Chennai/Madurai: State Minister for Tamil Official Language and Culture, K Pandiarajan on Friday said that 8,000 antiquities were discovered during the fourth phase of the excavation work undertaken by the State Department of Archaeology at Sivagangai district site.
The first phase of excavations of the Archaeological Department of Indian Archeology were launched in 2014.
Three phases of excavations have been carried out over the past three years (2014-2017). Major archeological finds like brick buildings from the early history of Tamilnadu, various types of beads, cotton tiles engraved in Tamil Brahmi script, the war tools and so on were unearthed during the digging.
Following this, the fourth phase of the excavation work was started on 18 April this by the Deputy Director of Tamil Archeological Department, Sivanandam with a boomipoojai.
Sivanandam visited the work site on Friday and said,”There were a lot of field workers, including two archeologists and four excavators involved in the fourth phase. About 34 traces have been found and around 8,000 archaeological finds have been discovered. The fourth phase was completed on 30 September.”
Sivanandam said that the task of documenting the available items is currently taking place and, a detailed report will be released soon.
Archaeologists involved in excavation work and technicians were conducting an aerial survey using remote controlled drones during his visit.
In the next few months, staff and students from a private college at Madurai will have to look at the archaeological excavations of the fourth phase of public works.
Archaeologists said that the trenches dug for excavation work would be closed after the Commissioner of the Archaeological Department visits and concludes his examination.