INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY 1957-58 -A REVIEW EDITED BY A. GHOSH Director General of Archaeology in India DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY GOVERNMENT OF INDIA NEW DELHI 1958 shillings Price Rs. 7.50 12 COPYRIGHT DEPARTMENT OF ARCHAEOLOGY GOVERNMENT OF INDIA PRINTED AT THE CORONATION PRI NTING works, DELHI ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS As in the four previous numbers of this annual Review^ this being the fifth one in the Series, ^11 the information and illustrations contained in the following pages have been received from different sotirces, viz. the officers of the Department of Archaeology of the Government of India and the heads of ^t]::ier institutions connected with the archaeological activities in the country, but for whose ready co- ^ Iteration it would have been impossible to give the Review any semblance of completeness. To all of my grateful thanks are due. I also acknowledge the valuable help I have received from my Colleagues in the Department in editing the Review and seeing it through the Press. In a co-operative endeavour of this nature, it is impossible for the editor or anybody else to ^ssiame full responsibility for the absolute accuracy of all the information and particularly for the inter- pretation of the archaeological material brought to light. Further, the possibility of editorial slips hav- crept in may not also be entirely ruled out, ihovgh it hrs teen our best endeavour to avoid them. ISfjEW Delhi : A. GHOSB 21st August 1958 Director General of Archaeology in India CONTENTS PAGE I. General ... ... I n. ... Explorations and excavations ... ... -s III. Epigraphy ... ... ... __ 54 IV. Numismatics and treasure- trove ... ... ... 60 V. Other important discoveries ... ... ... 64 VI. Museums ... ... ... yi VII. Architectural survey of temples ... ... _ 77 ^III. Preservation of monuments ... ... ... 79 IX. Archaeological chemistry ... ... 108 X. Archaeological gardens ... ... 213 XI. Publications ... ... ... ... 115 INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY 1957-58 -A REVIEW I. GENERAL RCHAEOLOGICAL exploration continued in full swing throughout the country A during the year under review. A survey of some of the river-valleys in the Vindhyan plateau brought to light sites with palaeolithic tools of Series I and II. Tools of Series II were also found at many a site in Saurashtra, the Deccan and northern Orissa, some parts of the last-men- tioned region being already well-known for tools of Series I. The industries of the two Series, with their stations spread throughout the central highland and the Deccan, seem to conform, typologically, to comparable patterns, and a close study, with the objective of possible correlations, of the geological contexts to which they were affili- ated and an intensive search for fossil-remains that their horizons may contain may go a long way towards establishing a chronological table showing the time-lag inter se at the stations where they co-occur and the geological relationship among the sites where they appear individually. The limestone caves in the Kurnool region, wherefrom, as early as 1882, human fossil-remains had been reported, were re-examined. The results were negative in character in that no fossils were found in the exploration, though the existence of pa- laeoHths was noted in the valley of a neighbouring stream. A joint expedition, in which the Department of Archaeology, Geological Sur- vey of India, Deccan College Post-graduate and Research Institute and Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda collaborated, explored the valley of the Bangan^ in Panjab, primarily to correlate the implementiferous terraces with the glacial and mter- glacial epochs. The data obtained in the expedition will now be utilized in examining the upper reaches of the river-system and in comparing the glacial oscillations here with those in the Kashmir valley. The palaeolithic industry of the Bombay region was noticed, for the first time, to have been associated with river-terraces; the possibility of linking the tenaces at some places with the ancient sea-levels was also noticed. The spread of the Harappa culture in western India assumed new signifi- cance by the discovery of a station of that culture on the west coast even lower than the Narmada estuary. Exploration in Saurashtra brought to light more Harappan and late Harappan sites. 1 INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY 1957-58—A REVIEW As a result of continued excavation at Lothal, an already-reputed Harappan 'eJt’ raent. it was noticed that, though the place was far removed from the Indus cities, It' ,rh:!h)ia!i!s followed the same traditions of town-planning and public hygiene for V h\!: the Harappans are famous. Navdatoli, a single-culture chalcolithic site in Malwa, was subjected to an c v,.’i'Ac horizontal excavation, whereby was gathered valuable evidence about con- t'.n-porar}, domestic architecture, ceramics and artefacts. Renewed exploration in Rmasthan indicated the wide spread of microliths and fhe huick-and-red ware, found either independently or in association with each otlier A hnk between the archaeology of Rajasthan and that of the Ganga valley was provid- ed b\ the occurrence at one of the sites of the early historical pottery similar to that met with at Hastinapura. Further excavation at Ujjain in Malwa, one of the largest early cities of India rcveu.ed !fiHra//a the ancient industries of the place and the nature of its defences in tne core ot which timber had been employed as reinforcement on the riverside. In the Chambal valley, also in Maiwa, were discovered a few rock-shelters with paitKings, apparently comparable with those occurring elsewhere in the Vindhvavmanya Satpura ranges, and and a few microlithic and later site?. at any excavated the loftiest wall as yet site in Indm and the remainc found excavated a sfupa which had its origin yaisali was according in ^e-Maurvan^HmJ^tunes and to the excavator one of thp eioKt may have been, Buddha i^nmediately after his deai Raffi remains dating Varanasi,v from the period of the Noi^em yielded iinnes. Black ^ Chandraketugarh, not far from CaSm ^ medieval and later j^riods, rernams of a notable discovery being the Mauryan mg from ^ ^ that of an elaborately-planned Gupta times. temple dat- the Northern ®arly Bl?Jk^]Pohsh^°wlre^ historical period, including Musta occupation of fib" town-planmng ^^ledness, and fortifications, showed interesting coo,c„.p„„„ aud had, i„ 2 GENERAL It is now becoming increasingly evident that the ill-fated site of Nagarjunakonda, tin recently famous only on account of its Buddhist remains, is important for many additional reasons, inasmuch as it contains a continuous history of man in the region, beginning right with the Early Stone Age and ending only with medieval times, during which vast span of time it passed through the palaeolithic, neohthic-cw/n-chalcolithic and megalithic stages and the historical periods under the Satavahanas, Ikshvakus, Chalukyas and even later rulers. This year’s excavation included neolithic and megali- the their thic burial-sites and the defences , erected by Ikshvakus around citadel, not to mention religious edifices, Buddhist and Brahmanical, with which the valley is studded. Opposite Nagarjunakonda, on the other bank of the Krishna, the site of Yelle- swaram yielded*****extensive ruins of medieval temples. Excavation at Ratnagiri in Orissa brought to light the remains of an early me- dieval stupa, which, as far as evidence goes, had an earlier, Gupta, nucleus. The re- covered sculptures may perhaps indicate that the Mahayana-Vajrayana development of the BuddWst pantheon took place, at least in this part of the country, somewhat earlier than is usually*****supposed. Amongst other discoveries, mention may be made of a few remarkable sculp- tures, discovered at the rock-cut caves at Pitalkhora, not far from AJanta, which will henceforth occupy a prominent place in early plastic art. In addition, the year wit- nessed a very large number of other discoveries aU over the country, ranging from the palaeolithic to fairly recent times and including epigraphical and numismatic ones. The regional*****and chronological study of temple-architecture progressed apace. Other archaeological activities continued in the normal way. A vast number of standing monuments received routine and special structural repairs. Particularly remarkable success was achieved in the repairs to the decayed parts of rock-cut monu- ments, specially at AJanta and Ellora, by an appropriate use of suitably-tinted cement- concrete, reinforced where necessary, simulating the massive and homogeneous appear- ance of rock. Many monuments and the paintings that some of them bear were chemically cleaned and conserved according to methods evolved by a study of local conditions and problems. 3 INDIAN ARCHAEOLOGY 1957-58—A REVIEW INDIA 1957-^8 EXPLORED REGIONS AND EXCAVATED ^ITES EXPLORED REGIONS Wi -• - EXCAATED SITES MODERN towns />A KIETA N \ chandraketugarh\V\^ , ARABIAN- KUNNATUR ^MADRAS Scale of K/^lmeta^es n. EXPLORATIONS AND EXCAVATIONS^ ANDHRA PRADESH 1. Excavation AT Nagarjunakonda, District Guntur.—In progress since 1954 {Indian Archaeology 1954-55—A Review^, p. 22; 1955-56, p. 23; 1956-57, p. 35), the excavation was further extended during this year to cover an area of about 1200 acres, under Dr. R. Subrahmanyam, assisted by Shri K. K. Sinha, Shri M. D. Khare, Shri H. Sarkar, Shri Ra^bir Singh and Shri Abdul Wahid Khan. The discoveries included palaeoliths, microliths, neoliths with associated graves, and megaliths, besides numerous structures of the early historical period. Of the last, the citadel, with its grand fortification-wall, ditch, gates and barracks, was indeed very important, as it threw hght on the town-planning and flourishing condition of the capital of the Ikshvaku kings during the third century a.d. Another outstanding structure was a huge oblong stadium, laid out between the north-western corner of the citadel and the Pushpabhadrasvami temple at the foot of the Nagarjuna hill. Six neolithic graves, located in the southern part of the valley, were exposed.