The Wari-Bateshwar (, ) ruins in Narsingdi, Dhaka Division, Bangladesh is one of the oldest urban archaeological sites in Bangladesh. Excavation in the site unearthed a fortified urban center, paved roads and suburban dwelling. The site was primarily occupied during the Iron Age, from 400 to 100 BCE, as evidenced by the abundance of punch-marked coins and Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW) artifacts.
The site also reveals signs of pit dwelling, a feature typically found in Chalcolithic archaeological sites in the Indian sub-continent.
Geography The site sprawls across Wari and Bateshwar, two adjacent villages in the Belabo Upazila of Narsingdi district, about 17 km north-west of the confluence of the rivers Old Brahmaputra and Meghna at the lower end of Sylhet basin. Borehole records show that the site lies on the remnants of a Pleistocene fluvial terrace about 15 metre above sea level and 6-8 metre above the current river level. The sediment consists of brownish red clay with interbedded sand layers, locally knows as Madhupur clay.
The main stem of the Brahmaputra River shifted back and forth between the Brahmaputra-Jamuna and the Old Brahmaputra branches through history. Around 2500 BCE, avulsion of the main channel to the Brahmaputra-Jamuna branch gave rise to discontinuous peatlands throughout Sylhet basin. The evidence of early urban settlement on the peatlands at Wari-Bateshwar was found in stratigraphic layers dated ~1100 BCE. Human occupation continued for nearly a millennium until ~200 BCE, when the channel shifted back to the Old Brahmaputra branch. The resultant flooding possibly led to the abandonment of the Wari-Bateshwar urban center around 100 BCE. Eventually the 1762 Arakan earthquake again caused the main channel to shift to the Brahmaputra-Jamuna branch.
Discovery Locals from Wari-Bateshwar have long been aware of the availability of archeological artifacts, especially silver punch-marked coins and semi-precious gemstone beads in the area. In the 1930s, Hanif Pathan, a local school teacher, started collecting these artifacts, and later inspired his son Habibullah Pathan (1939-2026) to continue the exploration. The father-son duo created a local museum called Bateshwar Sangrahashala to store and exhibit their collection. Habibullah Pathan published a number of newspaper articles and books describing the artifacts. Nevertheless, the site took a while to attract the attention of academics and archaeologists in Bangladesh.
Excavation In December of 1933, while laborers were digging the soil in the village of Wari, they discovered a hoard of coins stored in a pot. Local schoolteacher Hanif Pathan collected 20–30 of those coins. These were the oldest silver coins of Bengal-India. Thus began the collection of archaeological artifacts from Wari-Bateshwar.
In 1955, local laborers left behind two pieces of iron in the village of Bateshwar. These triangular and one-pointed, heavy iron objects were shown by Habibullah Pathan to his father, who was amazed. On January 30 of that year, Hanif Pathan published an article titled "Prehistoric Civilization in East Pakistan" in the Sunday edition of the daily Azad newspaper. After that, various archaeological artifacts continued to be discovered in that area from time to time.
In March of 1956, a farmer from Wari village named Jaru Mia discovered a hoard of stamped silver coins while digging soil. That hoard contained at least about four thousand coins and weighed nine ser. Failing to understand the historical value of the coins, Jaru Mia sold them to a silversmith at the rate of eighty taka per ser. For just 720 taka, these invaluable historical items were melted down in the silversmith’s furnace and lost forever.
During 1974–1975, Habibullah Pathan was an honorary collector for the Dhaka Museum. At that time, he donated a significant number of stamped coins, stone beads, iron axes, and spears to the museum for research purposes. He also donated 30 iron axes obtained from the village of Raingartek. Around 1988, Shahabuddin from the village of Wari unearthed a collection of 33 bronze vessels from underground. Later, he sold them to a scrap dealer for only 200 taka.
At one point, Habibullah Pathan began offering small amounts of money to local children and teenagers in exchange for gathering ancient artifacts. Through this effort, he began collecting various previously undiscovered archaeological items from the Wari-Bateshwar area. Due to his dedicated efforts, it became possible to recover rare individual artifacts of Bengal-India even before formal excavation began. These included: Vishnupatta, a bronze galloping horse, tin-rich handled vessels, a Shiva naivedya (offering) bowl, fragments of a relic casket, stone weights, a Neolithic stone chisel, iron axes and spears, stone seals, figures of Triratna, turtles, elephants, lions, ducks, insects, flowers, crescent moons, stars, amulets, terracotta kinnaras, images of the sun and various animals, ring stones, bronze Garuda figures, and several thousand beads made of semi-precious stones and glass.
According to Dr. Sufi Mostafizur Rahman, a faculty member of the Department of Archaeology at Jahangirnagar University, Wari-Bateshwar was a prosperous, well-planned, ancient market or trade center. "Sounagora" is what the Greek geographer Ptolemy mentioned in his book Geographia. In the year 2000, under the leadership of archaeologist Sufi Mostafizur Rahman, a team began excavation activities at Wari-Bateshwar. The excavation revealed a fortified citadel or royal fort with a dimension of 600 meters × 600 meters, surrounded by a 30-meter-wide moat. On the west and southwest sides of the fort, an additional 5.8-kilometer-long, 5-meter-wide, and 2–5-meter-high earthen wall was found, which is locally known as "Asam Raja’s Fort." In the following two decades, excavations were carried out at various times, through which 48 archaeological sites were identified around the fort. Among the structures of these satellite settlements are brick-built residences and a 160-meter-long road paved with lime-surki and pottery shards.
In 2004, on the eastern side of the urban center, a pit-dwelling with dimensions of 2.60 meters × 2.20 meters × 0.52 meters was discovered. This structure includes a pit, a stove, a granary with a circumference of 272 centimeters and a depth of 74 centimeters, and a stepped reservoir. The floor of this structure is made of red earth and coated with grey clay, although the floor of the granary is constructed of lime-surki. It resembles the Chalcolithic pit-dwellings (1500–1000 BCE) with lime-surki floors excavated in Inamgaon, South India.
Artifacts discovered from Wari-Bateshwar include semi-precious stone beads, glass beads, a vast number of stamped coins, iron axes and knives, copper bangles, copper daggers, dome-shaped vessels made of high-tin bronze and pottery, black and red ware pottery, Northern Indian black slipped ware, and black polished ware. On January 9, 2010, when the ninth phase of excavation began, for the first time, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs of the Government of Bangladesh stepped forward to provide financial sponsorship.
Discovered antiquities Excavations at Wari-Bateshwar have uncovered a fortified city, port, roads, side roads, terracotta plaques, semi-precious stone and glass beads, coin hoards, and the oldest stamped silver coins of the subcontinent, dating back approximately two and a half thousand years. Experts in architecture have already begun research on a structure shaped like an inverted pyramid. Some believe that four stone artifacts found here belong to the prehistoric Stone Age. Based on the discovery of Neolithic tools, it is assumed that these may have been in use around the middle of the second millennium BCE. The dating of a large number of iron axes and spearheads has yet to be determined. However, based on chemical analysis by Dr. Jahan, these are believed to date from 700–400 BCE. The stamped silver coins are thought to have been in circulation during the Mauryan period (320 BCE–187 BCE). The glass beads were likely in use from the fourth century BCE to the first century CE.
In the year 2000, two Carbon-14 tests were conducted on Northern Black Polished Ware, Rouletted Ware, and NBP (Northern Black Polished) pottery unearthed during archaeological excavations at Wari, organized by the International Centre for Study of Bengal Art. The tests confirmed that the settlement at Wari dates back to 450 BCE.
In Wari village, there exists a square fortification and moat stretching 633 meters. Apart from the eastern moat, traces of the fort and moat are nearly extinct. Another outer fortification and moat, about six kilometers long, starts from Sonarutala village and extends across Bateshwar, Haniabaid, Razarbagh, and Amlab villages, reaching the edge of the Arial Khan River. Locals refer to it as the "Fort of the Uneven King." Such double-layered defensive walls indicate an important commercial or administrative center, which is also a key indicator of urbanization.
In March–April of 2004, excavations by Jahangirnagar University unearthed an ancient paved road in Wari village, 18 meters long, 6 meters wide, and 30 centimeters thick. The road was built using brick fragments, lime, shards of Northern Black Polished Ware, along with tiny, iron-rich pieces of laterite soil. Dr. Sufi Mostafizur Rahman, head of the Archaeology Department at Jahangirnagar University, claimed it to be 2,500 years old. According to Professor Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti of the Archaeology Department at the University of Cambridge, no road of such length and width has ever been discovered in the entire Gangetic valley from the period of the second urbanization. The term "second urbanization" in the Gangetic valley refers to the urbanization phase following the Indus Valley Civilization. Therefore, it is claimed that the road discovered here is not only the oldest in Bangladesh, but also the oldest in the Indian subcontinent after the Indus Valley Civilization.
Wari-Bateshwar is located on a highland of flood-prone reddish soil on the southern bank of a dry riverbed named Koyra, not far from the confluence of the Old Brahmaputra and Arial Khan rivers. Considering its geographical position, this archaeological site is more clearly identified as a center of external trade during the Early Historic period. Based on Ptolemy's accounts, Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti assumes that in the Early Historic era, Wari-Bateshwar functioned as a trading warehouse (entry port) for the collection and distribution of goods from Southeast Asia and the Roman Empire. Sufi Mostafizur Rahman has strongly sought to establish this assumption.
Buddhist Lotus Temple In March 2010, during the ninth phase of excavation, a nearly 1,400-year-old brick-built Buddhist Lotus Temple was uncovered. The square-shaped Buddhist temple, measuring 10.6 meters by 10.6 meters, has walls 80 centimeters thick and a foundation base of one meter. The foundation of the clay masonry walls is laid in three tiers. On the north, south, and west sides of the main wall, at a distance of 70 centimeters, there are parallel walls, each 70 centimeters thick. Surrounding the main wall is a 70-centimeter-wide circumambulatory path paved with bricks. On the outer side of the circumambulatory path, parallel to the main wall, there is another wall 60 centimeters thick. However, on the eastern side, the distance between the main wall and the outer wall is 3.5 meters. On the eastern side, there is a circumambulatory path and a veranda.