Believed to be the first discovery of its kind here, archaeologists have dug out first century terracotta pipes in a village in central Kashmir's Ganderbal district.
The excavation was carried under the project 'Migration Routes from Kashmir to Central Asia' and funded by a German foundation.
The recovery of Kushan period terracotta pipes at village Ahan is considered as a "major discovery" as such pipes have been found only in Pakistan and Afghanistan in south Asia, the experts claimed.
Besides the pipes, they said, the joint team of Russian and local experts came across 2000-year-old subterranean structures, coins, pottery, terracotta tiles and so on.
"It is a treasure trove. The discovery of such structures is very significant as it means that the village was an urban settlement," Assistant Professor, Centre for Central Asian Studies, Kashmir University Ajmal Shah said, after presenting the 10-day geophysical and preliminary archaeological survey.
Shah, who heads the project from Kashmir side, said the discovery was made with the help of state-of-the-art machinery brought by the eight-member foreign team headed by Natalia Polosmak and included two geophysicists, two geo-data experts and two land surveyors.
With the help of the advanced machinery, only a small test pit was dug by the joint team and the result was beyond "our expectations", he said.
He said the project, funded by Gerda Henkel Stiftung Fondation Germany, was a joint collaboration of the Kashmir University and the Institute of Archaeology And Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences.
He said Germany is expected to fund ground excavation at the site next year after this discovery.
