PARINAGAR: With a hostile sun beating down on their heads, two operators of an excavator digging a road were recently beside themselves with joy when they chanced upon what looked like a very old clay pitcher filled with gold jewellery. Having heard of frequent discoveries of all sorts of artefacts in and around Parinagar, they did not think twice about running off with their valuable find, leaving the road-making machines behind.
“All too often locals report of finding statuettes and other objects of archaeological interest,” says Dr Shankar Lal, a Nagarparkar-based physician, adding that labourers involved in the road works told him the story of the operators hitting upon archaeological finds and disappearing with them.
Historians concur that Parinagar was established in the first century of the Christian Era. The town, with a population of 40,000 people, was ruled by the Purmars at a later period. However, a subsequent emperor of Delhi destroyed the town in AD 1226.
Archaeological studies show that Parinagar was once a seaport and its decline is attributed to the land gaining on the sea and the Rann of Katchh ceasing to be navigable.
According to Mohammad Rahim Dal, who lives in neighbouring Virawah, people from urban areas, especially Karachi, often make an academic pilgrimage to the archaeological site and come away with relics.
Pointing to an old temple containing two idols in an intimate embrace, Dal says priggish locals disfigured the life-size statues recently. He says that since there are many Jain temples in and around Virawah, the desecrated temple in Parinagar is also believed to belong to the Jain faith.
According to Captain Stanley Napier Raikes, author of “Memoir on the Thurr and Parkur”, one of the most authoritative histories of the arid region in Sindh, there are remains of “five or six large Jain temples… in Paree Nuggur.”
“They [the temples] clearly demonstrate that at the time of their construction – and which, from dates engraved on some of the slabs, was probably in the middle of the eleventh century – the artisans were by no means behind those of after-times in the art of sculpture. The figures and ornamental sculpture and designs in various parts of the buildings are beautifully executed, particularly the figures, which are better proportioned and executed than almost any I have seen in the East.”
The chief of the archaeology department’s Sindh and Balochistan circle, Qasim Ali Qasim, concedes that reports of relic-hunters vandalising the site of Parinagar in violation of the Antiquities Act 1975 have indeed been received.
“Pilferage of artefacts was so rampant in Virawah and Parinagar that in addition to locals, personnel of law-enforcement agencies also had no qualms about walking off with objects of archaeological value. We recently recovered 32 artefacts from the Rangers manning the Virawah check-point. The artefacts, which included 14 stone sculptures, have now been put on display at the Umerkot museum,” he says.
Mr Qasim believes that Thar’s new-found accessibility has given a fillip to pilferage of artefacts.
“In the past, Thar was cut off from the rest of the world. But now there is a metalled road all the way to Nagarparkar. You can now see a large number of cars making a beeline for Thar after the monsoon rains. But the archaeology department is doing its utmost to preserve and restore the monuments which were once off the beaten track and are now a major tourist attraction,” he says.
But sources say the archaeology department is too strapped for cash to keep a watchful eye on important sites in faraway places.
“The Sindh and Balochistan circle of the archaeology department, whose annual budget is a measly sum of Rs850,000, does not have 158 watchmen for as many protected sites in its jurisdiction,” say the sources.
