Express News Service
BHUBANESWAR: The Sun temple at Konark, Odisha’s solely world heritage web site, is ready for a significant facelift. The plain bland stone slabs that had develop into an integral function of the temple construction as a result of ASI’s conservation works to guard the monument from crumbling will quickly be a factor of the previous as they’re additionally being embellished with carvings and mouldings.
For the primary time since conservation of the temple started over a century again, a pilot venture has been initiated to embellish the plain stones and unify them with the beautiful design and scupltures of the monument.
As a starting, a stretch of the wall on the southern aspect of the Jagamohan has been changed with khondalite stone carvings and mouldings to beautify the stone slabs on the monument. Work on the stretch began final yr and could be accomplished inside the subsequent fortnight.
The venture is being carried out by Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) inside the permitted limits of the revised National Policy for Conservation of Ancient Monuments, Archaeological Sites and Remains-2014.
“The vertical stone slabs on the southern side of Jagamohan are being provided an outline. Geometric and floral patterns are being added along with stone mouldings. The decision on this was approved during the national consultation meet on Konark temple in 2019 which was held in the presence of the then Union Culture minister Prahlad Singh Patel,” mentioned ASI Superintending Archaeologist Arun Malik. The work has acquired the approval of DG ASI.
Malik mentioned as per the revised conservation coverage, whereas ASI can not redo the damaged sculptures, it may possibly add carvings and mouldings to plain stones. This was not potential previous to 2014 because the outdated conservation coverage that was framed within the Twenties mandated changing the broken parts of the monument with solely plain slabs.
After the session assembly, the heritage conservation company carried out intensive analysis work into historic references, drawings, images, data and architectural stays of the Sun temple for reference for the pilot venture.
Besides, references of Kalinga model of temple structure and Shilpa Shastras have been considered for the work. ASI used its conventional stone artisans who’ve been engaged on Jagannath temple in Puri, Raja Rani temple and Khandagiri Udayagiri caves in Bhubaneswar and the khondalite stones have been procured from Tapang for the work. After the pilot venture is accomplished, the work will probably be slowly prolonged to different elements of the monument.
“ASI was considering decorating the vertical stone slabs with carvings after allegations were made from all sections that it was replacing carved stones with plain ones in 2018,” mentioned Malik. Around 40 per cent of the northern and southern partitions of the Jagamohan have been fastened with plain stones.
“This was done by the Britishers in the pre-Independence era for structural stability of the ancient monument. In fact, this is why the structure is intact today. Besides, the platform on which Jagamohan stands was partly damaged. In the 90s, ASI began strengthening the platform and fixed plain stones in the platform area where stone sculptures were missing or damaged. Similar measures were taken subsequently for the Nata Mandap of the temple,” he added.