Artefacts at stake

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Although treasures of Bangladesh National Museum are increasing every year, the authorities have yet to introduce modern security system and technologies to identify originality of the collection.

The return of 42 artefacts from Guimet Museum in Paris has aroused suspicion whether those are fake or real. But the national museum does not have the expertise to quell any such suspicion.

Asked how experts will check the artefacts, Sharful Alam, secretary to the cultural ministry, told The Daily Star: “The director general of National Museum and the director of the Department of Archaeology will check those manually. They are the experts.”

Earlier, when Vishnu and Bust of Vishnu, two valuable statues from Gupta era, were stolen from airport on way to Paris on December 21 and the police recovered some mud pieces, experts from the museum certified those as genuine after just manual checks.

“I know those for the last 22 years I’ve been working with the museum. So, I could recognise them just at a glance,” said Swapan Kumar Biswas, expert from the museum.

“We however don’t have the technology to find out the originality,” he added.

Since its inception in 1913, the museum has been checking its treasures manually even today.

The authorities say opening with 17 items on July 1, 1913, the museum in its four wings has 86,181 items as of 2007.

However, the museum displays only 20 percent of its total treasures and keeps the rest in the storerooms.

“We change the displayed items at the gallery frequently after a few days so that visitors don’t get bored and their interest intensifies. This is a general criterion of displaying artefacts,” said Sirajul Islam, register of the museum.

Experts say some of the items of the National Museum are really unique.

“Some of our treasures are so precious and rare that it’s really hard to find a second copy of those,” said Nazimuddin Ahmed, one of the most senior archaeologists of Bangladesh.

“But the government shows utter negligence to those and even doesn’t make any publication on those.”

Asked about security concerns, all the high officials from the museum said the storeroom is very safe as nobody is allowed to get in.

Some items are remaining there for years, insiders say, adding that the museum authorities have not displayed those.

Except the two ‘Vishnu’ statues, the last theft at national museum occurred in 1991, sources said. From the display of the gallery, unidentified thieves cut off and stole a lion-faced arm from the throne of Dighapatia king of Natore.

“Since then, the throne has been kept in the store room. A case was filed in this connection but that yielded no developments,” said a museum high official.

Asked how they ensure safety to the treasures, the high officials said once an item is registered with the museum and gets an accession number, two wings constantly look after it.

“So nobody can just enter the store and remove something from there,” said the register.

The register went on to say that they keep written details of every single treasure. “If it’s a terracotta statue, we write down its size, weight, colour and every detail of the figure. So nobody can simply change the items,” the register added.

“No single person is eligible to keep the keys alone and nobody enters the store without valid reason,” said Samar Chandra Poul, director general of the museum.

“All these artefacts are kept at the store where no outsider is allowed to enter, even the museum staffs but officials concerned.”

According to museum sources, of the four wings, History and Classical Art now has 67,164 items, Ethnography and Classical Decorative Art 11,740 items, Contemporary Art and World Civilisation 4,958 items and Natural History has 2,319 items.

According to the register, the museum collected only 14 items in 1965, while only 34 items were added last year.

The year 2007 witnessed the lowest collection in the last 42 years. The year 1986 saw the highest collection ever, as 8,192 items were added to the treasures.

Following the recent theft, the government, as requested by the museum, has taken measures to increase number of police gourds, since the museum’s own security system is not good enough.

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