Bhutan / China / India

18

2017

The Eighteenth Regular ReportIndonesia / Kazakhstan / Maldives

ACCU Nara International Correspondent
The ACCU correspondents periodically send reports on cultural heritage protection activities in which they have been
recently involved. This is a collection of ten reports submitted by international correspondents in the Asia-Pacific region.

The Eighteenth Regular Report
Contents
Bhutan1

Karma Tenzin
Ruins of Drukgyel Dzong

China

6

Zhao Peng
Preliminary Study of the Research-oriented Conservation Project — Hall of Mental CultivationIndia12Nagaraju Kaja
Refreshing Forgotten Reminiscences: Conservation of CIB Building at Basheerbagh, HyderabadIndonesia

18Dewi Puspito Rini
Inventory of Archeological Resources in Pangandaran Regency, West Java Province, Indonesia

Kazakhstan
Gulnaz Kulmaganbetova and Abildin Askar
Regular Report, Results of Archaeological Research of Ancient Taraz

21

Maldives

27

Shiura Jaufar
Second Season of Excavation in the Maldives for the ‘Cowrie Shells: An Early Global Commodity’
Project, 2017

Nepal

31

Sabina Tandukar
Restoration of Kageshwor Mahadev Temple at Kathmandu Darbar SquarePakistan

35

Tahir Saeed
Activities of the Federal Department of Archaeology and Museums in the Field ofArchaeological Exploration in Pakistan

Papua New Guinea40

Jim Onga
Kuk Early Agricultural Site Threat Assessment Report

Philippines
Louella Solmerano Revilla
Conservation and Restoration of Mexican Crucifixes

44Maldives
Maldives

Second Season of Excavation in the Maldives for the ‘Cowrie Shells: An Early Global Commodity’
Project, 2017
Shiura Jaufar, Archaeologist
Department of Heritage, Republic of Maldives
The second season of excavation for the project ‘Cowrieshells: an early global commodity’ was carried out earlier
this year in the Maldives. As mentioned in my report lastyear (which summarised the excavations carried out at thebeginning of last year, 2016), Prof. Anne Haour from theUniversity of East Anglia received a grant from theLeverhulme Trust to conduct research in the Maldives aspart of a research project investigating the timescale andnature of the importation of cowrie shells into West Africa
between 1150 and 1900 AD.
Thus, this paper will briefly report on the archaeologicalfieldwork undertaken in early 2017 in the Maldives which
involved the continuation of the excavation of one of thefive trenches (trench 3, which was located within avegetated area marked as a tourism zone on the northwestern side) on the island of Utheemu in Haa Alif Atoll,
as well as the large-scale excavation of seven units on theisland of Kinolhas in Raa Atoll. In addition, archaeologicalsurveys were also conducted in Kinolhas to record anddocument any architectural features visible within andaround the site. The field team consisted of the Principal
Investigator Prof. Anne Haour, Post-Doctoral Researcher
Dr. Annalisa Christie, Field archaeologist David Vigouroux,
and the author as the PhD candidate for the project. The
aim of the research was to identify sites likely to date to
the medieval Islamic period.
Work was first started at Utheemu at trench 3, which wasleft tarpaulined and backfilled last year until the team
could come back and investigate the coral stone blocks

that had been discovered. This 2 x 1.5 m trench wasextended, resulting in a 5.5 x 3.5 m trench in order toidentify the associated material culture and for better
understanding of the nature of the coral stone blocks. The
5-day excavation at this trench resulted in the full exposureof one of the coral stone blocks that was half exposed
before as well as other similar coral stones. Thus, although
it was not possible to identify the nature and function of
the slabs, some progress was made in identifying othercoral stone blocks within this trench and the material
associated with them, which included a lot of pottery andsome faunal remains.
The following four weeks of this season were spent on
Kinolhas as this is historically a very important island with
reports of a medieval harbour, and one of its claims tofame being that Ibn Battuta first landed here during both
his visits to the Maldives. The archaeology of the island
includes mosques as well as a shrine of a king who used
to rule across the Maldives. In addition, the shrine vicinity
also had two white marble gravestones—the inscribedstone of one is now housed at the National Museum inMale while the other stone is still left where it was foundwithin the shrine area. These stones are said to have comefrom Gujurat in India (Ludvik and Claude 2005).
The island of Kinolhas is about 0.5 km2 in size and roughly
a third of the island is covered in dense vegetation. The
medieval settlement was said to be located at the westernend of the island, which was largely occupied by vegetable
fields and forest. Thus, an area of roughly 180 x 160 m was

Fig 1: Trench at Ha. Utheemu (Haour 2017)27

Maldives

Fig 2: Map of R. Kinolhas (Google Images)

sampled at the western end by digging shovel test pits
every 20 m with some amount of clearing through theforest in order to be able to excavate and move around. A
total of 45 test pits were dug within this area and the finds
were compared with each other to determine where to
conduct large scale excavations. Finds included pottery,and faunal and stone remains. After focussing on theparticular concentration of materials, seven of these test
pits were selected for large scale excavations, which weretrenches 325, 321, 449, 544, 631, 443 and 360.
Four of these trenches were extended to 2 x 2 m units(325, 321, 449 and 544) while two were extended to 1 x 2m units (360 and 443). One of the most outstanding of theseven was trench 631, which was extended to a 6 x 4.5 munit. This trench recovered a rectangular sandstone
structure in the south west corner of the unit of the trench,
adjacent to a large mound of coral and stone rubble spreadover the northern part of the trench. The coral stones were

subsequently found to be tombstones in varying degreesof fragmentation. The remaining sandstone rubble wasprovisionally interpreted as having come from thedestruction of the associated rectangular structure. The
coral stones in the rubble represented the remains of atleast six tombstones. Moreover, a dispersal of many large
fragments of Chinese porcelain (mostly fragments ofbowls) was recovered and associated with the coral andstone rubble mound.
Finds from the trenches include a lot of pottery including
a great deal of broken coarse ware, Chinese porcelain andIslamic pottery as well as a miniature pot from trench 449,
an intact coarse ware jar from a shovel test pit, faunal
remains (including many cowries, various kinds of fish
species, chicken and other mammals), metal fragments,
glass items (including broken bracelets), a yellow pendant,beads, charcoal and stones foreign to the Maldives.

Fig 3: Plan drawing of all the test pits indicated by the three digit numbers, large scale excavated units indicated with the red squares,
and stone features recorded during the survey indicated by the stars (Christie 2017)28

Maldives
Fig 4: Drone image of the sampled area showing the vegetation and clearing that was done (Image taken by a local drone owner)Fig 5: Trench 443 (Christie 2017)

Fig 7: Pottery from the excavations (Vigouroux 2017)29

Fig 6: Trench 631 showing funerary features (Christie 2017)

Fig 8: Processing bones (Haour 2017)

Maldives

Fig 9: Miniature pot with associated cowrie shells from trench 449 (Vigouroux 2017)

Fig 10: Gravestone from trench 631 (Vigouroux 2017)

Moreover, due to the presence of many quadrilineal
features within and around the study area, an area ofroughly 50 x 100 m was surveyed to document and map
any stone features including measurements, photographs
and GPS points for each feature. This resulted in therecovery of about 21 features (both coral and sandstone)
including a probable bathing tank as well as remains ofwells, tombstones, walls and other domestic features.
After four weeks of excavations, surveys and finds analysis,
the team has now completed the excavations for theproject and returned to England, and are now in theprocess of analysing the finds and preparing for furtherpublication.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the project team at theFig 11: Recording a squared well (Haour 2017)

University of East Anglia (United Kingdom), Departmentof Heritage, Maldives National Museum, Academy ofDhivehi Language, Boduthakurufaanu Memorial Center,
Kinolhas council and the locals of both islands for theircontinuous support for this project.
Bibliography
Haour, Anne (2017) Fieldwork, https://crossroadsofempires.
wordpress.com/page/9/ [Last accessed 31st August 2017].
Kalus, Ludvik and Guillot, Claude (2005) Inscriptions
islamiques en arabe de l’archipel des Maldives, Archipel
70(1): 15-52.
National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research(2004) Heritage Sites in Maldives, Male: NCLHR.
Riyan (2011) Preliminary Inventory of Cultural Resourcesof Maldives and Heritage Action Plan (UnpublishedReport).

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