A Preliminary Report of the Excavations at Nagardhan (2015-2016)

Contents: Foreword. Preface.1.  Introduction/Virag Sontakke, Shrikant Ganvir and Shantanu Vaidya. 2. Localities/Virag Sontakke, Shrikant Ganvir and Shantanu Vaidya. 3.  Stratigraphy and Chronology/Virag Sontakke and Shantanu Vaidya. 4.  Structural Remains/Shantanu Vaidya, Virag Sontakke and Shrikant Ganvir. 5.  Pottery (Typology and Chronology)/Shantanu Vaidya, Virag Sontakke and Pramod Chavan. 6. Stone Objects/Gopal Joge, Shantanu Vaidya and Shobhna Meshram. 7. Terracotta Objects/Mohan Pardhi.  8.  Religious Imagery/Shrikant Ganvir. 9.  Coins/Abhijit Dandekar and Suken Shah. 10. Sealings/Abhijit Dandekar and Suken Shah. 11. Beads/Tilok Thakuria and Monika Kalita. 12. Glass Bangles/Bhakti Gohil and Dipika Bhomkar. 13. Bone and Ivory Objects Aakanksha and Rushal Unkule.14. Iron Objects/Amardeep Barsagade, Mohan Pardhi and Kailash Yede. 15.  Animal Remains/P.P. Joglekar and Pankaj Goyal. 16.  Molluscan Shells and Shell Objects/Arati Deshapande-Mukherjee. 17. Geomorphological Observations around Nagardhan/Sushama Deo and Jayendra Joglekar. 18.  Quantitative Analysis of Posphate by Soil Determination/Sachin Vidyadhar Joshi. 19. Preliminary Observations on Archaeobotanical Samples/Anil Pokharia. 20. Phytolith and Diatom Analysis/Sanjay Eksambekar. 21. Ethnographic Survey/Nisha Sawant-Kulkarni. 22. Chemical Analysis of Glass Products/Izumi Nakai, Aiko Imai, Madoka Murakushi, Saki Arai and Akinori Uesugi. 23. Survey of Medieval Monuments at Nagardhan/Neha Pande and Atul Kushwaha. 24. Preliminary Observations of the Excavations/Virag Sontakke, Shantanu Vaidya and Shrikant Ganvir.

The excavations conducted at Nagardhan by the Directorate, Archaeology and Museums, Nagpur Division, Government of Maharashtra, and Department of AIHC and Arcaheology, Deccan College, Pune for the three consecutive seasons ie 2015-2016 to 2017-2018 threw fresh light on ancient Vidarbha. The site of Nagardhan is believed to be the Nandivardhan of ancient times; the capital of the Vakatakas. The excavations were aimed to firstly reveal various aspects of the Vakataka period and to inspect if the remains help in ascertaining the earlier identification of Nagardhan by earlier scholars. The excavations revealed the evidence of well settled city of the Vakataka period. The findings include ceramics, coins, sealings, glass bangles, terracotta objects, stone objects, beads of semi-precious stones, ivory objects, metal objects, etc.