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Banaras Hindu University has opened and documented 22 boxes of Rajghat excavation material stored untouched for nearly 70 years, recording over 10,000 artefacts.
The material was dug up between 1957 and 1969 by Prof. A K Narain's team from BHU's Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology.
Rajghat, near the Ganga-Varana confluence on Varanasi's north-eastern edge, is identified as the capital of the Kashi Janapada, one of the 16 mahajanapadas.
The site's oldest layer carries pre-Northern Black Polished Ware pottery, placing the settlement's origin around 800 BCE in the early Iron Age.
A box holding a human skeleton from the site was opened in August 2026 for the first genetic and bio-archaeological study of Rajghat remains.
A railway contractor extending Kashi Railway Station strikes archaeological remains; the ASI runs a trial excavation the same year.
Full-scale excavation in four phases by BHU under A K Narain reaches the site's oldest, pre-NBPW layer.
The site is re-excavated from Kushana-period layers downward to test the dating; scientific analysis confirms c. 800 BCE.
BHU begins documenting the stored excavation boxes for its department's centenary.
A box containing a human skeleton is opened; a genetic and bio-archaeological study of the remains is launched.
Over 10,000 artefacts from 22 boxes reported documented, including 3,000-year-old painted black pottery.
The statute under which the ASI declares and protects monuments and sites of national importance. The 2010 amendment fixed a 100-metre prohibited area around every protected monument, in which construction is barred, and a further 200 metres of regulated area, and created the National Monuments Authority to clear works in them.
Regulates the registration, sale and export of antiquities — objects over 100 years old — the class into which excavated material such as the Rajghat seals, coins and figurines falls.
Central university founded in 1916 by Madan Mohan Malaviya; its Department of Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology excavated Rajghat from 1957 and is documenting the finds in its centenary year
Attached office of the Ministry of Culture; conducts exploration and excavation and protects 3,698 monuments and sites of national importance. Founded in 1861 with Alexander Cunningham as its first Director-General
Rajghat lies on the north-eastern outskirts of Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh, at the point where the Varana joins the Ganga — the river that, with the Assi, gives Varanasi its name. Sarnath, where the Buddha delivered his first sermon, lies a few kilometres to the north-east; Aktha and Ramnagar are the other excavated settlements of the Kashi cluster.
GS Paper 1 > Indian Culture: art forms, literature and architecture from ancient to modern times; Ancient Indian History
General Awareness > Ancient Indian History and Archaeology
A fine, lustrous black pottery of the middle Ganga plain associated with the second urbanisation, roughly 700-200 BCE. The layer below it at Rajghat, 'pre-NBPW', belongs to the early Iron Age and dates the site to about 800 BCE.
Janapadas were territorial units that emerged in the later Vedic period; by the 6th century BCE sixteen of them had grown into mahajanapadas, the list of which in Buddhist and Jain texts includes Kashi.
The clay impression left by a seal on a package or document. Sealings recovered at Rajghat carry Greek inscriptions and the names of administrative units, making them evidence of trade and administration rather than of art.