Saridkel is an ancient site located in the

khunti district Khunti district is one of the twenty-four districts in South Chotanagpur division of the Indian state of Jharkhand. The district of Khunti was carved out of Ranchi district on 12 September 2007. , it is the second least populous district of Jhark ...

Jharkhand Jharkhand (; ; ) is a state in eastern India. The state shares its border with the states of West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. It has an area of . It ...

. There are ancient ruins of burnt brick houses found on the site along with redware pottery, copper tools, coins, gold earrings and iron tools. Well fortified buildings suggest that it was probably a royal house or Monastery belonging to the 1st or 2nd century CE, according to the archeological department.

History

British discovered the place. They found burnt brick, water tanks, pottery, Coins, Cooper and iron tools in Sarikel. They discovered urn burials with copper and gold ornaments in Khuntitola village near the site. They found ruin of stone Shiva temple, Shiva linga and stone bull in nearby village. The gold coin was of

Huvishka Huvishka ( Kushan: Οοηϸκι, ''Ooēški'', Brahmi: ', '; Kharosthi: 𐨱𐨂𐨬𐨅𐨮𐨿𐨐 ', ') was the emperor of the Kushan Empire from the death of Kanishka (assumed on the best evidence available to be in 150 CE) until the succes ...

type.

Sarat Chandra Roy Sarat Chandra Roy (4 November 1871– 30 April 1942) was an Indian scholar of anthropology. He is widely regarded as the 'father of Indian ethnography', the 'first Indian ethnographer', and as the 'first Indian anthropologist'. Early life Bor ...

investigated it in 1915. He found redware potsherds, ancient bricks, copper hooks, rods, coins, iron arrow heads, chisels, nails and ploughshares, gold ear ornament and stone beads on the site. There are several ancient sites located around the 20 villages in the region such as Khunti tola, Kunjala. The sites of Kunjala exhibited redware pottery with coarse fabric and the urn burial in Khunti tola exhibited red ware pottery with coarse fabric, copper and iron tools. S.C Roy called it

Asura Asuras (Sanskrit: असुर) are a class of beings in Indian religions, Indic religions. They are described as power-seeking clans related to the more benevolent Deva (Hinduism), Devas (also known as Suras) in Hinduism. In its Buddhism, Buddhi ...

forts and belongs to early centuries CE.

Amalananda Ghosh Amalananda Ghosh (3 March 1910 – 1981) was an Indian archaeologist, the author and editor of numerous works on India's ancient civilizations, and the organizer and director of archaeological expeditions during the mid-1900s. Education Ghosh ...

also visited the site in 1944 and declared it as very promising sites among all Asura sites. The Brahmi inscription also found which are from 3rd century BCE.

Excavations

Saridkel site was excavated in 2004 under A.S.I Ranchi. It revealed two occupational periods belong to the same culture. Early settlements had use of baked bricks, charcoal, iron slag and sand. It suggests iron smelting. Period II suggests building activities. Wall were found with the use of backing bricks of size 41 x 26 x 7 cm on the periphery of mounds with the alignment of the river to protect the settlement. Wheel made pottery found and characterized by coarse fabric with thick section and red colour. The Pottery was of

redware Redware as a single word is a term for at least two types of pottery of the last few centuries, in Europe and North America. Red ware as two words is a term used for pottery, mostly by archaeologists, found in a very wide range of places. Howeve ...

, grey, black and red

slipware Slipware is pottery identified by its primary decorating process where slip is placed onto the leather-hard (semi-hardened) clay body surface before firing by dipping, painting or splashing. Slip is an aqueous suspension of a clay body, which ...

. The ledged lid, flat-based bowl, sprinkler, and incised decorated design suggest a

Kushan The Kushan Empire ( grc, Βασιλεία Κοσσανῶν; xbc, Κυϸανο, ; sa, कुषाण वंश; Brahmi: , '; BHS: ; xpr, 𐭊𐭅𐭔𐭍 𐭇𐭔𐭕𐭓, ; zh, 貴霜 ) was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, i ...

influence. Iron objects with large iron slags were found. Copper objects, hooks and rods, clay sealings,

copper coins A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order to ...

, terracotta, hop-scotches,

terracotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based ceramic glaze, unglazed or glazed ceramic where the pottery firing, fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, a ...

human and animal figurines,

beads A bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood, or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under ...

chalcedony Chalcedony ( , or ) is a cryptocrystalline form of silica, composed of very fine intergrowths of quartz and moganite. These are both silica minerals, but they differ in that quartz has a trigonal crystal structure, while moganite is monoclinic. ...

, agate and carnelian and a two-legged saddle quern were found. A

Sivalinga A lingam ( sa, लिङ्ग , lit. "sign, symbol or mark"), sometimes referred to as linga or Shiva linga, is an abstract or aniconic representation of the Hindu god Shiva in Shaivism. It is typically the primary ''murti'' or devotional im ...

and Yoni was also discovered. The carbon dating of these materials gave date of 20 BC to 100 AD. Well fortified buildings suggest it was probably a royal house or Monastery belonging to the 1st or 2nd century CE. Excavation at Urn burial sites Khuntitola exhibited red ware pottery with coarse fabrics, copper ornaments and beads of stone and copper. A tiny metal of man plugging with two bulls was also discovered. Excavation at Kunjala exhibited burnt bricks of 22 x 6 cm and 44 x 23 x 5.5 cm length and buildings of four rooms. The largest room was 5 x 4 x 0.15 meters and the smallest was 2.5 meters with a veranda. Red ware pottery with coarse fabrics and terracotta red in colour was found. It dates to the early centuries CE.

References

{{South Chotanagpur Division topics Jharkhand History of Jharkhand