MUZAFFARABAD, June 26: The Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s picturesque Neelum valley was home to a vibrant civilisation millenniums ago, exploration and documentation of some archaeological sites of the area have revealed.

The exploration and documentation of the sites were initiated by Rukhsana Saiid, a PhD scholar from the Quaid-i-Azam University’s Taxila Institute of Asian Civilisations (TIAC) under the supervision of renowned archaeologist Prof Dr Muhammad Ashraf Khan in October last year.

The latest detailed survey was conducted in the second week of June, during which some important sites were discovered and documented in the valley, she told Dawn on Wednesday.

Ms Saiid said that due to its geographical location and accommodating habitat the valley attracted pilgrims, monks and travellers from as far as Korea in the east, Bengal in the southeast, Tibet and Central Asia in the northwest, being on the crossroads of Silk Route and its connecting routes.

She said the valley used to be a great religious hub, which was evident from the inscription on steep semi-vertical rocks on extreme borders of the valley which she had documented during the survey.

The inscriptions were under consideration of linguists for further study and deciphering, she said, adding that there were some ancient sacred sites of pilgrims from certain periods as well, which had also been documented by the TIAC.

According to her, the details of dresses and accessories of figures on rock slabs showed that the valley had strong cultural links with other civilisations of the area.

This was concluded from the figurines on the Hero or commemorative stones found in the valley, she said.

Ms Saiid said that some of the coins found from surface study had been identified as from the seventh century AD while some others hadnot yet been deciphered.

Some of the artefacts were found from places which were mentioned in ancient texts as sacred, such as Sish Pari, towards the left bank of Neelum River in extreme east, she said.

These artefacts were found by local people and were presented to research team for documentation, although these were small in numbers but had great archaeological value, she added.

Ms Saiid also shared some of pictures of these sites with Dawn but declined to identify the exact places where they were discovered, saying it was for the sake of their protection and preservation.

She said that such sites were always endangered, as unscrupulous elements would resort to illegal digging and illicit trafficking of artefacts found from there.

She said that TIAC was preparing for excavation and a trail trench would be started around Sharda, in the upper belt of Neelum valley, in the first week of July.

She said that she was going to present a paper on new archaeological discoveries in AJK at an international conference in Colombo in August this year.