A group of workers engaged in excavating earth for construction of a house on a vacant plot in Bahour near here stumbled upon an ancient stone idol in close proximity to the Kothandaramar temple on Saturday evening.
The workers were digging the vacant plot owned by Thillaivanam of Agraharam Street when they hit an object and stopped. When they cleared the sand they found a six-foot-tall stone idol. The workers immediately alerted the Revenue Department and the site was cordoned off and police personnel were deployed in the area.
A team of heritage enthusiasts who were on a heritage walk in Bahour to familiarise people with the Bahour Lake and its history visited the site on Sunday. The heritage walk covered the Bahour Lake, Bangari and Singari canal and a check dam.
Sunaina Mandeen, a core organiser of the Pondicherry Heritage Festival said that Bahour was rich in historical and archaeological significance. The vacant plot where the stone idol was partially unearthed was located diagonally behind the Kothandaramar temple.
The idol was found with its face down while another idol was found nearby. The identity of the idol and its provenance would be known only after examination by experts from Chennai, she said.
