Museum yet to learn lesson

VADODARA, May 5: Finally, even the team of experts threw up their hands in despair. The 1300 BC mummy at the Vadodara Museum was too badl...

VADODARA, May 5: Finally, even the team of experts threw up their hands in despair. The 1300 BC mummy at the Vadodara Museum was too badly damaged to be returned to its pristine state, they said.

Warning bells should have started pealing right then, but no one is apparently listening at the city8217;s 105-year-old repository of rare artefacts. According to highly placed sources in the Department of Museums and the Sports, Youth Services and Cultural Activities Secretariat, Gandhinagar, more than 35,000 artefacts have been gathering dust in the museum8217;s store-rooms for at least four decades now.

Says a senior museum official on condition of anonymity, 8220;The museum is hardly a museum; it8217;s rather a store-house, where one-third of its possessions are displayed for public view, and the rest are unscientifically stashed away in store-rooms.8221;

This reporter saw a large number of miniature paintings, textiles and sculptures in wood, stone and metal stacked in rooms that no one seemed to have ventured into in years. Instead of the beauty of the artefacts, the senses were overwhelmed by cobwebs, bird and insect excreta and the odour of rooms long closed.

Among the hidden treasures are heaps of coin jewellery which, sources say, have never been displayed.

The artefacts here are more vulnerable to damage than the 30,000 exhibits, which have been continuously exposed to damage caused by radiation, dust, seasonal temperature and humidity changes, they add.

Though museum curator Satish Sadasivan insists 8220;all the stored artefacts are safe, clean and given all possible curatorial and conservational care8221;, director of the State department of museums V C Verma admits that 8220;staff and space crunch8221; could be responsible for the state of the stored items.

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Talking to Express Newsline from Jamnagar, where he holds additional charge as district development officer, Sadasivan says the inadequate storage facilities had triggered the decision to shift the stored artefacts to the proposed extension of the Vadodara museum and the new ones planned at Chhotaudepur and Saputara.

8220;We8217;re also trying to increase the staff strength8221;, he adds.