Directorate under the guidance of Kouli, in the northern and southern bank of the Jirimo tank revealed a well built stone staircase of about 15.20 meters in length and of 9.95 meters in width. The stair case has nine steps of different sizes and gradient leading towards north to south direction.
Some of the stones of the steps are missing and misplaced but the size and shape of a complete staircase is discernible. It appears that some of the stone relics used in construction of the staircase were once parts of the temple architecture.
A major portion of the brick structure is badly damaged under the impact of natural forces and time. The upper paving comes down towards the lower part of the embankment and merges with the retaining wall. The brick retaining wall is clearly exposed at the southern corner of the bank. The wall turned towards eastern direction at the southern bank of the tank. The brick floor has been divided with vertical brick bonds in regular intervals.
Both exposed stone staircase of northern and southern bank is facing each other in same alignment.
The well- built stone stair cases, brick paved embankment, well arranged brick floor, double lines of brick retaining wall etc. indicate that this historic tank once might have been used for holy purposes, said Kauli.
