Indian museum making gallery to show ancient human endeavour

The Indian Museum here is constructing a gallery where several objects chronicling human endeavour on this land in the past thousands of years will be exhibited.

The exhibits of the gallery will be taken from the Geological Survey of India (GSI) collections and those consist of scientific evidences of ancient human endeavour including crafting tools used by hunters, food gatherers, grinding and polishing stones, Museum Director Rajesh Purohit told PTI.

It will be called the ‘Signature of human endeavour in India’, Purohit said adding, “When you see anything or when anybody comes to your country the question arises how old is the culture. We have attempted to answer this question in an ongoing exhibition.”

While currently some objects are being shown in an exhibition in the Museum and it will continue till August 19, the items after documenting and chronicling will be housed in the new gallery when it comes up, he said.

ALSO READ | Nitin Gadkari’s big confession on Maratha quota stir: There are 'no jobs', reservation will do no good

Purohit said in the South-East Asian Gallery of the museum, there was a new addition of the inscription of Buddhagupta of the sixth century.

The Indian Museum got the inscriptions and “It is now in our collections,” he said. He said a replica of the inscription had recently been gifted to Singapore premier by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The South-East Asian Gallery also has a 13th century boat with temple motif from Odisha indicating maritime connection with neighbouring countries, he said. The same gallery also has paintings, drawings, sketches, terracotta objects, seals and coins which were found all along the coastal belt of eastern part of the country, he said.

The museum is also working on to communicate the history of the exhibits through audio-visual medium. “We’ll hire a company to provide all this information through headphones. We want to make the youth of the country aware of the rich past of India,” Purohit said.

“There will be a story telling manner through which these exhibits will be shown to people so that children and common visitors will not only understand India’s cultural and other ties with South-East Asia but get to know about our heritage, our epics and literature,” he said.

ALSO READ | There should be no politics over NRC: Rajnath

Purohit said the museum could play a pivotal role in establishing cultural and friendly relations with neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Talking about people to people contact, he said when foreign tourists visited the Indian museum there was an interpretation centre in the form of touch screen.

“Unless the historic significance of the object is not communicated properly, people will not understand” he said.