ANCIENT STONE GOES MISSING IN QUERIM SATARI

QUERIM: A valuable piece of history and heritage dating back to the Kadamba period has gone missing from Nagve, a village about a kilometre away from Valpoi town of Satari.
On Thursday, when Sanket Naik, a trekker from Sanquelim and Omkar Dharwadkar, a wild life enthusiast from Ponda, went to have a look at the hero stone, usually seen lying some two metres from the main Onda-Valpoi road, under a Kindal (Terminila paniculata) tree, they found it missing. History researcher Varad Sabnis of Panjim who has documented hero stones of Goa had dated the missing stone to the Kadamba period, around the late 13th century.
"Taking advantage of the Ganesh Chaturthi celebration some miscreants might have stolen or taken the sculpture to another place," Sabnis said. Explaining the significance of these stones, Sabnis said, "Hero stones were originally erected in memory of those who had sacrificed their lives for society.
Though the person's name is unknown, the sacrifice was reflected through this flat stone slab on which were sculpted the battle scene and the funeral scene, in which the hero's body is shown with his wife poised to jump onto her husband's pyre."
Inquiries with locals revealed that Nagve resident Lakho Vitho Pingale had offered flowers and performed a pooja at the stone on Nagpanchami some 15 days back.

2 comments:

diogofichardo said...

It is a shame that valuable antics are either being stolen or sold off by various instaurations. Recently my relative in Goa informed me that confessional boxes we sold off to some carpenters only to be bought by a person for a museum somewhere near Benaulim.

Trevor said...

very sad….and a very serious crime!..the treasures and the roots to our history are being sold away. Diogo is right, these objects are showing up in auctions over all over europe and the USA. They are scouts and foreigners from these countries coming over as tourists but to buy up these items to sell overseas. It is a huge shame, we have no respect for our past....The only way is for Goa museum to do their job about educating people about preservation. I went to the museum, they are all half a sleep and bored to death....have no interest working in that field, probably given the job buy a corrupt politician. We need to start with our Churches too, they should never sell these items..they below to the people. Google....goan treasures and you will find so many of our antique treasures for sale to any tom-dick-and-Harry. I wish we had a few millionaires that could contribute to help buy these items back for preservation in a museum for the youth of tomorrow, so we can instill pride in their culture.

Post a Comment