Indeed it is a pleasure to realise the surpassing importance of the recent excavations and explorations in the Ajay valley which have opened up a new horizon of a hitherto unknown proto-historic civilisation in the lateritic plains and terraces in Burdwan and Birbhum districts in West Bengal.
While the diggings at Pandu Rajar Dhibi conducted by the Directorate of Archaeology of the State have revealed the relics of a civilisation probably appertaining to the second half of the 2nd millennium B. C., similar antiquities have also been recovered from various other mounds on both sides of the river far and near. Apart from the practice of human burials and evidences suggesting the existence of an urban civilisation in the Copper Age, the repertoire of excavated antiquities from the site includes a number of materials with enigmatic traits of the ancient art of the Aegaean world as supposed by Sri P. C. Dasgupta, the author of this book. It is also a pleasure to observe that the proto-historic painted potteries from here often recall the chalcolithic pottery of Central India and Rajasthan. It is still to be determined how far the stone tools recovered from the terraces and glacis of the rocky terrains of West Bengal serve as a background to the ultimate development of the refined chalcolithic civilisation of Pandu Rajar Dhibi. I believe that this treatise containing fruits of long research will captivate scholars and general readers alike.
The relics of a proto-historic civilisation as discovered in the Valleys of rivers Ajay, Kunoor and Kopai will reveal that still a great amount of mystery remains unsolved regarding the origin of civilisation in eastern India. The varied topography of Bengal include fertile river banks, broken coasts as also arid tracts with galleries of hills and knolls and patches of dense forests of lofty sal. The systematic explorations carried out by the Directorate of Archaeology of West Bengal in the lateritic terrains of this State covering the valleys of the Suvarnarekha, Kansavati, Jaypanda, Silavati, Damodar, Kunoor, Ajay, Kopai, Brahmani, Nangasai and others have effected discovery of enigmatic stone tools of the past from the remote palaeolithic down to the neolithic times besides bringing into light primitive fortifications of unknown inspiration. Inspite of densest jungles an explorer after taking considerable hardship may view at the colossal defence on the cliff of Rangamatia over-looking the ancient Suvarnarekha whose hewn stone-blocks may recall some of the Hittite monuments of distant Anatolia.
Although such comparisons are futile without further materials at hand, the proto-historic mounds of the Ajay Valley in Burdwan and Birbhum districts are new yielding evidences of a civilisation as early as the 2nd millennium B. I. C. when, further, as it appears Bengal had contacts with the Aegaean coasts perhaps linked up by the Gulf of Aqaba where Nelson Glueck has done his brilliant explorations revealing more accounts of the port of Ezion Geber wherefrom in 10th century B. C. Solomon and his Phoenician allies sent vessels to distant Ophir fascinatingly located in the remote corners of vast areas from Africa to the Malay peninsula across the Bay of Bengal. Indeed, the excavations on the mounds of Pandu Rajar Dhibi in the vicinity of Bolpur as carried out by the Directorate of Archaeology of the State have revealed for the first time the relics of a chalcolithic civilisation forgotten and buried under the earth centuries before the preamble of historic times though certain Jaina texts may refer to a place named Paniyabhum or Panitabhum in connection with Mahavira's itineary to Vajra-bhumi in Rahra in West Bengal as early as the 6th century B. C. which might suggest of trade, the Rig Vedic word Pani (i, v, vii, viii & x) being sometimes explained as meaning traders as in Arabia and Northern Africa or identified with the name of the Phoenicians. These diggings in the type-site of the Ajay Valley have shown that the early civilised settlers were users of pregeometric microliths, bone-tools, copper ornaments and painted pottery of surpassing aesthetic value. The most significant of all were the practice of human burials, the well-established custom of their east-west orientation, as also the use of channel-spouted bowls with splayed ends of their spouts and elegant vessels of black-and-red ware resembling an inverted helmet or flower pots. Further, explorations under-taken by the Directorate have revealed that the human culture developed from the Old Stone Age on the banks of the Ajay, the Palaeolithic industry of fossil wood and quartzite on the detrital laterite at Bonkati near Pandu Rajar Dhibi and Ilambazar bearing reminiscences of a probable link with the practice of the Anyathians in Burma and the tool-types of the Suvarnarekha Valley which represent the tradition of the Sohan complex and tools of its comparable horizon in eastern Asia. In view of all these fascinating problems of pre-historic archaeology in Bengal this book is produced to describe in summary the cultural phases of Pandu Rajar Dhibi in the context of the distribution of chalcolithic mounds on both sides of the Ajay river referring to the nature of finding besides the occurrence of palaeoliths at the important site of Bonkati as mentioned.
Hindu (935)
Agriculture (118)
Ancient (1085)
Archaeology (754)
Architecture (563)
Art & Culture (910)
Biography (702)
Buddhist (544)
Cookery (167)
Emperor & Queen (565)
Islam (242)
Jainism (307)
Literary (896)
Mahatma Gandhi (372)
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist