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LAHORE, May 16: Status-quo ante seems to be the fate of the move to transfer archaeological artifacts and books from Karachi to Lahore. The shifting of only the establishment attached to the office of director-general is on the cards for now. This, too, is unlikely to be achieved soon.
“There is no move to shift antiquities and books from Karachi. If anything is shifted, it will be my office and its essential branches,” director-general Saeedur Rahman told Dawn from Karachi.
The offices will be shifted initially to the Lahore Fort and ultimately to Islamabad.
The director-general has written to the government for “adequate” funds to shift the offices along with four establishments. The likely expenditure on moving the record and employees from Karachi to Lahore is said to be about Rs1.5 million. “Shifting will be possible only on the allocation of funds. I cannot say when that will be done,” the DG said.
According to the original plan, worked out in the circular of May 3, the planning and development wing and the publication department were to be sent to Lahore by May 15. In the second phase, during which the exploration and excavation branch, of which antiquities and the central library are essential parts, were to be relocated by June 15. The shifting was to be completed with the transfer of the DG’s offices by July 15.
But the plan seems being fizzling out except for the transfer of the director-general’s establishment which is also unlikely to follow the original time schedule.
As for the wings essentially attached to the DG’s office, the first deals with explorations and excavations and museums and antiquities. The central library fall within its purview.
The next essential establishment administers trade and smuggling of antiquities, interacts with international agencies like the Unesco and takes care of foreign donors like the European Union and the Americas, foreign missions, issuance of licences for exploration and excavation, staff training and distribution of antiquities among provinces. The legal branch also falls within its jurisdiction.
The planning and development wing, which is responsible for working out a yearly calender for the department’s activities in the field, is also an essential head-office department. Lastly, the accounts and administration wing comes under the head-office.
PIATR: Meanwhile, the north circle directorate has identified the Pakistan Institute of Training and Research building inside the Lahore Fort as the new offices for the director-general. But the circle officials are in no position to say when its new occupant will arrive.
The building was built in 1991-92 for the purpose of staff training. For quite some time, however, there have been no classes no use has been made of the conference/symposium hall for years. A deputy director (Training) has been occupying part of the building.
In one corner, the building houses the department’s central laboratory, said to be one of the finest in the region. Its rooms are occupied by antiquities, particularly belonging to the Survey of the Punjab wing, which has been carrying out an archaeological survey of the province since 1992-93. Most of the survey material is lying in iron boxes, cloth bags and racks and is said to be in “good shape.”
The PIATR building was constructed mostly where Special Branch of the police had its offices for nearly six decades. It was vacated and restored to the department in 1990. In Shah Jahan’s period the area had belonged to the royal kitchen which collapsed soon after it was handed to the department.
The PIATR building which was raised around the damaged edifice, started developing cracks within a few years of its construction. Most of the building now looks worn out.
Offices of the north circle are proposed to be moved to the Ulema Academy building outside the Lahore Fort. The premises comprises 36 rooms, 28 of them on the first floor.
The building, which now houses education and preaching wings of the Academy, was rented to the Auqaf Department in 1974 under an agreement which provided for a six-month notice for ejectment. The north circle director has served the notice and the grace period expired on March 12.
The rooms on the ground floor measure 28 feet X 12 feet each. Those on the upper floor are half the size. Some of the rooms have been occupied by the Pakistan Rangers on the pretext of guard duty at the nearby Iqbal mausoleum.
Being too small for the purpose, the chambers are hardly suitable for office.
LIBRARY: The Central Archaeological Library, whose books are ‘not’ to be shifted from Karachi, is said to be a reference library. It is the second finest library in the region after the one in Delhi. It contains reports mostly on Survey of India and other exploration and excavations carried out since the Archaeology Department was set up in 1913. It also has a collection of rare books. About 50 per cent of the books are said to have been transferred to Flagstaff House, Karachi.
ANTIQUITIES: Most of the antiquities under the head office’s management in Karachi consist of manuscripts. The number is said to be around 150,000. It is regarded the biggest and the most valuable collection in the region. The manuscripts are in almost all languages of the area and in all forms of script. They include copies of Holy Quran in many calligraphic styles as well as books of hadith, scrolls, literature and ballads. Other antiquities are part of the department’s exploration and excavation branches. The earliest of these date back to 1913. Most of them comprise terracotta potshreds. Millions of them have been documented and kept in cotton bags.
After every excavation and exploration, antiquities arrive at the head office. They are studied and distributed among provinces, museums and universities. The main beneficiaries so far have been the museums in Lahore, Peshawar, Taxila, Hyderabad and the Lahore Fort and universities of Karachi, Khairpur and Peshawar. The A-category antiquities are sent to site museums.
A large number of articles has come from Balochistan. Around 10,000 came from Mehr Garh alone. Others have come from excavation sites at Mindodam, Pirakh and Sinoli Tump and Turbat.
Most of the contributions from Sindh belong to Mansoora. Their number is a little over 3,000.
In NWFP the antiquities have come from Panderi and Zarif Qaroona near Mardan. Some of them have also come from Amri in the Northern Areas.
The antiquities from the Punjab belong to Jhang Behtar, Hathial and Jalilpur near Taxila and Bihar Colony near Hasan Abdal.
STORAGE: The Archaeology Department has yet to develop a quality storage for the antiquities. The archaeological riches have thus been stored at places which have no modern warehouse facilities.
The number of antiquities stored at the Lahore Fort is said to be about 2,500. There are million of terracotta potshreds, all of them well documented. Most of them belong to the 1959 excavation in front of the Diwan-i-Aam. Others form record of Survey of the Punjab.
All of them have been kept in the chambers beneath the Jahangir quadrangle. The situation is not satisfactory since the basement chambers are not maintained properly and the antiquities risk being damaged. An official who recently ventured to enter the chambers retreated hurriedly saying he felt suffocated by obnoxious gases. He is said to have reported presence of harmful insects and reptiles.
The authorities are said to be considering fumigation of the chambers.
