March 29, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 20, 1429

LARKANA, March 28: Criticising the department of archaeology for its failure to preserve artefacts at Moenjodaro and the recent incident of breaking a rare ring-shaped stone’ members of the civil society and Moenjodaro Academy marched in protest from Dokri to Mohenjodaro on Friday.

They staged a sit-in at the main gate of Moenjodaro after covering a distance of six kilometres.

They accused the department high-up of negligence which resulted in breaking of precious ring-shaped stone.

The stone was broken on March 11 after it had fallen from the pedestal in the museum. The curator termed it the negligence of staff and said after repair it would be again put on display. Later stories circulated that it might have been misplaced as the department had not yet put it on display after the repair which increased the worries of the lovers of archaeology.

The protestors said a few years ago 42 seals and artefacts were stolen from the museum of Moenjodaro which remained untraced.

They called for arresting of the thieves of the seal and taking appropriate measures to protect the items discovered from this pre-historic site.

Sources in the department of archaeology told Dawn that the broken ring-shaped stone was still kept in the ‘store’ of the museum at Moenjodaro without restoration.

The sources disclosed that there was no ‘index card’ for the ‘objects’ both either displayed in the museum or kept in store. Numerous objects were lying in the store of the museum without proper ‘description’ and numbering.

In the absence of such card chances of missing important objects was quite high, the sources said.

The sources said that at present only three attendants were posted at the museum. Of them one sits at the counter for issuing tickets, other collects at the gate while only one was there in the museum to look after the precious artefacts kept in the show cases.