[TamilNet, Thursday, 16 February 2012, 23:49 GMT] A group of Maldivians who stormed into the National Museum at Male on the day Mr. Mohamed Nasheed resigned from the office of president, destroyed artefacts of pre-Islamic heritage on display. The whole pre-Islamic history is gone and the loss to the nation’s archaeological legacy can never be recouped, The Economic Times said Tuesday, citing Maldivian officials. Most of the artefacts, including statues smashed, belong to Maldivian Buddhism dating between c. 6 – 12 century CE. The vandals destroyed not only the religious heritage but also the literacy heritage as well, because many of the 30 odd coral-stone artefacts destroyed were inscribed with the earliest written records of the country. While media is busy on comparison with Afghanistan, the question arises why the situation deteriorated in Nasheed’s time, when the heritage had found no qualms during Gayoom’s long rule.
Pre-Islamic heritage on display before the destruction [Courtesy: National Museum, Maldives]
One of the artefacts had the earliest written record of Maldives in Pallava-Grantha script of c. 6th Century CE [Image Courtesy - National Museum, Maldives]
The destroyed images had inscriptions in the old Maldivian script called Eveylaa Akuru. Most of these inscriptions were neither deciphered nor published. [Courtesy: National Museum, Maldives]
The head of Buddha that was on the display. The sculpture which was originally found with its torso in the excavations of Thoddoo in the 1960s was already destroyed and only the salvaged head was brought to the National Museum for display. [Courtesy: National Museum, Maldives]A relic-casket of Vajrayana Buddhism that was in the display of the National Musem bearing an inscription in Nagari script of c. 10th Century CE [Courtesy: National Museum, Maldives]
The Rajapaksa-installed lion statue (Sri Lanka's emblem) was partly destroyed at Addu atoll in southern Maldives, within a week of its installation in November 2011 [Photo courtesy - haveeru.com]
