A total of 101 seized antiquities were handed over to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) by the customs department on Thursday. These articles included a 206-year-old tracker telescope used by the British East India Company.
Two other notable antiquities were also handed in. One is a ‘palm leaf manuscript’ comprising 155 leaves with hard wooden supporting covers - top and bottom. The contents are said to be in classical Champu (a form of poetry composition in Indian literature) with metres and rhythms in modern Odia script and language.
The second one is a manuscript of 17 leaves made of hand-made paper written in Devanagari script appearing to contain Buddhist texts. These were seized in 2019 and 2020 while an attempt was being made to export them to Spain and France respectively.
