CHENNAI: Bored of viewing the same artefacts, paintings, coins and objects again and again when you visit the museum? Soon you may get to see a variety of new objects displayed in museums run by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).
In a welcome initiative, the ASI has decided to put on display its huge reserve collections on rotation basis to spice up the public’s trips to the museum.
In an interview to Express, K Moortheeswari, Deputy Superintending Archaeologist (Museum Branch-Southern Region) of the ASI said the idea was part of new initiatives to take museums closer to the people. “People have a boredom of seeing the same old things again and again. We are planning to rotate antiquities that are held back as reserve,” she said. One batch of reserve antiquities would be removed after a particular period of time and another set of objects would replace them.
There are 44 museums under the Archaelogical Survey of India in the country and eight under the southern region’s administrative control. “There are huge reserve collections everywhere and these would now be displayed in batches,” she said.
Site museums
Another new initiative involves setting up of site museums. “Efforts are on to set up museums in the very places from where significant objects are excavated,” she said. Foe example, the ASI has a huge collection of materials like urns excavated from Adichanallur, the Iron Age burial site near Tirunelveli. “At present, they are lying in Chennai. The idea is to set up a museum in Adichanallur itself and putting on display whatever had been excavated from there.”