Speaking Archaeologically™

So far you have read posts on Site visits, Site covers, Restoration Projects, Interesting Workshops, Stone Tools, History, Sculptures and what not. So tell me, what not? What's the one thing that SA hasn't associated itself with, yet? What else have you not read about here? We've covered architecture, artifacts and paintings but what's new this time? Till date, Speaking Archaeologically has been providing you with the artworks of the old masters but this time it is the artistic insight of the young minds. On a Sunshiny Sunday Morning of March 24th, SA organized an Illustration competition under the name of " Skhédíos 2019 " and just a few days before that, I thought that I must also participate because how difficult could it be? I've drawn site plans before and I've enjoyed it. But believe me, putting those aesthetic sculptures down on paper is just as difficult as sculpting one, if not more. All the 11 young artists and me, were asked to choose t...

“Once through this ruined city did I pass I espied a lonely bird on a bough and asked ‘What knowest thou of this wilderness?’ It replied: ‘I can sum it up in two words: ‘Alas, Alas!’”                                         -Khushwant Singh Members Diptarka, Simran and Debyani at the site. I still remember those trips to my grandparents’ house in Faridabad. Almost with a childlike wonder, would I ask them, whenever we passed by Tughlaqabad, “What is that ancient looking, broken structure? Does anyone live there?” and their response would usually include a laugh and the retelling of the famous story of the curse of Tughlaqabad. That curiosity, though diminished over the years, still left that little spark in the corner of my mind. And so when D...

The Manauli Fort, Mohali The morning of August , the day of the season’s first site visit carried with it a wave of familiarity. In the car, on the way to the site, as we were seated alongside a bunch of eager new recruits, memories from Batch 2018’s first site visit last year dropped by to say hello. The Manauli fort, located in a tiny hamlet in Punjab, approximately 15.5 Km from Chandigarh, was once a symbol of bolstering defence and Sikh pride. Several local testaments reveal that the fort was built sometime in the 17th Century, by a certain Mughal ruler. A century later, as the Sikh-Muslim enmity took shape in the form of several battles and Misls came to power in the state of Punjab, Nawab Kapoor Singh of the Singhpuria Misl clinched the fort from the Mughal ruler and encouraged his fellow Sikhs to settle in the area. Today, akin to an old man with several afflictions, it’s a desolate piece of history crumbling away amid state apathy The present state...

Speaking Archaeologically Scavenger Hunt 2019 What if, one Sunday, I ask you to visit your city's museum and look at every object housed there in the gallery? I know, you'd counter me with, “ Who goes to a Museum on a Sunday !” right? Rattan Kaur Rainu  Now what if I tell you, you'll be given a handout with out-of- focus pictures of the objects and you have to run up and down the different galleries of the museum, upload the pictures of the artefacts on Instagram with #SAHUNT2019 within a time limit and whoever finds the maximum number of objects wins the competition? Exciting, isn't it ? Now, won't you surely visit the Museum? To inculcate this habit of exploring the Archaeological jewels housed in the most significant museum of the country, I, with the help of Shriya, organised a Member-run-open-to-all Scavenger Hunt at the National Museum, Delhi. On January 6, 2019, I hosted the aforementioned event on behalf of Speaking  Archaeologically. A...

The words of a rather contemporary namesake poet Shayar Jamali, somehow perfectly describes the gloomy conditions of the 16 th century structure: Samiksha Purohit is a Citizen Archaeology Member at Speaking Archaeologically since May 2019. ‘’ Shayad ab kuch kam ho jae mere ghar ki virani,   Makdi jaale taan rahi hai ghar ke roshandaano mein’ ’ The Jamali Kamali mosque stands in the middle of the Mehrauli Archaeological Park, New Delhi. Once a monument with greater glory than its adjacent standing Qutub Minar, is now a supposed haunted place and a safe keeper of the ‘love story’ between its name givers- Jamali and Kamali. Sheikh Fazulla Jalali, or Jamali, a court poet during the reign of Babur, is said to have commissioned the mosque. While the identity of Jamali has a strong historicity attached to it, Kamali on the other hand remains a mystery. A contemporary poet, Jamali’s wife, his servant, his brother, a fictional name to rhyme with Jamali- the anecdotes ar...