Speaking Archaeologically™

The Kangra Fort My first trip to Mcleodganj and Dharamshala, Kangra was so unplanned that I hardly knew anything about the places except for the fact that it was one of the most serene hill stations of country. En route , on the outskirts of Dharamshala, I noticed on a hill, some huge walls and buildings which seemed quite old in structure. An exclusive route leading to it had a signboard of ‘The Kangra Fort, 4 km’. Three days later, we were driving to the place. Gauri Singh is a Member of Citizen Archaeology Wing since June 2016 We first arrived at the Kangra Fort Museum and Art Gallery. It was a small place but a treasure house of a forgotten period in the Indian history. The erstwhile Royal Family of Kangra has dedicated their Museum to honour Maharaja Sansar Chand, their ancestor whose reign was known as the Golden Age of Kangra. Maharaja Sansar Chand inherited the throne of Kangra, when he was just 10 years old. By the age of 21, he had defeated the Mughals...

Mayank Singh is an Intern at Speaking Archaeologically "At a numaish (exhibition) hosted by the King of Chamba", she begins, "When all the artists were boasting about their skills,one of my family's ancestors painted 100 elephants on a single thread of Dhake ke malmal (fine cotton muslin from Dhaka)." Mrs Nisha Raina tells me this and many tales in the hour-long conversation I had with her. In this article, I have tried to include and summarise all that I could learn about Kangra paintings from the interview. Mrs Raina was born into the family of Raina Brahmins, who migrated from Kashmir and settled in Mangloti village of Kangra around the same time the Mughal Empire collapsed. This spree of migration induced a new blend of the M ughlai miniature paintings and the theme of lustrous green landscapes of the hill states, whose Rajput rulers offered patronage to these migrants. Thus was born-what is now known in history as- the Kangra paintings. Mrs Nis...

Divyansh Thakur is a Research Wing Member at Speaking Archaeologically since October 2017 This post is an account of the author's one day trip to Garli, and, is not, by any means the result of a scientific expedition. It is, thus, rid of the jargon, profundity and, as Mark Twain would say, the 'impressive incomprehensibility' of scientific works and, in turn, gives an anecdote of what should be realistically called a picnic. For months, the thought of heading out and exploring the cobbled streets of this small hamlet in Kangra had been pestering me—for a place, so close to home seemed elusively distant. The remedy to it came in form of three battered up scooters, and in companions who did not yet understand the intricacies of Archaeology or the meaning of it. They were all lured in by the irresistible charm of a DSLR camera. I guess we were all a bunch of yokels back home, the object of our desires being fancy little devices, which were, prior to contemporary age, ...