A maidam in Charaideo. Picture by UB Photos

Jorhat, Sept. 9: Scores of earthen mounds that preserve the remains of the Ahom era in Charaideo will be spruced up by the Archaeological Survey of India and promoted as a must-visit tourist destination in Jorhat.

An official said the horticultural wing of the Archaeological Survey of India, Agra, has surveyed a portion of the 2,000-bigha area in Charaideo which has more than 150 burial mounds of Ahom kings.

Charaideo, the once flourishing capital of the Ahoms, who ruled Assam over 600 years, is now best known for the ancient burial vaults covered by earthen domed mounds — the maidams.

“Recently, officials from the horticultural branch of ASI in Agra came here and measured out an area which would be landscaped. Work is most likely to begin from the next financial year. Other plans include encasing the door of an excavated maidam with fibreglass. Reconstruction of a burial site with a bed and other paraphernalia which can be viewed from outside has been kept on hold at present,” the official said.

A DNA test of the skeletal remains found inside a maidam which had been excavated in 2003, has been shelved keeping in mind public sentiment against meddling with the remains of the ancestors.

“We would have liked to have tested the DNA to ascertain whether the tomb belonged to a man or woman,” he said.

When the tomb was excavated, it was found that the roof had a hole and ASI officials suspected that the vault had been looted during the British era. Only a few skeletal remains and broken pieces of pottery were found.

Regarding the ongoing construction of a retaining wall to the excavated maidam which had begun in 2009, the official said it had been difficult to procure bricks of the same size and shape as those used to build the tomb.

“We had to persuade brick-kiln owners to make these bricks and they do it only during the off season,” he said. “We now have sufficient bricks brought from kilns in Nagaon and Demow but work has now been stalled because of rains.”

Of the 42 maidams, 30 are under the central and state archaeological survey of India. The rest lie neglected, many of them encroached upon.