By Japan K Pathak at Lothal

It was Thursday, a just another weekday, but Lothal museum was busy with footfalls of dozens of tourists. Bus loads of visitors from various parts of Gujarat, India and abroad were seen curiously viewing the showcased objects here. It was nice to see a Japanese group of tourists, arrived with a professional Japanese speaking guide.

But a glass showcase meant to feature copper and bronze items discovered during Lothal excavation is completely empty! Labels were still there intact inside the glass showcase, but items like beads, blade axe, spearhead, needles, spear, arrow heads, blades, nails, fish hooks etc were not there in display.

Visitors are told by ASI employees on duty that this particular showcase received rain water due to leakage from walls inside the museum last monsoon. The items in exhibition in this showcase are therefore withdrawn. Now the fact is, monsoon has departed long ago and winter has started, but the items are not brought back to display, neither any repair has been started to fix the water leakage issue which it seems is limited to at least two showcase areas.

Visitors when inquire are told that one more showcase where conch and shell made items recovered from Lothal excavation site are kept for display also received leakage due to rain. While the items are still in display, the background clearly shows rain water effect.

While showcased items are amazing and the museum offers even better experience than the actual excavation site located next to it, the architecture and structure of the years old museum building is not up-to-the-mark. It has to be better, especially when it comes to safety of objects displayed. Then the museum, though having excellent items has not utilized multimedia, electronics etc modern ways to explain the things.

It is believed that new museum building is in planning stage. If it is true then works need to be expedited, and new museum has to be the world best.

After-all there are very few places in world that offer experience of how was the life on this earth as early as 4,400 years ago.

The other things noticed during the visit were; there were no books on Lothal at ASI book-shop located outside the museum. There were no souvenir items like T-shirt, photo frame, mug etc available at the shop. ASI, it seems has not conceived to do something like that at all. The excavation site has no professional guide, it has no enough signage to explain the site. Lothal museum and site has no dedicated website. The details on ASI website are wrong.

One thing under construction at Lothal site is pathways around world’s oldest dock discovered here. Once the construction is over, the visitors shall be instructed to move only on prescribed pathways to visit the dock area. They shall not be allowed to walk on dockyard’s wall itself.

Lothal museum which is located at less than 80 km distance from Ahmedabad is connected through pucca road. Entry fee per person is Rs 5. Photography is prohibited inside museum but permitted on excavation site. Museum remains closed every Friday. The museum had 48,300 visitors in 2011, 50,424 in 2012 and 43,305 in 2013 as per official figures available. In 2012, Rs 8.54 lakh amount was allocated/spent for repair of this museum, in 2013 it was Rs 8.34 lakh while in 2014 Rs 3.46 lakh.

– DeshGujarat