Year 1957-58: ...Besides continuing work in the last year's trench to
the west of the Berachampa-Haroa road, excavation was done on a 14ft high mound, locally
known as the Khana-Mihirer Dhipi, situated to the north of the Baraset-Basirhat road.
The excavation in the Khana-Mihirer Dhipi area brought to light the western wall of a
stupendous polygonal brick structure, probably of Gupta period. ... Starting from the
northernmost exposed point, it was found to run in the following order, the turns being always
at right angles: southwards, 45ft.; westwards, 8ft. 6in.; southwards, 24ft. 9in.;
westwards, 1ft. 1in; southwards 14ft. 6in.; eastwards 1ft. 1in.; and southwards (full length
not exposed). Although the building could not be fully laid bare, the re-entrant angles suggested
that it had been one of the sarvato-bhadra types, probably a temple. With bricks of different
sizes, the structure was repaired and renovated on later occassions, decorative bricks
being sometimes used in place of ordinary ones. ... Shri S. Roy discovered a red
sandstone figure of Buddha, resembling of the seated Buddha of the Mathura school, at
Khana-Mihirer Dhipi.
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Year 1958-59: The University of Calcutta continued its excavation...
bringing to light three walls and a part of the fourth of the massive structure
encountered last year and fairly confirming the supposition that the structure
represented a temple of the Gupta period. Its plan gave the idea of a square,
each side 63ft. long, with an external projection in the middle of each of the
three, sides eastern, southern and western, and a vestibule, 45 ft. square,
attached to the middle of the northern side. Its foundation was laid 10ft.
below the contemporary occupation-level, indicated by a brick pavement. No
evidence was available abut the dominational affiliation of the temple.
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Year 1960-61: ... in the center of the previously exposed temple was
unearthed some large-sized overburnt bricks irregularly placed at the top of a cavity,
2.4X2.1 meters, probably belonging to a later place of worship, in the middle of an
oblong superstructure of 5 courses of rough bricks and brick-bats on layers of blackish
and grayish soil mixed with brick-bats and potsherds. On the removal of the
superstructure was exposed a deep pit of polished bricks 2.3 meters square at the
damaged top, its walls with 37 regular offsets, descending to a depth of over 7 meters
where a paved floor 86 cm square was met with. The objects in the filling of the pit
included cast copper coins, a fragmentary stone mould, a perforated terracotta
object, a terracotta sealing with the design of a peacock sitting on a torana and a
bone awl. The pottery was NBP and plain black and red wares.
An extension of the excavation to the north of the temple yielded evidences of
six periods of occupation. There was no trace of any brick structure in Periods
I to III.
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Year 1961-62: A remarkable finding was a small bronze image of a female
deity with a mirror in her left hand and an indistinct animal indicated on the pedestal
as her vehicle. The image picked up from a higher level of the temple area, appears to
be the workmanship of the late Gupta period.
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Year 1962-63: It may however be mentioned that the incidence of Periods in this season's excavation
differs appreciably from that obtained last year. A correlation of the strata
belonging to the various cuttings is, therefore, necessary for a proper understanding
of the sequence at the site.
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Year 1963-64: This year's work further revealed that the temple faced
true north. It had a large square sanctum cella with projections on three sides and
a covered ambulatory passage. The bigger square was preceded by a rectangular covered
vestibule with a rectangular open porch in front, complete with a flight of steps.
Around the larger square, the vestibule and the porch, was a rectangular structure
with projections on three sides, corresponding to those of the inner square. Rising
from the same level as that of the main temple, its facade and the two sides up to the
vestibule were decorated with shallow niches, possibly plastered with stucco, and
embellished with rounded offsets and string course of dentils made of molded bricks.
This season's work led to the unearthing of massive brick buttresses between the
projections of this
structure and those of the main temple, recalling similar provisions at the Vishnu
temple at Eran. There are two open ambulatory passages. On the western
corner of the mound, a miniature replica of the main temple as also the basement of
a votive stupa flanking the stairway were laid bare. Evidence of renovation, repairs
and extension of the main temple in the subsequent period was duly recorded. From the
working levels of the main temple itself, various pottery-types, both for ritual and
domestic use, terracottas, beads, conch bangles and decorative stucco motifs were
recovered. Besides terracottas of the Gupta period, a unique piece in the round
with applied eye-balls, pinched up nose and ears and outspread ornamented short
hands shown up to the waist deserves special attention.
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Year 1964-65:
(At Khana-Mihirer Dhipi) A stone vishnu plaque belonging to the early eight century
AD was recovered
from the debris of the second phase covering ambulatory passage of the main temple.
A lotus medallion made of carved brick with a semi-precious stone bead placed in the
center, suggesting its use as a foundation tablet, was found at the bottom of the
square kunda in the center of the miniature shrine of the main temple at the north-east
corner.
In the second phase of the temple complex, two furnaces, used for burning shells for
making lime, as also troughs packed with burnt shells were unearthed. It is a peculiarly
significant complex by itself, perhaps unknown as yet from an early site in India. The
lime thus produced was evidently used as mortar and for moulding decorative stucco
panels for the niches, mutilated remnants of which were found during the excavation. A
miniature bronze image of a standing Maitreya, a rare iconographic type found in one of
the uppermost layers of the Khana-Mihirer-Dhipi was another outstanding find.
A flight of twently steps, supported on two side walls, was exposed in front of the
temple. The eastern and northern sides of the temple structure as well as the north
eastern miniature temple still remain to be unearthed.
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