MADURAI: The recent excavation at Keeladi in Sivaganga district near Madurai, which unearthed the evidence of a flourishing civilisation in the Sangam era, has been stalled due to the lack of sanction to continue the work for the third year.The Archaeological Survey Of India is currently involved in excavation studies at Vadnagar in Gujarat, Binjor in Rajasthan, Urain in Bihar and Keeladi at Sivaganga district. While the three other places have received sanctions to continue the study during 2016 - 17, the Keeladi site has not been given the sanction, without which no further excavation work can be carried out.The Central Advisory Board of Archaeology (CABA), which sanctions excavations, has asked the director general of archaeology to visit the site and decide upon the sanction, informed sources told TOI. However, no high-level officials have visited the site in the second year, they said.Superintending archaeologist K Amarnath Ramakrishna, who headed the study, said that they have not received the sanction to carry out excavation works for the third year. "We have appealed for the extension and are awaiting sanction," he said.Meanwhile, archaeology scholars in Madurai feel that the site needs some more years of excavation to bring out the buried civilisation. Two years of excavation is not enough considering the kind of structures and antiquities found, they said. "Our politicians in the ruling BJP government like union minister Pon Radhakrishnan should help the study to continue," said C Santhalingam, a retired archaeologist from Madurai.Madurai-based archaeologists feel that an elaborate study, extending to at least five years, is necessary to unravel the buried civilisation.After the study carried out along the Vaigai River from Varusanadu in Theni to Alagankulam in Ramanathapuram district in 2013, ASI had identified six prominent places along the river path. Pallisanthai Thidal in Keeladi was finalised by ASI and excavation works commenced in 2015. In the first year, archaeologists dug 43 trenches and found 1,800 antiquities along with a brick structure. The excavation continued for the second year when 59 trenches were dug, unearthing an industrial unit-like structure with terracotta pipes."It was the first ever urban habitation centre and it was the first time an elaborate study for that scale was conducted in Tamil Nadu. Earlier excavations only brought out burial sites, not a habitation site," said an archaeologist.The findings indicated that it was an independent river-based civilisation in the scale of Harappa and it could be of the period between three century BC and 10 century AD. As the news spread, people made a beeline to the spot. However, all the trenches have been closed as the second year study has come to an end.