Patna: Over a 100 prehistoric stone tools from England have been "discovered" in Patna, and are now among the prized display items at the newly constructed Bihar Museum.

These stone implements were gathering dust in the storeroom of Patna Museum, which is completing 101 years of its existence, when specialists from Bihar Museum stumbled on them while hunting for artefacts that could be put on display.

"The significance of these artefacts is huge. They were not being displayed at Patna Museum for want of space and we found them lying in its storeroom," Bihar Museum director J.P.N. Singh told The Telegraph. "These tools will use public awareness by providing comparative dimensions to implements used by prehistoric man in our country and abroad."

At present, 14 of the ancient implements have been displayed at Bihar Museum, while preparations are being made to make space for others from the treasure trove.

Made from chert (a kind of multi-hued sedimentary rock), the collection includes hand axes, cleavers, borers, scrapers and beautifully crafted arrowheads.

They are sharp and polished, and were excavated at archaeological sites Mildenhall and Tuddenham in Suffolk county of England. Some of the tools have names of the place written on them in ink by the people who dug them out. "These stone tools belong to the middle and upper Palaeolithic period (which broadly correspond to a period between 3 lakh to 10,000 years ago)," Bihar Museum curator Ranbeer Singh Rajput said. "Having them here is an achievement for us as they are very important for pre-historic comparison."

However, the experts and historians are still poring over the decades-old documents and records to trace out how these beautifully crafted ancient tools landed in Patna Museum.

Patna Museum curator Shankar Suman pointed out that it was among the seven oldest museums in the country and at one time had the richest collection of artefacts after Indian Museum in Calcutta.

"Previously, Patna Museum, had a pre-and-proto history gallery, which was shut down. As far as the tools from England's archaeological sites are concerned, they could have come either through an exchange of artefacts between Patna Museum and any British institution, or some scholar who had come from there could have donated them," Shankar said.

The Patna Museum curator also added that anything about the arrival of these stone tools could be said only after the documents concerned are accessed.