Uncovered: Malla-era treasure trove at Hanumandhoka palace

AUTHORITIES unlocking parts of a sealed treasury at the Hanumandhoka palace on Thursday came upon dozens of invaluable silver bricks dating back to the Malla period (12th-18th century), formally establishing claims that the palace was once the country’s national treasury. The treasure houses in Bhandarkhal, towards the left end of the famous nine-storey temple on the palace premises, had never been unlocked after the then Rana prime minister Chandra Shumsher renovated it in 1913. Although the palace was popularly held to be the storehouse of national wealth at a time when banks did not exist, there was no solid evidence to prove this fact, as the treasuries remained locked away. “The last Malla king of Kathmandu, Jaya Prakash Malla, is said to have used the treasury’s wealth to feed his soldiers and their families during wars,” said Ves Narayan Dahal, director general of the Department of Archaeology. “However, this was only a myth, as we were never certain if these houses called treasuries really contained national wealth. There were chances that the treasuries would turn up empty. Fortunately, the centuries-old understanding that they were treasuries has now come true.” Both treasure houses at Bhandarkhal were unlocked on Thursday in the presence of a 23- member sub-committee comprising representatives from all stakeholders concerned. Executing a year-long DoA plan to unlock the treasure trove, a Cabinet meeting in February had taken a decision to go ahead with it. The unlocking and exploration took over eight hours and a lot of physical effort from Army personnel of the Shardul Jung Battalion, which guards the palace premises, including the treasure houses. The area around the entrance to the main gate of the treasury was overgrown with nettles, which the Army cleared in the morning before officials reached the site at around 10 am. The officials then tried to break the locks, which took them nearly two-and-a-half hours, as the locks were held together with several iron rods penetrating the roof and rooted underground. “It was puzzling,” said Dahal. The Army had to climb up on the roof and pull out the rods one by one, he said. “Similar networks of mortise locks were present throughout the treasury,” he said. “We unchained over 15 such locks to open up just the two treasure houses.” Of the two treasuries unlocked on Thursday, the first one turned up empty. However, the second one turned out to be a treasure trove, the likes of which officials had hardly imagined. “There were dusty bricks and other utensils scattered all over,” said Dahal. “It was hard for us to identify it all at first. Later, we identified the bricks as silver and other unidentified metals

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