Mangalkot (ancient sculpture)

Mangalkot situated at Namuja Union in Shibganj Upazila of Bogra district. It is located 1.6 kilometres south or southwest of Mahasthangarh Museum. In fact, it is located in Palibari Mound. The mound was misplaced by a large mound called Chingaspur which was shown in the Chingaspur mouza.[2]

The Mangalkot mound was plots at 207 plots in Palibari Mausam and its length was 87.87 metres (288.3 ft), from 12.12 to 21.21 m (39.8 to 69.6 ft) in height and 2.12 m in width (7.0 ft). Due to insufficient access to landowners or owners, there is considerable damage to the mound. In the year 1974, some people of the locality invented illegal excavation in search of the treasure and discovered some of the most valuable and high-end terracotta pictograms, and with that it suffered substantial damage.[2]

The Department of Archeology at Mangalkot explored more than one thousand artefacts by excavating in 1981–1983. Antiquities are terracotta sculptures of Gupta and Gupta era. The average height of the sculptures is 0.061 m, and most of them are allopenic Manasa bust female figures.[3]

The terracotta sculptures found here brought the high-profile history of classical art practice to Pundravardhana in the Gupta era. There was no significant source of stone in the Bengali region. So the artist took the stone as a substitute for the terracotta medium, and created all the artefacts of blacksmiths with extraordinary artistic skills. In many cases it has crossed the art of stone sculpture Shushma. And the continuation of this tradition can be seen later in the period of Pala era in northern Bengal and in the terracotta plaques of the south-eastern Bengal during the period of Dev, Chandra period and in a different form in the Sultanate Bengal.[3]