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Publication: Webindia123.com
Date: October 6, 2005
URL: http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=130860&cat=India
Internationally renowned marine archaeologist
Dr S R Rao today called for preservation of underwater cultural heritage,
particularly the Dwarka city, believed to have been built by Lord Krishna
in Gujarat.
Speaking at the 7th national conference on
marine archaeology of Indian ocean countries at the National Institute of
Oceanography (NIO), Dr Rao regretted that many of the archaeological remains
excavated were not preserved for posterity by the agency conducting the excavation.
He pointed to the neglect of the excavated
Harappan site of Kalibangan. The Lothal site was, however, preserved and a
museum built for it, he added.
Most of the important underwater sites of
Dwarka excavated by the NIO's Marine Archaeology Centre (MAC) with funds from
the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Department of Science
and Technology and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) should have been preserved
by a competent agency, he said.
With neither the CSIR nor the ASI having expertise
to undertake conservation of a submerged city, the octogenarian archaeologist
said he had prepared a project report in consultation with a number of organisations
and individuals including the Indian Navy, research foundations and underwater
construction engineers.
On the controversy regarding date of submerged
site of Dwarka near the Gomti river mouth in Arabian Sea, Dr Rao said the
archaeologists could not arrive at the date in isolation, but relied on relative
chronology such as pottery and the sea-level rise.
''We are of the view that Dwarka was submerged
by tsunami-like high energy waves, pulling down heavy blocks of stone used
in the construction of the structures. This must have also resulted in changing
the course of the paleo channel of Gomti, as recorded by NIO maritime archaeologist
K H Vora during recent studies,'' he said.
The reference to such a catastrophe was made
in the Mahabharata and other epics which said Dwarka, built on mainland by
Lord Krishna, was contemporary to Bet Dwarka (Kusasthali) that could be dated
to 17th century BC, and this was later confirmed by scientists, he said.
Dr Rao said the three-holed triangular stone
anchors found in large numbers in Dwarka waters suggested a continuity in
evolution of the anchors in Lothal and Mohenjo-Daro, which had a single hole.
The Dwarka anchors of late Harappan phase
are a couple of centuries older than the identical anchors of late Bronze
Age used in Cyprus and Syria, he added.
The two-day conference is being held under
the aegis of the Society of Marine Archaeology at NIO.