State completes digitising data of 33K antique items

Kolkata: The state government has completed the mammoth task of digitising data of 33,000 antique items of immense historical importance at the State Archaeological Museum.

The photographs of the same are also getting digitised and it would be completed soon.

The digitisation of the antique items would help people to study about the same in a single click. At the same time a detailed records of the items would be available as ready reckoner. State Archaeological Museum in south Kolkata was founded in 1962.

At present it is under the purview of the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums of the Information and Cultural Affairs department. There are collections of rare tools of the early, middle and the late stone ages from Susunia in Bankura and other such places. Proto-historic antiques from Pandu Rajar Dhibi in Burdwan are one of the rarest items that is present in the archaeological museum. At the same time terracottas, sculptures, stone and stucco from the Kushana, Shunga, Gupta, Maurya and Mediaeval period are also present in the museum besides the section of old terracottas, bronzes, wood-carvings, textiles and manuscripts.

"Digitisation of the data related to all the 33,000 antique items is complete. Photographs of most of the items have also been clicked and digitised. The remaining work would be completed soon. It was a mammoth task and completing the same within a certain time was a real challenge," said a senior state government officer.

Besides digitisation, a kiosk is getting set up at the museum where a visitor will get information about each of the seven galleries. It would help them to priorities that in which order they would take a tour of the galleries one after the other.

There is a trend globally to preserve historical monuments and documents particularly those which lay underground like the sewer line and the water supply line. It needs a mention that Kolkata ranks third only after London and Hanover in sewer line and water supply connection. Historians said that data kept with the Kolkata Municipal Corporation need immediate preservation.