Documenting the History

Archaeological monuments of Kashmir is a fresh and updateddocumentation of the archaeological sites of Kashmir under taken by IqbalAhmad, a learned archaeologist  of the Jammuand Kashmir state. The author has earlier documented the Kashmir’s ancientcoins and epigraphs, under the two different titles, Kashmir coins,  andKashmir inscriptions  respectively. Thistime author has made an elaborate documentation of the archaeology sites ofKashmir valley and published its first chapter under the title, archaeologicalmonuments of Kashmir- the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Buddhist and Hindu period.

The author has got the technical knowhow and experience indeciphering of the archaeological artifacts and has been undertaking thearchaeological researches on more scientific and logistic basis. But  more interesting is   the fact that the author  has been undertaking such difficultresearches on his own. “Archaeology has been my passion and I am doing theseresearches on my own without any financial and technical support”, says theauthor. Working in the SPS Museum since 1990 the author got the chance toobserve the Kashmir’s cultural past very keenly. He also endorses the fact andsays, “it was my good luck to work in a world class museum like SPS Museum,which is 130 years old, where I got the access to study Kashmir cultural past,besides the timely interactions with the tourists of the intellectual tastehelped me to learn the authorship”.

   

In this forthcoming monogram, the author deals with theKashmir archaeology and has documented  about thirty monuments of the Palaeolithic ,  Neolithic, Buddhist and Hindu period.  In his illustrated work, it carries 76illustrations of the archaeological sites with the Palaeolithic and Neolithicsites. The terracotta pavements and remains of the ancient stone monasteriesand temples are also incorporated with minor architectural and archaeologydetails.

Interestingly the author has dedicated this work to one ofhis teachers, late Professor Fida Mohammad Hassnian, the historian and exDirector Archives, Research and Museums Jammu and Kashmir state, posthumously.

In fact there was a time when the archaeological wealth ofJammu and Kashmir State was confined to the literary records, centered uponSanskrit and its ancient literature, foreign travel accounts. Much was spokenof the religions edifices of high grandeur and sanctity, but in absence of anyarchaeological researches, these sources lacked the chronological order. Thehistory and civilization of ancient Jammu and Kashmir was, therefore overemphasized presenting a series of perplexing contrasts and problems.

But nowadays the things have almost changed; thearchaeological studies have been taken up with more accuracy and scientificapproach. The most of the perplexed questions bearing on our historiographyhave been attended to by the archaeology researchers. The pioneer work in therediscovery of the state’s past was done by the European archaeologists, butlater on the local archaeologists also learned the subject and got involved inthe systematic archaeological explorations and excavations. A lot of useful andreliable information on the archaeological sites, ancient monuments, ancientsculptures, terracotta, coins and epigraphs has been  collected and investigated, which not onlyhelped the historians  to undertake the reconstructionof states ancient history but also enabled  the state institutions toshowcase their rich cultural heritage.     

Although archaeological discoveries were being made, andplenty of artifacts were exhumed from the archaeological sites, still the taskof identification, deciphering and documentation of this heritage has been veryslow. In fact the archaeological artifacts are the pages of our history andculture but only when these artifacts are properly studied andinterpreted. 

As such the task of documentation of the archaeologymaterials is very essential. The documentation of archaeological sites andartifacts means documentation of our history which needs to be encouraged atevery step.

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