The New Nation highlighted the vulnerability of our historical artifacts on Sunday and said despite the growing challenges to give safety to antiques resources that tells about our past civilization, it is a shame that the Department of Archaeology has not even a full list of such treasures located throughout the country. It is sad that any nation conscious of its past history and civilization can’t neglect such thing that we are unconsciously missing. Moreover smuggling of such treasures to make illegal money is going unchecked that we must now check anyway.
Bangladesh has a long and rich history from a colourful civilization in the past. Some historic sites have already been excavated but works at many others have been left largely unattended for many reasons. Archaeological excavations have already revealed existence of Northern Black Polished Ware culture of the Indian Sub-continent (c.700-200 BC) in the land now Bangladesh. It tells us about ruling dynasties and Buddhist monasteries in ancient cities like Mohasthangarh in Bogra and Mainamoti in Comilla. We have the responsibility to preserve them and find more such lost cities such as archaeologists are trying to fully recover now in the bank of Brahmaputra in Narsingdi region.
These are manifestations of our legendary past but enough attention is lacking to discover and preserve them without enough allocation of funds. We must provide this fund to open such monuments to tourists from home and abroad. Our past brings glory for our people in the global community that we inherit a glorious past. So we must do everything about it. We know people all over the world are now promoting eco-tourism linked to local archaeological sites and monuments attractive the tourists. People visit such locations to enjoy pastime and this is how archaeological sites have also become part of entertainment industry earning revenue for the government.
In our view we must place the highest national priority to preserve the archaeological sites and antiques to create the wealth of treasures for our future. So we must have a proper listing of every artifact and whatever we have at every archaeological site to create the infrastructure around them. We can’t have the luxury of missing them unattended.
