An ancient basalt stone statue of Surya Dev was recovered from the Damodar riverbed in Raina in East Burdwan and the ‘priceless’ statue was preserved at the Museum & Art Gallery of the Burdwan University, yesterday.

A picnic party from Burdwan town detected the statue left covered under sand in the riverbed at Haripur village within Natu panchayat in Raina on 3 January and they brought the matter to the notice of Shyamsundar Bera, the in-charge of the BU museum.

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Rajkumar Kundu, a history researcher, was in the team of picnic revellers and he could estimate that the statue was having immense historical value. Kundu said: “I was quite excited about its immediate preservation and suspect it was being trafficking.”

The BU authorities then sought assistance from the district police to help its recovery. Bera said, “It’s assumed that the statue was created by the sculptors during the reign of Ballal Sen in the 12th century.” Ballal Sen ruled Sena dynasty of Bengal during 1160 and 1179 AD.

The 3 ft by 1.5 ft black statue, weighing about 100 kg is set on a single-wheeled chariot. Bera said, “It’s the fourth Surya Dev statue preserved in our museum. This will lead to further studies and research work on the ancient sculptors.”