Uncovering the Past

Delhi does not erase its pasts it buries them. Beneath the 16th-century walls of Purana Qila lies a stratigraphic record that archaeologists have spent seventy years trying to read. Iron Age pottery. Mauryan ring wells. Mughal gateways. And one question that remains unanswered: was this ground once Indraprastha, the legendary capital of the Pandavas? Here is everything the excavations have found and everything they still haven't.

Unakoti, located near the Tripura hills, is a unique landscape filled with gigantic stone sculptures. Its history sends shivers down the spine even today. Unakoti , meaning “one less than a crore” , is believed to contain countless figures of gods, carved as reliefs, standing silently against the passage of time and nature. These are not small idols meant for enclosed temples. They are massive, open-air carvings spread across forested slopes, as if the land itself was chosen

We’ve all heard the same story in school. The Harappan Civilization (Indus Valley) was India’s first great urban culture. Then, when Harappa declined, the Indo-Aryans supposedly migrated into the subcontinent around 1500 BCE, bringing with them Sanskrit, the Vedas, and the beginnings of “civilization” in India. Everything else—the Gangetic kingdoms, the Mauryas, the Sangam Age—was painted as something that came much later. But wait! In 2013-14, archaeologists uncovered a si