Chandraketugarh

Chandraketugarh is a 2,500 years old archaeological site located near the Bidyadhari river, about north-east of Kolkata, India, in the district of North 24 parganas, near the township of Berachampa and the Harua Road railhead. Once it was an important hub of international maritime trade. A museum has been built near the site depicting largely collections of Dilip Kumar Maity, a retired school teacher and amateur archaeologist. Asutosh Museum of Indian Art conducted excavation between 1957–68, which revealed relics of several historical periods, although the chronological classification of the relics remains incomplete. Many of the Chandraketugarh items and terracottas are now in collections of museums in India and abroad; and many of them are a part of private collections. According to some historians, the Chandraketugarh site and surrounding area could be the place known to ancient Greek and Roman writers as having the same name as the river Ganges (Γάγγης). According to the List of Monuments of National Importance in West Bengal (serial no. N-WB-1), Chandraketu's Fort is an ASI listed monument. It is in West Bengal. The name of this site is derived from the mythical Hindu king of the medieval period, Chandraketu. A mound at the Berachampa village (Deuliya), off the Barasat-Basirhat Road, used to be called Chandraketur Garh (fort of Chandraketu), which was later compounded as Chandraketugarh. The legend of Khana (A medieval Bengali language poet and legendary astrologer between the ninth and 12th centuries AD, also named Lilavati elsewhere) centers around her association with Chandraketugarh (here, a mound has been discovered amongst ruins with the names of Khana and Mihir associated with it) and that she was the daughter-in-law of the famous astronomer and mathematician, Varāhamihira (505 – 587), also called Varaha or Mihira, a jewel among Chandragupta II Vikramaditya's famed Navaratna sabha. It is widely believed that Khana was Varahamihira's daughter-in-law, and an accomplished astrologer, becoming thereby a potential threat to Varahamihira's scientific career.