The only Evidence to claim that Kashmir has been human habitat for 5000 years
TARIQ ALI MIR
Srinagar, Apr 19: The stone- age artifacts and skeletons discovered in Srinagar’s Burzahama area in 1963 are still lying in different archeological museums across India for past more than four decades as the State authorities have failed to bring these precious pieces back all these years.
The artifacts like stone axes, tools made of animal bones and weapons had been initially sent to Kolkata for Carbon Dating in 1967.
“These artifacts are the only supporting evidence to the claim that Kashmir has been a human habitat for more than 5000 years because this has been scientifically proved that the things were made during 1500- 2500 BC,” says noted scholar and historian Muhammad Yusuf Teng. Now the artifacts are in museums at Kolkata, Delhi and Bangalore.
“First the site of these stone age artifacts was discovered by some visiting researchers from Cambridge University in 1935. Since the site had been already identified, the Archeological Survey of India worked further on this and found many stone age things there in 1963. Four years later, in 1967, the artifacts and skeletons were sent to Kolkata for Carbon Dating,”
Teng informed . Ironically, the State authorities have failed even to preserve the site in Burzahama as site- museum during all these years despite the fact that then Chief Minister G M Sadiq had ordered for this.
These days young boys can be seen playing cricket at the site which was supposed to be a historical site museum of Kashmir.
“ The site is presently under the control of Archeological Survey of India, which shifted its regional office from
Srinagar to Jammu in early ’ 90s after militancy erupted here. We have sent several reminders to the authorities of Archeological Survey of India asking them hand over the site to the State so that we will be able to preserve it as a site- museum. But they do not pay any heed,”
Peerzada Muhammad former Ashraf, Deputy Director State Archives and Archeology, told me . “ I vividly remember the days when the site was dug up in 1963. I am a witness to the excavations. Pits having skeletal remains of dogs and humans were also found. Interestingly, a human skeleton and a dog skeleton were found in each pit,” said senior journalist and poet Gulam Nabi Khayal.
Historian Professor Muhammad Ishaq Khan has written that Burzahama site is the “ oldest human establishment in Kashmir.” “ These remnants indicate the fabled 5000- year-old history of Kashmiris. Therefore it is the duty of Department of Archaeology and Archives to get them back.”
