ABOUT BANGLADESH ARCHAEOLOGY

The sulptures found with our hard excavation and exploration works are unbelievably rich and complex
heritage of Bangladesh. Benefiting from recent archaeological research helps us to show works from the Maurya period
and go on until the 19th century. And thus we will retrace history whilst emphasising on a certain number of major sites.
As a matter of fact, one of the characteristics of this heritage is that a lot of the pieces are well documented and
enable us to situate the same in their precise historical and artistic context. The four great religions, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Jainism and Islam that determine the history of Bangladesh will be duly represented.

Bangladesh possesses an immensely important cultural heritage, this arising from the fact that the eastern half
of Bengal has been one of the cultural richest regions of the Indian world; a vision far from the catastrophic
one that the western world often tends to favour. The region is associated with the art of the Pala and Sena
dynasties (8th – 13th century). Archaeological study has however revealed vestiges that are more ancient like
the Mahasthan site which stands on what used to be Pundravardhana, and goes back to the Maurya and Sunga periods
(3rd – 1st century BC). It has also revealed vestiges from the Gupta period (4th – 6th century).
Pundravardhana-Mahasthan is, to this day, the oldest Indian city known to be in the east. But Bangladesh also
harbours the oldest Buddhist monastery of the Indian world, Paharpur, which has now been listed on the UNESCO’s
list of protected monuments. Sculptures of a impressive dimension have been recently unearthed: a bronze Buddha
measuring 1,3 metres in Paharpur in 1982, a Gupta Buddha (from Sarnath) sculpted on both sides at Mahasthan in 1992,
a bronze Vajrasattva, 1,40 metres in height, at Mainamati in 1995, and finally an Avalokitesvara found on the same
site of the same material and size. These pieces are the real proud of Bangladesh Archaeology.