Archaeological Sites on the Deltaic Landscape of Bangladesh

Description

The dynamic, active and changing deltaic landscape and cultural activities

The southwestern or lower part of Bangladesh (and West Bengal, India) is characterized by the unique, continuously metamorphosing, and comparatively unstable part of the active Ganges Delta (a delta is a landform created by the sediments deposited by the rivers, and water flows often in an area close to the mouth of the rivers). This part of the dynamic, tidal and fluvially active delta is a portion of a larger delta known as the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) Delta and most of the parts of present Bangladesh and West Bengal, India are located on it, the largest delta in the world.  The northern and eastern parts of the GBM Delta are not moribund. The southwestern part of Bangladesh along with the southern part of present West Bengal, India is entirely different as a landscape that is still active and forming/transforming by an expansive and intricate network of rivers falling into the Bay of Bengal. This landscape is littoral (i.e., a region lying across a shore) and is under direct influence of marine, estuarine (i.e., ‘estuary’ is the partly enclosed coastal area where river water mixes with the seawater) and riverine depositional and erosional processes. This part of the active delta has been formed by the sediments transported and deposited by the Ganges (Padma River in Bangladesh) River and its numerous distributaries.

The region in this proposal (Active Ganges Delta, hereafter, AGD) is bounded by the previous course of the Ganges River (known as Hooghly-Bhagirathi River) to the west (presently in West Bengal, India) and the Meghna River to the east, the present course of Padma River (Ganges River in India) to the north and the Bay of Bengal to the south. This property is distributed spatially in the southwestern part of Bangladesh covered currently by the administrative units of Khulna and Barisal Division. The part of the AGD which is included within the Khulna and Barishal division is characterized by various unique ecological, fluvial and cultural characters. The area is also known as the tidal delta as the rivers and waterscape is dominated by the tidal rivers and their depositional environment. The northern part of this delta is more mature than the more active part in the littoral zone.

The Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest of the world and, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is included within the littoral zone of this deltaic landscape of the AGD. The landscape of this delta is unique in many ways. The rivers and the water bodies are continuously changing during the last 5000-6000 years. The tidal rivers and regular annual floods during the monsoon mark the transient and changing character of this landscape and its ecology. The landscape is prone to regular natural disasters like cyclones, tidal surges, rapid erosion of the land, and river shifting, which is further threatened by climate-change-induced sea-level rise. The landscape, people and cultures are under active threat of being destroyed and obliterated in the next 50 years.

Generally, it is assumed that the human activities in such a region are transient, temporary and often, related to the time or locations of stability. Earlier historians believed (see, for example, Richard Eaton, the Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier) that the region came under extensive human occupation in the 16^th-17^th centuries CE. They thought that earlier human occupation was dispersed, temporary and specific activity (i.e., riverine trade and commerce, use of the natural resources of the mangrove forest, etc.) oriented. Contrary to their assumptions based upon the unique, changing and transfiguring character of this land, the region was inhabited at least in the second quarter of the first millennium BCE. Archaeological sites and monumental remains in the part within India (e.g., Tamluk, Chandraketugarh, Mahishadal, Sagar Island, Hindu Temple at Jatar Deul, etc.) date back to c. 3^rd-4^th century BCE. Recent archaeological studies in the region under Bangladesh as well as several previous studies, clearly show that the cultural activity in this dynamic, disaster-prone and the unstable area began in the 5^th-6^th century CE. Future studies may provide archaeological evidence of cultural activity from an earlier period. These archaeological sites attest to the permanent settlements even within the mangrove forest area, cultivation of land and use of settlements for maritime and riverine trade networks. They also suggest that the transforming landscape and hostile waterfront could not deny the ancient settlers from building extensive settlements even during the destruction and modification by floods, riverine erosion and natural rapid growth of dense forests. Undoubtedly, the AGD represent an unparallel and extraordinary human and landscape (or nature) relationship which is very rare in world history. The resilience and adaptation of humankind through the development of new adaptive strategies is the highlight of the cultural history of this region (see, for example, Allisson et al. 2003; Bandyopadhyay 2019).

Historical background

This active Ganges Deltaic region, covering both Bangladesh and West Bengal, India is identified as Gangaridai. Gangaridai, as a name of a territory in the mouth of the Ganges River, occurs as the name of a people and of a country in Greek and Latin writings, dates of which range between the 1^st century BCE and 2^nd century CE. The term Gangaridai and its variants - Gangaridae, Gangaridum and Gangarides - are found in the works of classical authors. In Ptolemy's description, four longitudinal degrees covered the coast from the westernmost to the easternmost mouth of the river. This, in effect, means that the Gangaridai country stretched a long way along the coastline of the Bay of Bengal between the westernmost and easternmost mouths of the Ganges. It is interesting to note that the longitudinal difference between the mouth of the Bhagirathi (near Tamluk) and the Padma (near Chittagong) at present is little more than 3.5 degrees. Thus, on Ptolemy's evidence Gangaridai can be located in the area in between the two main channels of the Ganges in present West Bengal of India and Bangladesh (Bhattachayya 1977; Basak 2014; Chakrabarty 2017; Chattopadhyay 2018; Mukherjee 1987; Sanyal 2010). The three copper plate inscriptions issued by the Sena rulers and another by Domman Pala, the genealogy of whom is still unknown, have been found from the same landscape zone currently included within West Bengal, India. All these inscriptions can be dated tentatively to the 11^th to 13^th century CE (Sanyal 2010; Basak 2014). The area was referred to as Khari mandala in a few of these inscriptions. This area was claimed to be a part of Pundrabhardhana bhukti in the inscription of Sena rulers. As a sub-region or state of the early medieval (c. 7th-13^th century CE) period, this entire deltaic region is recognized as Vanga. The region was partially included in the Sultanate domain during the medieval period (c. 14^th – 18^th century CE) with the territorial assimilation by Khan Jahan Ali. During the Mughal period, the region was a centre of a long conflict between Mughal governors and the local landlords, especially, Pratapaditya and this lineage in the 17^th-18^th century CE. The region was finally coming under the control of the Mughals during the reign of Mughal Emperor Jahangir in the 17^th century, though the invading Arakanese (or the popularly known mog) mercenaries (from present-day Myanmar) and the Portuguese pirates ran havoc in these coastal territories even after the British colonial domination after the battle of Plassey in 1757. 

Archaeological sites in this region comprise various types, including standing monuments, monumental remains, buried archaeological deposits, mud fortified spaces, brick-built remains, scatters of stones and stone made artefacts, embankments, and transported deposits of archaeological materials. They can be dated from c. 7th – 8th century CE to c. 18th – 19th century CE.  Often, it is found that the archaeological sites from the early period were reused in the later period without any significant increase in the thickness of the cultural debris. Monuments with intact superstructure are the sites where the superstructures are visible in many cases. These monuments are mostly religious edifices belonging to both Brahmanical and Islamic traditions. Simultaneously, many of the monuments of the contemporary period have lost their superstructure and became buried under the later alluvium. They are exposed after excavation. The complex and spatially varied fluvial depositional environment has played a key part in the preservation and destruction of monuments and monumental remains.

The archaeological sites and monuments do not show any specific spatial distribution pattern across the temporal scale. Archaeological sites belonging to the c. 7th- 10th century CE are found in the northern part of the delta as in the littoral zone even within the mangrove forest of the Sundarbans. Similarly, mosques and temples of the later period are found throughout the region.

Although scholars and experts are talking about the human resilience and adaptive strategies in the active tidal and dynamic deltaic zone in recent days [see, for example, O’ Donnel and Wodon 2015; Hoque et al. 2019; World Bank Portal (https://www.worldbank.org/en/results/2016/10/07/bangladesh-building-resilience-to-climate-change), the archaeological landscape of AGD vividly manifests the adaptive resilience subsistence strategies of the human activities (see, for example, van de Noort 2013). The changing dynamic of the terrain is not a new phenomenon. Human settlements and activities in this region are adapting to the natural disasters and changes of the riverine dynamics including sea-level changes for a long time (see, Bandyopadhyay 2019; Sen 2018a, 2018b, 2020).

Studies on archaeological sites and monuments indicate that human activities went through changes that were triggered and often controlled by natural factors like floods, changes of rivers, subsidence of lands, change in sediment depositional processes (see, Sen 2018a, 2018b, 2020). This is a unique case in terms of the environmental and ecological context. Very few archaeological sites in the world are preserved in such a volatile landscape to attest to the complex adaptive strategies of humankind in the face of such diverse and perennial natural disadvantages. On the contrary, human adaptive strategies and resilience show that cultural processes transformed the disadvantage in advantages by using the water for their communication and trade, for salt production and trade activities to the upland to the north and through the Bay of Bengal to the south (Mukherjee 2011). 

As a property proposed as a tentative world heritage, forty-six archaeological sites have been selected after careful and systematic evaluation of their significance in the historical processes of human-landscape/environment entwined interaction. They have been selected, moreover, from numerous sites based upon the authenticity and integrity according to the World Heritage guidelines. The components of the property with their respective key characters are given in the following table for serial nomination under a relevant theme:

An overview of the sites entwined to their changing deltaic landscape

There are several clusters of places and many isolated structural or monumental sites and habitational mounds dated from 9^th to 18^th-century CE as an indicator of intimate human-landscape interaction. A few examples are given below:

illa Bari-Mirzanagar Hammamkhana Cluster, Mirzanagar, Jashore: Two particularly important ruins of the Mughal period are located in Jashore District. The first one is known as a Hammamkhana located at Mirzanagar of Trimohini Union of Keshobpur Upazila. It was a ruin of ancient buildings with two square courtyards and separated by a high wall. These are designated as the residence of Nawabs or Foujdars of Jashore. The second one is situated on a 3-4m high mound and it is enclosed by walls. Locally it was known as killa-bari or fort and located one kilometre south of the Hammamkhana. There are partially exposed brick-built structural remains under these medieval ruins of the enclosed structural remains. It is highly probable that the Mughal structures were built upon pre-medieval structural remains. Their location within Bhairab-Betna intertidal zone shows the continuity of human activity despite the lateral changes in the river flow in the last one thousand years.

Agra-Kapilmuni-Shyamnagar cluster: The Agra-Kapilmuni cluster is an area with several clusters of archaeological remains in both the wetland and relatively higher interfluve natural levee in the Kapataskho-Betrabati River System. The locations of the sites in clusters from the north to the south on a linear pattern on a large area extending from Keshabpur Upazila of Jashore to Tala Upazila, Satkhira suggest continuous cultural activity from c. 7^th-8^th century CE to c. 18^th century CE in the land, which was regularly flooded during the monsoon and the high tide. Hunter (1877) and Mitra (2013, p. 209) have also mentioned a broad area from Tala Upazila (Satkhira District) to Chandkhali (Satkhira District) (covering approximately 18 kilometres) with several clusters of archaeological sites. Archaeological sites in Shyamnagar Upazila, Satkhira District within the Betrabati-Ichhamati Rivers are associated with these sites. Initial archaeological surveying has provided evidence of the presence of many of these sites which are located within the Sundarbans and at the margin of the present Sundarbans. They are not included in this property because their nature and preservation state have not yet been determined based upon intensive archaeological studies. Local people have also informed that structural remains were found while digging at one of these buried sites.

Bharat Bhayna-Dalijhara-Bharat Rajar Bari cluster: A large cruciform Buddhist temple was excavated and preserved by the Government Department of Archaeology at Bharat Bhayna in Keshabpur Upazila of Jashore District. This temple with multiple phases of construction and modifications can be dated back to the 8^th-9^th century CE. This temple’s top represents a building technique unique to the deltaic flood plain and this technique is known as the cellular technique (i.e., construction by building multiple blind cells with an earth filling). In a recent archaeological excavation by the Regional Directorate Office, Department of Archaeology, Khulna, a Buddhist temple at Jhurijhara mound in Tala Upazila was exposed. This temple also has a cellular construction style similar to the temple in Damdam Pirasthan Dhibi, excavated earlier at Manirampur Upazila in Jashore to the north of Jhurijhara.  These temples have a close resemblance to two temples that were found in association with Dalijhara Buddhist Vihara (monastery) at Keshabpur Upazila, 1.2km to the southeast of Bharat Bhayna. Excavation in Jhurijhara and Damdam Pirosthan Dhibi/mound revealed suspected Buddhist temples. Bharat Bhayna and Dhalijahara have several other clusters of sites locally known as Bharat Rajat Bari and Manik Fakirer Bari. These two places cover an extensive area to the south of the aforementioned excavated sites.

The construction of the temple can be dated back to the 8^th-10^th century CE. The edifice was reused during the medieval period. The pottery assemblage from this site clearly attests to this continuous reuse (Rahman, Alam and Hasnat 2020). The cellular technique of construction has a close resemblance to several architectural remains from the northwestern part of Bangladesh. The style in this region as suggested by these remains is different in its own respect. The buildings have a shallow foundation trench almost at the level of the surrounding surface and the massive brick-built walls were primarily laid out in a concentric square plan. Three to four squares comprised the main layout and consecutive squares were joined to each other by walls creating cells to be filled up by earth or deposits mixed with brickbats. These cells were constructed to give the structure solidity and stability on a landscape that is formed with loose, non-sticky, and often, wet silt and sand. The central high square brick-built structure of the Buddhist temple of Bharat Bhayna has a deep foundation and the square is solidified by multiple blind cells at the top where the original shrine was built at the first period of its occupation and use. Four rectangular arms at four cardinal directions were added in a later period to give the temple a cruciform shape (see, Rahman and Mita 2018). The same zones were under human occupation and cultural activity during the later period after the 13th century.

Archaeological stratigraphy and material culture from the excavated sites, such as Jhurijhara, Dalijhara and Bharat Bhayna, indicate their continued use until the 17^th-18^th century or later. Ruins of a mosque of Sultan Ala al-Din Hussain Shah are at Arshnagar of Dumuria Upazila (Khulna District), at a distance of 2km to the northeast of the shrine of Jhurijhara Mound. An inscription of 907 AH (1501 CE) has been recovered from the mosque (Rahman 2017). The continuous occupation of the landscape and the studies on the surrounding landscape suggest that because of regular floods, changes in river flow and earthquake-related subsidence of the structural remains and land, people adapted with a building style that is comparatively smaller and shallow, and had a wattle and daub superstructure.

All these sites are located on a low and wetland-associated landscape in the Bhadra-Hari River belts. There are quite a large number of back-swamps and ox-bow lakes in the adjacent area indicating the change in the transformations in hydrological regimes and deposition patterns. The low wetland in which the temple of Jhurijhara was excavated is regularly inundated during peak monsoon even though the current river and flood management have resulted in the loss of river flow during monsoon.  

Damdam Pirosthan Dhibi and the sites adjacent to this excavated temple seem to form another cluster of monumental remains in close spatial association with the Khedapara cluster of mounds to the southwest at a distance of 10km. These sites are situated on a landform that is slightly higher than the earlier sites. These sites, however, are closely associated with the abandoned meanders and belts of the Kapotashko-Haporkhali River system. These rivers, like several other tidal rivers, have become seasonal because of the river and flood management programmes during the last four decades. They were active and large rivers with seasonally changing flow and landscape alteration even in the 20^th century CE.

Barobazar cluster of monumental and monumental remains: This is a cluster of monuments and monumental remains comprising several mosques, tombs and non-religious structures like jahajghata. The monuments are dated to the archaeological sites and monuments of the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Mosque City of Bagerhat. This cluster is considered to be the medieval settlement of Mahamudabad or Muhammadabad. Situated on the interfluve of the Bhairav River, several mosques were exposed by archaeological excavation without any superstructure. The jahajghata (anchorage?) illustrates the communication through the currently abandoned channel of Bhairav River. Considered to be contemporary to the mosque city of Bagerhat (15^th-16^th century CE), some scholars, like Satish Chandra Mitra, think that there were pre-medieval settlements in the place of which this medieval settlement was built. This settlement and its location are intimately related to the palaeo-channels of the Bhairav River system and the natural processes such as the change of river flow and lateral shifting of channels had a considerable effect upon the change and abandonment of the settlements and decay-collapse of the superstructures of several mosques.

Borobari Cluster (Popularly known as Pratapaditya’s Garh), Koyra, Khulna: The core of this cluster is a walled settlement which is popularly known as Barobari. Like many remains in this active deltaic part of Bangladesh, this walled settlement is associated with Pratapaditya, one of the famous landlords of baro-bhuiyan who resisted the Mughal subjugation of Bengal in the 17^th century CE. It is rectangular in plan and measured 335m × 275m. The walls were constructed with bricks and overlain by mud. The walls are still preserved at different locations. Many stone objects, primarily used as components of construction with bricks (e.g., pillar bases, door jambs, pedestals with ratha-projections, square gauripattas, etc.) and sculptural fragments are seen on the surface of different parts of the settlement to the north. There are buried and surficial evidence of brick structures, stone blocks and sculpted stones within and outside the walled space and they can be dated to the pre-medieval period. Contrary to the popular oral history of dating this cluster to the medieval period, there is ample archaeological evidence to prove that there were settlements in the early medieval period (pre-13^th century CE). This settlement is now adjacent to the Sundarbans and the river of Shakbaria separates this settlement from the present protected forest of the Sundarbans. There are several low wetlands around the walled space and signatures of abandoned channels attest to the dynamic and unstable fluvial environment in the zone. Buried and semi-carbonised floral remains of the chunks of mangrove roots are found from the zone, 2-3 metres below the present surface. It is evident that the mangrove forest of the Sundarbans extended up to this area and the archaeological sites throughout their formation and occupation for over a millennium transformed with the changing ecological contexts. The partially brick-built walls were constructed later, probably during the first part of the medieval period over the abandoned settlement of early medieval time.

Bonghipur-Ishwaripur-Dhumghat, Satkhira: The Bonghipur-Iswaripur-Dhumghat cluster is especially important evidence of medieval settlements in the Jashore-Khulna region. Bongshipur Garh, Jishur Girza, Ishwaripur Hammamkahana, Tenga Shahi Mosque, Burujpota archaeological sites within a zone visibly illustrate settlements dating from the 15^th-18^th century CE. Like many other archaeological sites of this region, legends and oral history associate several sites with Raja Pratapaditya, though there is no empirical evidence. At several locations, medieval structural remains were built upon the ruins of earlier (possibly, early medieval) structural and non-structural remains. The remains are exposed in the accidental sections of the pits and ditches dug by the locals for various purposes, and by riverbank erosion. These sites are located in the littoral zone in association with the Ichhamoti-Kalindi-Kholpetua-Araibanki River System and many other channels crisscrossing the active deltaic landforms. Continuity and episodic abandonment of locations of human activities could well be related to the changes in the fluvial environment of this littoral active deltaic zone (see, Sen 2018).

Shekhertek cluster: Although a standing late medieval temple of the 18^th century within the dense, tidal mangrove forest of the Sundarbans is the visible evidence of settlement in this area, there are descriptions of mud walls and buried sites in the different reports of the colonial period and the history written by Satish Chandra Mitra. The initial survey in this area, which is inundated daily by tidal water, has detected buried structural remains within a large area measuring approximately 2 square kilometres. These buried remains, exposed sometimes by riverbank erosion and during the ebb of winter, are extraordinary evidence of human adjustment and adaptation in an ecology that is marked by regular changes in water regimes.

Arpangasia cluster: Though seven buried and structural mounds in the Arpangasia River valley within the reserve mangrove forest area of the Sundarban have been included at the components of this property, there are several other exposed and partially preserved archaeological sites in the zone marked by the mangrove ecosystem. These sites can be dated back to c. 8^th-9^th century CE. Recent surveying (by the Government Department of Archaeology, and several other local archaeologists) has provided archaeological evidence in a dynamic and partially inundated landscape within the mangrove forest of the Sundarbans.    

There are numerous pieces of archaeological evidence of cultural activities from different temporal scales from many other places. They are not included in this proposal either because of the absence of reliable and systematically collected data or because of the lack of integrity because of the partial destruction by the erosion, subsidence and transformation of the rivers, coastal zone and alluvial terrains. They can be included as a serial nomination in future.

Justification de la Valeur Universelle Exceptionnelle

Criterion (iv): Archaeological sites in the dynamically transforming deltaic landscape of the southwestern part of Bangladesh comprise various types: buried archaeological remains of human activities (which are invisible on the surface, and exposed through archaeological excavation or detected by fluvial erosion) (e.g. AGD.1, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10-16, 17, 18, 19, 20), structural mounds (which are visible and detectable on the surface because of their higher altitude in comparison to the surrounding plains) (e.g. AGD. 1, 5, 18, 19), monuments (AGD. 22, 24, 26, 29, 30, 31a-31e), monumental remains (e.g., AGD. 2, 3, 4, 7, 23, 27, 28, 31f, 31g, 31h, 31k), walled settlements/spaces (AGD. 21), structural mounds within the dense and regularly inundated tidal zones of a mangrove ecosystem (AGD. 9-16, 32), embankments or monumental remains enclosed by embankments (AGD. 32), etc.  They represent an outstanding example of an architectural and technological ensemble, the primary aim of which was to adapt to the riverine and water-centric ecology of the active deltaic region. Brick and earth were the primary construction materials. The monuments were constructed with mortars and plasters bearing lime, clay and powdered bricks. Most interestingly, the lime was often used in an impure form with the fragments of faunal remains of snail and oyster shells. There is a long tradition of producing lime from various species of sweet and saltwater snails and oysters in this region of the littoral zone. The cellular technique of construction of the base of the religious edifices surmounted by thatched cover is another unique and adaptive architectural as well as technological style. The use of snail-shell-produced lime continued in the medieval period in the construction of mosques and temples. The use of salt-containing mud to produce bricks for building the mosques and other structural remains are one of the reasons for extensive weathering effects on brick-built monuments and monumental remains. Mosques, moreover, represent the style named after the Sufi saint Khan Jahan Ali – Khan Jahan style of mosque – especially during the pre-Mughal period in this region. The human activity on this landscape reflects the dominance of ecologically adaptive architectural style and technology of construction which is rare in the world. Many of the archaeological sites and monuments are still preserved because of this changing adaptive ecologically modified and adaptive technology. As the ecology of this active Ganges Delta is incomparable to any other ecosystem in the world, the technology of construction either with bricks or with mud and with a combination of mud-brick-lime sustaining for a period over a millennium with episodic changes with influence from other parts of the world are rare in the global context. The assimilation of external building techniques and forms in ecologically sensitive ways are visible most prominently in the Brahmanical and Buddhist remains from the early medieval period and in the mosques from the medieval period. For example, the cruciform temple building can be noticed in the Vikramshila Mahavihara of Bihar, India, Somapura Mahavihara (Paharpur) in the northern part of Bangladesh, in Bhabadeva Mahavihara in Lalmai-Mainamati of Cumilla in the eastern part of Bangladesh, and various Buddhist monuments of Southeast Asia. Mosques of this region have also incorporated the traditional mosque architecture with a bay-aisle with domes above. The walls are massive. Except for the Shait Gambud Mosque of the World Heritage site of the Mosque City of Bagerhat, the larger mosques with multiple domes have not survived with their superstructure as is attestable from several ruins of mosques in Barobazar. The smaller yet massively built wall dominated mosques were probably an adaptation to the soft and loose sediments of the delta as suggested by the historian Richard Eaton.

It is a wonder, however, that how such monuments were built with a very shallow foundation within the persistently changing, saltwater dominated, tidal mangrove ecosystem of the Sundarbans which was more extensive even during the 17^th century and earlier. Many of the sites included in this property as components were located in the Sundarbans of the past. Such an adaptation required in-depth knowledge of the fluvial dynamics of the region as well as a flexible construction technique to sustain the vagaries of nature. These architectural remains and archaeological sites are, most importantly, an example of exceptional human resilience, remarkable skill and experiential awareness about the ecological variable and their actions.    

Criterion (v): Several recent studies (e.g., Mukhejee 2011; Doyell and Mukherjee 2019; Hall et al. 2019) have pointed out the centrality of this region in trans-regional riverine and maritime networks for more than a millennium. The walled space of Pratapadityer Garh and adjacent area are associated with several buried structural ruins and one of them, situated just on the riverbank is known as jahajghata (anchorage?). There are also other sites (e.g., AGD. 28 and 31l) identified similarly. Their locations and many of the sites’ association with the fluvial networks of the littoral zone, signify their function as smaller ports that were connected to the maritime networks of the Bay of Bengal. The cowry shells were imported to Bengal by exporting rice grain to the Maldives and several hoards of cowry shells have been found from the sites of the Sundarbans area and the Rezakpur cluster (AGD. 17). The sites in this deltaic terrain, now within West Bengal, India, have revealed evidence of external trade like cowries, ceramics, sealing bearing horse-mounted boats, etc. One of the recently discovered structural remains on the riverbed of the Kholpetua, just on the edge of the Bay of Bengal, is another archaeological place that possibly acted as an entrepôt of maritime trade links. The site has not been included in this property as it is extremely destroyed and can be completely erased by river erosion. These sites must be viewed and understood in close relation to the archaeological sites in the littoral zone of the Active Gangetic Delta in the current political territory of West Bengal, India. Before the partition of 1947, the regions were together and, culturally and historically, they formed a landscape and ecological unit distinct from the other parts of South Asia with the large mangrove ecosystem and actively forming delta. These sites are a living testimony of the consistent trans-regional and trans-continental network of trade, migration and mobility of ideas for more than two millennia. These exchanges went through change and adaptation over time. The centrality of the Active Gangetic Delta within Bangladesh in the maritime network connecting both Southeast Asia and Eastern Indian Coastal regions to present-day Sri Lanka and the Maldives is attested by these archaeological sites and several other textual sources (See, Mukhejee 2011; Doyell and Mukherjee 2019; Hall et al. 2019; Sen 2018a; Sen 2018b; Sen 2020; Sen 2015; Chakrabarty 2001).

Undoubtedly, these sites represent a unique and unparalleled persistent human engagement with their environment and ecology for more than one thousand years. Humans had to modify their activities with the persistently changing landscape, cyclones, tidal surges, floods, riverbank erosion, sudden avulsion of rivers, gradual lateral migration and subsidence of landforms, and the expansion and contraction of the mangrove ecosystem.  The use of land and sea is still detectable in the way drinking water is preserved in the tanks or reservoirs and the way embankments are constructed to achieve protection during floods. Because of the imminent threat of climate change and sea-level rise, this entire region will be submerged in the next 40-50 years. Climate change along with the intensified human intervention into the ecology and landscape has created the processes of irreversible changes and these unique and exceptional signatures of human and environment interaction by mutual sharing and dependence will be lost forever. This property, therefore, deserves to be in the tentative World Heritage list for Bangladesh for its significance in attesting to a human-environment intimate interaction that is under the threat of extinction by the modern perceptions and practices as well as by the effects of climate change underway and still to come.

Déclarations d’authenticité et/ou d’intégrité

Authenticity

The excavated, conserved and protected as well as enlisted sites archaeological sites on the dynamically transforming Deltaic Landscape of Bangladesh undeniably represent the authentic attestation of human creative and building technologies and their unique adaptive use of the landscape and resilience to the changing ecology. Because of the imminent threat of global warming and climate change, this region is under the highest risk of hazard and inundation due to sea-level rise. These changes are causing irreversible damages to the archaeological sites. These components as a part of a serial nomination, however, represent the most authentic testimony of cultural activity in mutual relation to the natural ones. These sites and the landscape proposed for nomination as a complex or cluster of properties were constructed mainly by burnt bricks, mud, earthworks and clay, and lime-surki mortars, with occasional use and reuse of stone blocks. Evidence of plasters of lime and clay with the remains of snail shells are also recovered. The structural mounds, buried archaeological remains, monuments and monumental remains and earthworks - all represent the most authentic, changing and unique human-landscape interaction which is exceptional on a global scale. The remains have provided evidence, based upon which the original characters and layout of the buildings and associated landscape, the traditional construction materials and techniques, and the common regional use of clay for producing bricks as well as for binding the construction material can be inferred with a high degree of precision.

Integrity

Because of the recent expansion of developmental and habitational activities, and intensifying environmental change and effects of climate change, many of the sites have already been destroyed or have lost their character partially. The proposed properties represent the selected sites that are well preserved and compatible with the guidelines of the world heritage convention. The modification of the landscape is increasing because of the human activities in a densely populated country like Bangladesh. The continuous monitoring by the Department of Archaeology, Ministry of Cultural Affairs of these sites protected under the Antiquity Act, 1972 have retained the original nature and character of the sites when they were exposed by excavations. Several proposed sites are under private ownership and they can be protected and preserved without evicting the people living around them. The conservation of excavated remains has followed the international conventions and standards in protection and conservation. The sites which are under private ownership are either buried sites and well preserved or are under community protection as ritual places. The augmenting threat of climate change and anthropogenic modifications are distorting the integrity of several components. These enlisted and proposed components under this property are the best representatives of integrity in terms of the prescribed guidelines. The guideline may be ineffective considering the intense changes which are threatening the very existence of many of these sites which are a unique and exceptional testimony to the mutual and entwined interaction of human-environment intimacy in terms of adaptation and use of the natural resources.

Comparaison avec d’autres biens similaires

The property is comparable to the following properties: Konso Cultural Landscape, Ethiopia (World Heritage Site); Criteria for inscription (iii), (v), Bassari Country: Bassari, Fula and Bedik Cultural Landscapes, Senegal (World Heritage Site); Criteria for inscription (iii), (v), (vi), Aasivissuit – Nipisat. Inuit Hunting Ground between Ice and Sea (World Heritage Site), criteria for inscription (v)

Konso Cultural Landscape, Ethiopia: Konso is an arid property of walled terraces and fortified settlements occupied for more than 400 years that adapted to its dry, hostile environment. The landscape demonstrates the shared values, social cohesion and engineering knowledge of its communities. The Trans-Himalayan Cold Desert Cultural Landscape demonstrates a similar resilience to a cold desert climate. However, its scale is much larger, demonstrates the confluence of two national cultures as well as important aspects of natural heritage that are deemed to be of Outstanding Universal Value.

Bassari Country: Bassari, Fula and Bedik Cultural Landscapes, Senegal: The Bassari Country property is a well-preserved multicultural landscape housing original and still vibrant local cultures. The Bassari, Fula and Bedik peoples settled from the 11^th to the 19^th centuries and developed specific cultures and habitats symbiotic with their surrounding natural environment. The Bassari landscape is marked by terraces and rice paddies, interspersed with villages, hamlets and archaeological sites. Their inhabitants’ cultural expressions are characterized by original traits of agro-pastoral, social, ritual and spiritual practices, which represent an original response to environmental constraints and human pressures. The site is a well-preserved multicultural landscape housing original and still vibrant local cultures.

Aasivissuit – Nipisat. Inuit Hunting Ground between Ice and Sea: Located inside the Arctic Circle in the central part of West Greenland, the property contains the remains of 4,200 years of human history. It is a cultural landscape that bears witness to its creators’ hunting of land and sea animals, seasonal migrations and a rich and well-preserved tangible and intangible cultural heritage linked to climate, navigation and medicine. The features of the property include large winter houses and evidence of caribou hunting, as well as archaeological sites from Paleo-Inuit and Inuit cultures. The cultural landscape includes seven key localities, from Nipisat in the west to Aasivissuit, near the ice cap in the east. It bears testimony to the resilience of the human cultures of the region and their traditions of seasonal migration.