Third museum to come up at Purana Qila in Delhi by 2020

The museum is scheduled to be completed by March 2020 and will be open to Purana Qila visitors.

After inaugurating the gallery of confiscated and retrieved objects, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is building another museum to house objects excavated from across India which have been lying in the Central Antiquities Collection (CAC).

Gallery of confiscated and retrieved antiquities at Purana Qila. It was inaugurated in August this year. (Biplov bhuyan/HT Photo)

“There are over two lakh excavated antiquities in the CAC which have never been seen by the public. Of these, we are selecting close to 1,000 items to display at the new museum,” an official from ASI said.

The museum is scheduled to be completed by March 2020 and will be open to Purana Qila visitors.

Until 1976, all objects found in the course of excavations anywhere in India were submitted to the CAC. Among these, some have been displayed at the National Museum and few others have been given away to other museums in the country. However, over two lakhs have remained in the repository, which will now be put on display

The objects to be displayed date from the pre-historic period to the medieval era such as Harappan seals, pre-historic animal and human figurines, coins and pottery from the Mughal period among several others.

“We have planned on having three galleries inside the museum. The first will hold objects from the lower Paleolithic to Neolithic period. The second one will have objects from the Harappan period till 1000 BC. The third gallery will include antiquities from the 6th century BC to the medieval era,” the official said.

Last month, the ASI opened a museum at the Purana Qila complex to hold smuggled objects which have been confiscated or retrieved and then submitted to the CAC. The complex has another museum which houses antiquities excavated at Purana Qila in 1969.