KARACHI: Archaeological work must be interdisciplinary because each discipline has its own methodology. New sciences are giving us quick answers to (archaeological) questions.

This was said by Prof Valeria Florani Piacentini in her keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the three-day workshop titled `When history, archeology and science meet to give life and voice to monuments and archaeological evidence`in the Mumtaz Mirza auditorium on Wednesday evening.

Prof Piacentini dedicated her talk to Sindh where she said she`d been working for eight years. She said Pakistan is a beautiful country which has sites that needed strong attention, restoration and preservation. She said in a way Sindh was the heart of Asia, of the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. She also dedicated her presentation to students. She said she`d been teaching since the 1970s. She said many of her students were her best friends. She said if there wasa special relationship between students and their teachers, only then they could learn.

Prof Piacentini said the joy of discovery was a great joy. She said she felt that joy in Sindh and Balochistan in the latter she spent 20 years carrying out field work. She talked for a brief period about the different people, local and Italian, whom she worked with in Balochistan and who lent her a helping hand in her work.

Prof Piacentini said Makran was the cradle of a very ancient civilisation that went back to the 5th millennium BC, which meant it was older than Moenjodaro and Harappa. She said how did you know about that and answered that when her team started excavation, they had all dates in a sequence. She said they found very beautiful pottery and the shops in the Dasht area where they were crafted. She highlighted the importance of geomorphological environment in areas whether there was dust, old stones and moonlike landscape.

She said that to settle and build towns, human beings neededwater. She said so they began to study the environment and that`s where science came in. She said archaeology did not only mean to dig trenches and look for virgin soil. She said science suggested that desertification of a certain area could be the result of overexploitation of resources such as water. She said Makran had fertile and soft soil.

Prof Piacentini said from the past you could get precious information that could provide the present with the input to plan the future. She said the young generation should study the past. She said you must give voice to monuments because in each ruin we found a little bit of our traditions (religious, historic, oral etc). She said in Sindh we had a beautiful oral tradition with songs, epics and ballads. She said science supported both history and archaeology. She said archaeology without history was only a technical word.

She said archaeological work must be interdisciplinary as each discipline used its own methodology.

She said new sciences were coming in to provide quick answers to archeologists. After that ProfPiacentini gave a historical background of the region referring to such individuals as Marco Polo and Alexander the Great.

Earlier Italian consul general Gianluca Rubagot ti talking about the title of the workshop said today archeology had evolved and was not a science that could work in clinical isolation. He said there was a need for reciprocal support from other branches of science and human knowledge.

He also briefly introduced the different sessions that were going to take place in the workshop.

In his presidential address Sindh Minister for Culture, Tourism and Antiquities Syed Sardar Ali Shah said he met Prof Piacentini on Sept 23 and requested her to conduct a workshop on archaeology in Karachi.

He said she`d been coming to Banbhore for the last six years and every time she came from Italy, she reached the site directly from the airport. He said she told him that she`d written more than 700 papers on Banbhore. He said his department was willing to publish them. He said he wanted to establish a carbon datinglibrary with the help of Italy.

Secretary for Culture Ghulam Akbar Laghari welcomed the guests.The worl(shop was organised by the Italian consulate general and the Sindh Ministry of Culture and Tourism.