LARKANA: The dry core drilling process that began at Mohenjo Daro on April 5, 2014, has accomplished its initial object of determining the ancient city’s boundaries but studies on cultural material unearthed in the drilling are yet to be completed.

Dr Kaleemullah Lashari, chairman of technical consultative committee of National Fund for Mohenjodaro (NFM) told Dawn at the ruined city on Wednesday that the scheme had been launched to ascertain actual limits of the site and undertake a deep study of the cultural material secured during the drilling.

He said the initial object of the scheme had been completed and it was confirmed during the huge exercise that the ancient city was spread over 360 hectares. The dry core drilling had been undertaken thrice since 1922 when Sir John Marshal first conducted the drilling. During all three exercises the experts had gone down to 80 feet, he said.

Dr Lashari said the second object of the drilling exercise was to study the cultural material obtained in the process by Dr Sarfaraz Solangi, the then head of the department of geology at University of Sindh who headed the project.

A three-member committee headed by him with Michael Jansen and another expert Mr John from United States of America as its members was tasked to carry out studies on the cultural material, he said.

He said the studies were to be conducted on the things that had remained in the use of the ancient people and the behaviour of the Indus River. The committee was scheduled to meet at the archaeological site on July 26 but it had to be postponed after the death of one of its members Dr Michael Jansen, he said.

“We will now co-opt Dr Sarfraz Solangi, who had conducted the geological studies, as member of the committee to move further,” he said.

He said the scheme pertaining to the cultural segment of the dry core drilling had been prepared and subsequently submitted to the department of culture along with its PC-I in 2018. It was revised after two years and submitted in 2020 to the department which still required the nod of the head of the department, he said.

He said that research itself was a big task which would definitely require financial assistance.”We, therefore, have prepared a scheme with estimated cost of Rs80 million,” he said.

Asked what would be the fate of this segment of the dry core drilling as the scheme submitted twice to the department had not yet seen the light of the day, he said that it was an ongoing project which required to be given priority.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2022