Sanghol is a village in Punjab, located in the district of Fetehgarh Sahib. It is one of the important excavation sites in India and historians have excavated many coins and seals belonging to Toramana and Mihirakula od Central Asia. In 1968, a Buddhist Stupa was found from here and then in 1985 117 stone slabs, which were beautifully carved, were excavated. These included pillars, figures, cross bars etc, belonging to the Kushana style of art. Sanghol Museum is the major attraction here, which contains a number of relics from the late Harappan Civilization in 1720 BC-3000 BC to 6th Century AD.
It took us more than 3 hours to reach Sanghol from Amritsar. The museum is under the Archaeological Survey of India and was inaugurated in 1990, on April 10th. It was built to preserve the treasures discovered during the excavations at the excavation sites in Sanghol. The museum had two floors and the ground floor that we enter contained items other than the stone sculptures. They were arranged chronologically, so that you get an idea as to how the civilization developed. It contained seals, coins, precious stones, terra cotta, sealings, ivory and carvings. It also had a lot of graphs, photos, chars, maps and drawings to help us understand about the objects we see. It contained specimens of pottery from Harappa Civilization, Mauryas, Sungas, Guptas and Muslim Culture. There were coins and seals made of baked and unbaked clay. One of the seals had the name of Huna king belonging to the fifth century.
In front of the stair case leading to the upper floor, we saw a stucco head of Buddha, probably from the fourth century AD. On the first floor we saw mottled red sandstone sculptures. There were figures carved on pillars, stones, crossbars and railings of the stupas that were excavated in Sanghol. We saw many themes among which most important were woman and three Vignittes, mother and child motifs and some other descriptions. One of the popular themes was that of a woman holding tree branches. The sculptures here represented the Kushana style of art of Mathura.
The visit to the museum helped us to get some information on the history of India, of which we were quite unaware.
The visit to the museum helped us to get some information on the history of India, of which we were quite unaware.