KARACHI, Dec 26: The federal archeology department has confirmed that the two statues seized by customs officials a few days back were “Gandhara objects” and protected under the Antiquities Act, 1975.

Sources told Dawn that the statues were caught by the customs at the Jinnah terminal of the Quaid-i-Azam International Airport just before their departure to China.

After the seizure, the customs sent a letter on the subject “examination/confirmation of goods as antiques” to the federal archeology department, asking it to get the statues examined by experts to ascertain if the pieces were really antique.

The sources said that the archeology department sent its two-member team comprising the national museum’s curator, Mohammad Shah Bokhari, who has expertise in manuscripts and is a leading scholar of the Arabic language, and Mr Waseem, a photo printer of the department of archeology and museums, to examine the statues.

They said the archeology department had at least two Gandhara experts in the city – Dr Ashraf who is director of the excavation branch and Ejaz Illahi who is posted in the national museum – but they were not tasked with the examination of the contraband consignment.

In his examination report on the subject, Curator Bokhari referred to a letter No DC/92/2008/JIAP, dated Dec 19, 2008, and said “the undersigned along with Mr Waseem, the photo printer of archeology and museum department, visited the office of additional collector of customs, Air Freight Unit, JIAP, MCC (preventive), Karachi on December 20.”

He said they checked the detained statues in parcel (bearing EMS No EE001501272 PK) booked for China.

“The said consignment was opened in the presence of Ali Zeb Khan, Assistant Collector, Model Custom Collector (Preventive). After careful and thorough checking and examination of the said confiscated material it was found that the objects in question are considered to be Gandhara objects dating from 2nd to 5th century and come under the purview of Antiquities Act, 1975,” he added.

Responding to Dawn queries, Mr Bokhari said that roughly 20-inch-high statues had been carved in the grey schist stone that was found mostly in the NWFP – in the vicinity of Mardan, Swat, Hazara and Taxila.

One of the two statues was Meditating Buddha and the other was Buddhisatwa, he said, adding that the former looked brown as its colour had changed “maybe because it remained buried for a long time”.

“But when I scratched it, the grey schist stone came out,” he said.

About the age of the two statues, he said the way these were carved and their designs suggested that both belonged to the era between the 2nd and 5th century when Gandhara civilisation was at its peak and such carvings were prepared.

Mr Bokhari said that he had sent the report regarding the statues to his head office and further action would be taken after getting directives from the authorities in Islamabad. He expressed the hope that the Gandhara statues would be put on display at the National Museum so that people could see the artefacts that unscrupulous smugglers tried to smuggle out of the country.

Referring to a few previous seizures, he said that some artifacts had been seized earlier also but unfortunately the addresses of senders were found fake. Only the artefacts were confiscated while the smugglers could not be nabbed, he added.