Attempt to determine exact age of Dwarka

In what can be an extremely interesting discovery, archaeologists excavate from the ruins of Dwarka a wooden block that promises to solve the mystery about the age of the submerged city.

The exact age of Dwarka, the ancient submerged city off Gujarat coast, can now finally be determined.

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In a major breakthrough, archaeologists have excavated from the ruins of Dwarka a wooden block that promises to solve the mystery about the exact age of the submerged city believed by many to belong to Lord Krishna.

"Now that we have found wood, we are confident of dating the excavations. We will know exactly how old is this submerged city," Alok Tripathi, Superindenting Archaeologist of the Underwater Archaeology Wing of the Archaeological Survey of India, told PTI.

Archaeologists will now use the carbon dating technique to determine the exact age of the ruins. The latest excavation at the site that began early this year concluded last week.

The earlier excavations, that first began about 40 years ago, had only revealed stones, beads, glass and terracota pieces.

"The operations resulted in retrieval of wooden block from a submerged circular structure. The blocks were joined so well with the help of wooden dowels and nails that they remained in situ despite heavy surfs and strong currents for a long period," said Tripathi, who is also an expert diver.

Though there had been previous excavations, each cited different dates and were based on the interpretations of scholars as there was no material evidence to back those claims.