New Discovery: Copper Vessel Found Dates to 16th Century
Archaeologists working with Panchapuri Museum have authenticated a remarkable copper vessel donated by a local family, dating it to the reign of the Khas-Malla kingdom.
A Family Heirloom Reveals Its Secrets
For generations, the Shahi family of Surkhet kept a large copper vessel — a gagri — on a high shelf in their ancestral home. They knew it was old. They suspected it was important. They did not know it was over four hundred years old.
The vessel arrived at Panchapuri Museum in February, brought in by Devraj Shahi along with a faded photograph of his great-grandmother using it. Initial examination by our curatorial team suggested the vessel's form and decorative motifs were consistent with Khas-Malla period craftsmanship, but it was only after thermoluminescence dating at a laboratory in Kathmandu that we could confirm what the family always suspected: this vessel dates to approximately 1580–1620 CE, placing it firmly in the reign of the Khas-Malla kingdom.