{"id":1226,"date":"2010-01-03T04:26:49","date_gmt":"2010-01-02T22:56:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=1226"},"modified":"2019-05-28T04:58:34","modified_gmt":"2019-05-27T23:28:34","slug":"archaeology-and-astronomy-at-burzahom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/?p=1226","title":{"rendered":"Archaeology and Astronomy at Burzahom"},"content":{"rendered":"

Burzahom<\/strong> was the first Neolithic site to be discovered in Kashmir. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It is located on a ‘karewa<\/em>‘ between the banks of the Dal Lake and the Zabarvan hills, about 5 km from the famous Mughal garden of Shalimar. Burzahom translates as ‘place [ hom<\/em> ] of birch [ burza<\/em> ]<\/em>‘ in Kashmiri. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Plentiful food from the forests on the Himalayan foothills, abundant water supply from the lake and a raised location protected from seasonal flooding ensured that the Burzahom plateau remained continuously settled from the Stone Age [2400 B.C]<\/strong> to the Early Historical period<\/strong>. The inhabitants progressed from hunt-and-gathering pit-dwellers to a pottery-making agricultural society over the ages.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A rock carving unearthed at the site shows two hunters hunting a stag while twin suns shine in the sky. The engraving on the slab depicts hunting scenes showing an antlered deer being pierced from behind with a long spear by a hunter and an arrow being discharged by another hunter from the front. The slab seems to reveal that hunting was still a part of the life of the Neolithic people of Burzahom. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The presence of two similar suns in the sky is however a mystery. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Some researchers believe that the twin suns indicate the duration of the hunt, while a far more exotic (and convincing, IMHO) theory has been proposed by a team of astronomers who believe that the scene represents the ancient night sky with the two suns actually representing the moon and a supernova<\/strong>*, while the hunters and the animals represent constellations like Orion<\/strong> and Taurus<\/strong>. <\/p>\n

If the latter theory is to be believed, it would represent not only the first record of a supernova<\/strong>, but also the oldest sky-chart ever discovered<\/strong>! <\/p>\n

* A supernova is the explosion of a massive star which produces an extremely bright object that gradually fades away over weeks or months<\/em>. <\/p>\n

Burzahom lies just off the Shalimar-Telbal<\/strong> road and is well worth the short trip to experience the history it represents.<\/p>\n

Learn more about Burzahom here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Update (2019):<\/strong>
\nI feel that in ancient times the Dal lake would have extended to the boundaries of Burzahom which seems to have the perfect attributes for a shore settlement. Unfortunately unplanned construction is taking place in the most likely place where an anchorage would have existed. Indeed the construction monster may soon devour Burzahom<\/a>. Shame!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Burzahom was the first Neolithic site to be discovered in Kashmir. It is located on a ‘karewa‘ between the banks of the Dal Lake and the Zabarvan hills, about 5 km from the famous Mughal garden of Shalimar. Burzahom translates as ‘place [ hom ] of birch [ burza ]‘ in Kashmiri. Plentiful food from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-kashmir"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1226"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1229,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1226\/revisions\/1229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmirnetwork.com\/justju\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}