BHOPAL: The ASI headquarters has stopped excavation at a site in MP’s Singrauli where a mysterious engraving — of a bearded man in ‘foreign attire’ and a skull cap — was discovered on a brick in a 6th Century temple three months ago. The archaeologists, who made the find, have been told to pack up, and their research called “unauthorized”.

ASI’s director (exploration and excavation) V N Prabhakar has issued the cancellation order. “Permission granted for carrying out exploration in landscape archaeological studies on religious architecture of Sidhi/Singrauli districts in favour of Temple Survey project (TSP) stands cancelled due to unauthorized excavations carried out contrary to the permission issued only for exploration,” reads the letter issued by ASI headquarters on Tuesday, indicating that the mandate was to observe and not dig.

ASI had started working in Nagwa region of Singrauli after a gap of 150 years, employing 20 to 25 locals. Around 200 people were likely to get jobs if the excavation continued, sources say. The team had identified several promising mounds where they planned to dig.

Superintending archaeologist Dr Madhulika Samata, who was heading the investigations, refused to comment, but sources in the department told TOI that a section of ASI officers are apparently uneasy over the puzzling brick engraving found in the temple.

The engraving in an early Kalachuri dynasty Vishnu temple is said to be extremely rare and left a riddle for archaeologists. Those associated with the project believed that this discovery had stretched the antiquity of urbanisation in this area to at least 2,000 years ago and were hopeful of adding new chapters to the history of Central India.

Asking not to be named, a senior ASI officer told TOI that Section 22 of “The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act’ (AMASR Act) does not call for requisites “permissions” to carry out archaeological exploration. “It is the duty and mandate of an archaeological officer to make excavations of an area where he/she believes that any area that is not protected contains ruins or relics of historical or archaeological importance,” he said, adding that in such cases the archaeologist needs to give a notice in writing to the district collector and land owner before starting the exploration.

The image of the bearded man wasn’t the only stunning find at this site. An ASI team found an ancient Vishnu temple nearby. They went rushing to the other site after being tipped off that villagers were digging into relics with spades, and carting away ‘bricks’. It turned out to be the Garvagriha of the temple. The excavation of the Vishnu temple has since been completed. What emerged from ages of dirt was a statue of Vishnu so unique that only a handful of such examples exist. It has a drum tied to the waist of Vishnu, and the left hand of the statue resting on it in a manner as if he were playing it.

Another interesting find is a stone carved with ‘Ra’ and ‘La’ in Brahmi script of 1st-2nd Century CE. It was found 25cm below the surface. The remains of this period cover an area of about 1 sqkm. The ASI team had detected four more buried temples. Relics indicates existence of a big city, say ASI officials.

