General Education Department

... water are available all the year round; favourable climate is a regular feature; the land is fertile and water manipulation system works favorably and the area is also a “strategically suitable location against intrusion” (Imran et al. ... Akanda, M., K. Hossen, SMK Ahsan and S. Sen. ...

Wari and Bateshwar are two adjacent villages in Amlabo Union under Belabo police station in Narsingdi district, Bangladesh. It is situated on an isolated bit of the Pleistocene terrace at Manohardi-Sibpur, which is detached from the Madhupur tract by the Old Brahmaputra and the Laksya rivers. Since the 40s of the last century, a large number of cultural materials of Wari-Bateshwar have been reported from surface collections and chance excavations. Systematic archaeological exploration at the site was carried out in 1998-99 season by the author and subsequently a number of excavations conducted at the site since 2000. Archaeological investigations at th Wari-Bateshwar revealed that the site had been occupied from the 4 century BC onwards with occasional breaks. The present paper is the detail report of all the evidences from the archaeological record in the form of physical remains unearthed from explorations and excavations till date and analyzes them to understand the nature and behaviors of the people who produced them. This also places Wari-Bateswar in the macro-level of Indian Ocean maritime trade network during the early historic period.

In Bengali, the signifier abhijñān denotes ‘a token of recognition.’ The term also has embedded within it the notion of abhijñā or ‘memory’ and abhijña, or the ‘expert,’ the ‘wise,’ and the ‘experienced.’ These significations, overt and covert, are mobilized in this volume to pay tribute to an ‘amateur’ archaeologist, i.e., an archeologist not trained in the discipline but one whose amour or love for archaeology has rendered him abhijña as the ‘expert,’ the ‘wise,’ and the ‘experienced.’ As a collection of eighteen research papers on South Asian archaeology and art history of artefacts, contributed by twenty-two scholars from Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Italy and Germany, this volume of specially commissioned essays seeks to be a token of recognition that remembers and felicitates an expert, wise and experienced archeologist from Bangladesh, whose name is Abul Kalam Muhammad Zakariah.

Jahan highlights strategies for community-based outreach programmes to promote sustainable tourism as well as to stimulate public interest in micro-heritage preservation and management for the socio-economic development of local communities using Bhitargarh as a case study. It also focuses on how micro-heritage provide a sense of identity to the local community; how they reflect and shape the social, religious, cultural, political and economic milieu of Bhitargarh in particular, and Bangladesh in general; how micro-heritage tourism can be more meaningful and responsible to society by appreciating culture and traditions, and in what ways micro-heritage tourism becomes an effective tool to improve social benefits and participation for protecting and safeguarding cultural heritage of Bangladesh.

This paper attempts to portray maritime trade between Thailand and Bengal (currently known as Bangladesh and West Bengal, India) by examining cultural materials from the fourth century BCE to the fourth century CE found in archaeological sites of the regions and place them in a macro-level context of the Indian Ocean trade network. Observations and deliberations of this study have been presented in three stages. The first of these illustrates archaeological evidences pertaining to maritime trade such as Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW), Rouletted Ware, knobbed ware, stamped Ware, glass and semiprecious stone beads, seals and sealings with Kharosti-Brahmi inscription; the second traces the evolution of the maritime trade network between Thailand and Bengal; and the third demonstrates the definite trade route. เสนทางการคาทางทะเล ระหวางไทยและเบงกอล บทความนมวตถประสงคเพอแสดงภาพการคาทางทะเลระหวางไทยและเบงกอล (ปจจบน คอ ประเทศบงกลาเทศและรฐเบงกอลตะวนตกของอนเดย) โดยการศกษาคนควาจากวตถทางวฒน...

South Asia is home to a remarkable tapestry of civilizations, which have evolved over centuries and continue to shape the identities and narratives of the region. The conference aims to explore the rich and diverse cultural heritage that binds the countries of South Asia together and foster a deeper understanding and appreciation of their cultural and religious interconnectedness. Our behavior is built around our belief system and the way we think and live determined by the geography and environment around us.

Bounded by the Himalaya in the north to the Indian Ocean in the south the landscape of South Asia has many mountains, hills, plateaus and plains, islands, rivers, lakes, swamps etc. These features played a very important role in the development of various belief systems, philosophical thoughts and religion among the people of the region. The homogeneity of behavioral practices therein is seen today mainly due to its landscape. The conference will provide a platform for the scholars and the stakeholders to conduct academic discourse on belief, believe and behavior to understand the common cultural heritage of South Asia. This is a very relevant subject for achieving sustainable development goals of the 21st century.

The Third BSSCR Conference in Dinajpur brought together 200 research scholars and teachers' to interact and share their views on culture and religion in order to better understand, compare, interpret and analyze countless beliefs, practices, traditions, communities and other related phenomena for a more inclusive and interconnected future.

... water are available all the year round; favourable climate is a regular feature; the land is fertile and water manipulation system works favorably and the area is also a “strategically suitable location against intrusion” (Imran et al. ... Akanda, M., K. Hossen, SMK Ahsan and S. Sen. ...

Bhitargarh is located about 16 km northeast of Panchagarh town in Amarkhana union under Panchagarh Sadar upazila in Panchagarh, the northernmost administrative district of Bangladesh. It is the largest fortified settlement in Bangladesh so far discovered, extending over an area of about 25 square km. Interestingly, the site is actually transnational because portions of its outer enclosures on the north and the northern parts of the west and east lie in Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, India. The first systematic archaeological investigation at Bhitargarh is being carried out by the present author as the Director of the excavation team since 2008. This paper is a preliminary report on the findings of the archaeological investigations at Bhitargarh conducted by the present author from 2008 to 2017.

Discovery of a large number of archaeological remains in the form of coins, potsherds and other antiquities from West Bengal and Bangladesh clearly illustrates a rich heritage of the region. Recent archaeological researches unfold various practices of the past people. However, when the question of the state apparatus that operated in the above-mentioned geo-physical landmass is fore-grounded during the early historic period, most of the answers are extremely nebulous because the subject is still riddled with various unresolved pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The present paper wishes to examine the formation and nature of the state by prising all available data obtainable from archaeological, numismatic, epigraphic and literary sources, and re-visioning these with a touch of creative speculation. The essay traces the evolution of state in the lineage-based society of pre-Maurya era i.e. Neolithic-Chalcolithic period, implantation of Kautilyan state model from the Middle Ganga Valley in the Maurya era and the state may have been considerably influenced by the Kushanas model during the post-Maurya era.

Archaeology has been used globally to make claims of antiquarian authenticity for many post-colonial nations and in this, Bangladesh is not unique. The state of Bangladesh is interested in using prehistoric archaeological investigations to forge a national identity, superimposing their flavored representation of the country—its territory, demography, religion, et cetera—on a prehistoric landscape. The goal of this chapter is to provide a scientific description of the prehistoric archaeological evidence from Bangladesh, avoiding any projection of the present nation—its origins or identity—on a distant past.