Crocodile sculpture found in Vishwamitri

Workers cleaning up the banks of Vishwamitri river here have stumbled upon a giant sculpture of crocodile,a councillor has claimed,adding he was told by MSU students that it could be as old as 248 years.

Workers cleaning up the banks of Vishwamitri river here have stumbled upon a giant sculpture of crocodile,a councillor has claimed,adding he was told by MSU students that it could be as old as 248 years.

On Friday,BJP councillor Ashok Pawar,who is involved in cleaning up the banks of Vishwamitri,was informed by workers that they had come across a big sculpture of crocodile while cleaning the steps of a Shiva temple at the river ghat.

When the workers were digging into the waste and mud,they hit upon a stone. Since they were told about the presence of old structures,they immediately informed us and we reached there. After careful digging,a massive sculpture of crocodile was unearthed. Some students from the Faculty of Fine Arts were interested and they told us there was a mention of the same sculpture in the British Library and that it could be 248 years old, said Pawar.

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V H Sonawane,a former dean at the MSUs Department of Archaeology,said,The ancient ghats at Vishwamitri are certainly more than two centuries old and in that era,sculpture of aquatic animals used to be kept at these ghats for reasons of aesthetics. This indicates that the presence of crocodiles in Vishwamitri is not new. They have been here for two centuries now.

The researchers from the Department of Archaeology at MSU may visit the ghat soon. We may go there to find out its archaeological relevance for study purposes, Ambika Patel from the Department of Archaeology said.

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