The discovery of an ancient ringwell and some decorated broken earthen pots while digging at a villager’s house at Mahishi last week has opened up the possibility of the existence of a 2000- year- old ancient civilization.

The incident came to light when Manoj Choudhury, a former panchayat pradhan, ordered digging up his residence’s backyard for building a cellphone tower.

After digging for nearly ten feet, the labourers hit something hard.

Everyone thought they had found buried treasure but after specialised digging, remains of a five-foot long and three-foot wide earthen ringwell was unearthed. Further digging in and around the area led to the discovery of several other pieces of decorated earthen pots.

Local officials were informed, who in turn contacted the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) in Patna to access the historial value of the findings. Though no proper step to preserve the discovered items had yet been taken by the ASI or government, the preliminary observations have revealed that the artefacts were nearly 2000 years old, and might indicate that a thriving civilisation existed in the area.