There is a mystery about buried relics that excites the imagination and conjures up images of lost treasure hordes. In fact, treasure hunting is now an industry propelled by amateurs and professionals all questing for that ‘find’ that will make them rich. And there have been discoveries of great value, particularly on the seafloor from where treasure hunters have salvaged many fascinating and valuable artifacts from the wrecks of the Spanish treasure fleets, Chinese junks, and ships of the East India Company returning home with loot from the Indian Subcontinent. My quest is for an object which has lain buried under the bed of the River Chenab for the past 260 years. Its value in monetary terms may only be the price of the Copper and Bronze of which it was constructed but it would be of great historical value to the citizens of Pakistan.
While I was serving in the Joint Staff Headquarters in 1999, I was fortunate that its library had a large collection of books of the late Syed Akhtar Ahsan, the brother-in-law of Syed Babar Ali which had been presented by his family. Akhtar Ahsan was a writer as well as a voracious reader and his collection included books on history and military campaigns. One of them authored by Ganda Singh in 1959, was on Ahmed Shah Durrani. In the latter part of the 18 century this Afghan Sadozai king conquered the lands of the River Indus and its tributaries and defeated the Marathas in the Third Battle of Panipat. Ahmed Shah is also remembered as the king who cast a great gun named the Zamzama and while reading the book I became aware of an interesting fact – according to the author, not one but two guns were cast.
In the year 2000, I bought a book by the famous journalist and travel writer – Peter Hopkirk called ‘Quest for KIM. In search of the Kipling’s Great Game’. He too wrote that the Zamzama – ‘ …..once had a twin. However, this was lost during a river crossing while being dragged back to Kabul by Ahmed Shah’s victorious artillery men and today it lies, somewhere at the bottom of the Chenab river, forty miles west of Lahore.’Zamzama was one of the most magnificent cannons of its time with a barrel over 14 feet long, a bore at its aperture of 9½ inches and a weight of 4.5 tons. It was forged with copper and bronze of household utensils collected from residents of Lahore through jaziha – a tax levied on non-Muslim subjects. It was far superior to a cannon captured by the British during the Siege of Bhurtpore in 1826, which used to be displayed outside the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. The Bhurtpore Cannon was cast in 1780 i.e. 25 years after the Zamzama and though the barrel had the same length, the estimated weight is two tons heavier with a caliber half that of the Zamzama.
At its muzzle end the Zamzama bears the inscription: “By the order of the Emperor, DuriDurran, Shah Wali Khan Wazir made the gun named Zamzama or the Taker of Strongholds.” The longer inscription at the back eulogizes its bulk and invincibility: “A destroyer even of the strongholds of the heaven. For reason I enquire of the year of its manufacture; Struck with terror it replied, ‘Wert thou willing to surrender thine life, I would unfold unto thee the secret.’ I agreed, and it said, laden with innuendo: – ‘What a cannon! ‘Tis a mighty fire dispensing dragon!'” The last line of the second inscription forms a chronogram — a phrase who’s each letter has a numerical value which when added gives a specific date and adds up to 1169 Hijri (1755-56 AD). Four years after being manufactured, the guns aided Durrani in defeating the Marathas in the epic Third Battle of Panipat in 1761.
While researching further on the guns I came across conflicting accounts by historians / writers regarding their fate. In his article “Why Abdali got such a huge Zamzama made”, published in the Dawn on July 20, 2014, Majid Sheikh states that both the guns were manufactured by Shah Nazir, an Armenian who had worked for the Mughal emperors. He set up a special furnace at Mughalpura, where today stands the Railway Workshop and completed the two massive cannons within three months. After the battle, both the guns were taken to Lahore to be fitted into stronger undercarriages for the journey to Kabul. One carriage was ready on time, while the other which was for the Zamzama was delayed and the cannon was left in Lahore in the care of the new ‘subedar’ of Lahore, Khwaja Obaid. Constructing the undercarriage was a hurried affair and it collapsed while Zamzama’s twin was being ferried across the Chenab near Wazirabad, and the cannon fell into the river. Meanwhile, the ordnance depot of Khwaja Ubed in the outskirts of Lahore was attacked by the armies of Hari Singh Bhangi and the Zamzama fell into their hands. The new Sikh owners of the cannon renamed it ‘Bhangian di Top’ [literally: Cannon of the Bhangis].
When the column arrived in Landi Kotal, Wazir Ali established his Coffee Shop in the fortified ‘Serai’. “It has been great advantage to this force to have so respectable and enterprising a firm in camp from which to draw stores of every description.
(Sd.) Neville Chamberlin, Colonel on the Staff, Commanding Khyber Rifles.” Wazir Ali again achieved prominence when he sent a large quantity of stores as a present for the British troops fighting in South Africa during the Second Boer War, for which he was thanked by none less than the United Kingdom’s Secretary of State for War.
Wazir Ali passed away in 1902. “All were very grieved to hear of his death which occurred very unexpectedly when on a visit to Lahore. (Sd.) EDETWINTLE. Major, 15th Bengal Lancers.” Wazir Ali’s two sons Syed Maratib Ali and Syed Ahsan Ali continued the business with the same standard of service and wares for which their father was praised. “Since his death some two years ago his sons have evidently determined to follow in his footsteps, and maintain the high character of the firm. (Sd.) K. P. BURN, Major Commanding 38 Dogras.” It was around this time the system of canteens for British troops in India was regulated by establishing an Army Canteen Board which outsourced the canteen services to contractors. The canteens were renamed ‘Institutes’ and run as clubs for the British soldiers with a bar and grocery shop.
From all these accounts, I am tempted to frame a hypothesis in which both the cannons arrived up on the banks of the River Chenab – the first one that the Afghans were transporting to Kabul, either sank into the river or got stuck, was unrecoverable and ultimately vanished when the river flooded during the monsoons. Here it lies forgotten and like the grave of the unknown soldier, not even its last resting place is known. The second as recorded by Latif arrived later and landed back in Lahore via Amritsar. It would be a great event if the twin could be recovered after two and a half centuries and placed on display.
The first step in the search of the cannon is to establish where the Afghans attempted to cross the Chenab with it. There were two crossing sites on the Chenab: Rasulnagar (earlier known as Ramnagar) and Wazirabad. Ganda Singh’s well-researched book on Abdali’s campaigns points towards the latter. He states that in his first three invasions between 1748 and 1751 Ahmed Shah crossed the river at Sohdra which is 6 km to the northeast of Wazirabad. On his fifth invasion (1759-61) at the end of which he attempted to take the cannon back, he entered through the Bolan Pass and crossed the Indus from the Bannu District but returned to Kabul via Wazirabad in May 1761.
A paper titled ‘The Alexandra Bridge, Punjab Northern State Railway,’ written by Henry Lambert around 1880 states that ‘During the winter the river was contained in a main channel about 500 yards (800 meters) wide and 10-15 feet deep. …… By the middle of April, floods from the melting of the snow on the Himalayas set in, and increase in volume up to the middle of June, when the monsoon commences’. During the monsoons, the Chenab used to spread up to 5.6 km westwards from Wazirabad. The earliest sketch of this area was made after the battle of Gujrat in 1849 and shows the Chenab flowing past Sodhra and Wazirabad. However, when the British decided to bridge the Chenab, they constructed a Bell Bund to deflect the river channels away from the eastern bank.
This shift of the river westwards was speeded up after a major flood around 1885. The 1920 Gazetteer of the Sialkot District states that during the previous century when the River Chenab debouched from the hills near Akhnoor, it split into two channels with the eastern carrying most of the water. However, after the flood of 1885, a barrage of stones was formed across the river mouth opposite Akhnoor which reduced the eastern branch to a trickle. A further shift westwards was induced with the construction of the Alexandra Bridge and the training of the river. At the time of its construction, the Alexandra Bridge was 3 km long with 64 spans. It was one of the longest bridges in India but with improvements in training rivers, in 1890 its length was reduced to 1,300 meters and in 1919 further reduced to 800 meters (17 spans). The surplus girders were used to strengthen the existing rail bridge and to construct a parallel road bridge.
More relevant was the construction of a second bund called the Hurrypure Spur from Sodhra towards the southwest to protect the road and rail lines running up to the bridges. From our perspective, the shifting of the river channels westwards is fortunate as it has exposed what used to be some of the main beds of the river channels. Consequently, there is now a belt of farmland 6 km wide between Sodhra and the river beneath which the cannon may be resting. While our primary focus in the area of Waziarabad is to its north opposite Sodra, there was another crossing site south of the town that was used by the army of General Gough prior to the decisive battle of Gujrat in 1849. The fording site appears on a sketch of the battle and is worth exploring if Sodra does not bear results.
The third site to study is the crossing at Rasulnagar. It was an important ford across the Chenab as it lay on the route linking Lahore to Bhera on the River Jhelum from where routes led across to the Indus and beyond into Afghanistan. Lahore was a big wholesale market for rock salt and caravans from the mines at Khewra used this crossing. Unlike upstream, there has been very little westward shift of the river channels and the current alignment is nearly the same as a sketch made after the Battle of Ramnagar in 1848. Therefore, there is a belt of only 1½ km between the town and the river bank that can be searched.
The above analysis needs to be substantiated by a paleo-hydrological survey of River Chenab to reveal the remnants of its eastern streams that was subsequently buried by younger sediment. If the Soil Survey of Punjab does not possess the necessary data / information, soil samples would have to be collected at varying depth along the flood plain of the river. The data would be collated after laboratory analysis of the samples and subjected to a time-system analysis from which the courses of inactive river channels would be determined. The Department of Geology may also provide some useful data / information. The results could then be validated against the 1849 and 1876 maps and information provided by locals.
The next stage is to decide the equipment required for the sub-surface survey. It is a highly developed science with a wide range of products that cater to amateurs (treasure hunters, etc.) as well as professionals both in the civil and military sectors.
The most common type of equipment is the hand-held metal detectors used by treasure hunters and the more sophisticated version that is used by the military for detecting land mines. Different metal detectors work in various ways but in a simple design, electricity flows through the transmitter coil of wire wrapped around the circular head at the end of the handle, which creates a magnetic field. When the transmitter coil is swept over the ground and its magnetic field passes over a metal object, it induces electric activity in the object which creates a second magnetic field. As the two magnetic fields collide they generate a current which is picked up by the detector coil and amplified by a loudspeaker into clicks or beeps. The pace at which an area can be scanned by a handheld metal detector is slow and the depth it can penetrate is very limited for our purpose.
A more sophisticated version using the same technology is the Large-loop Detection System (LLDS). It enables a relatively fast search of 3-4 acres in a day and manufacturers claim that it can detect ferrous and non-ferrous metal objects of substantial size up to 10 meters. Like the Zamzama, its sister would have been made not of iron but of bronze (a mixture of copper and tin, along with small amounts of other elements), which is naturally much more resistant to corrosion than copper. Therefore, in spite of being buried in moist soil for over 260 years, its barrel would be in good condition but obviously, its carriage would have decayed. The Very Low Frequency (VLF) version of the LLDS, is more discriminatory but works at shallower depths of up to a meter. More suitable would be the Pulse Induction (PI) Detectors, which use higher frequencies and pulsed signals. They are not as discriminating but they can generally detect objects deeper i.e. up to 15 meters (50 feet).
Another device that can detect subsurface objects up to 15 meters in depth is the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) which is used in a number of commercial as well as military applications. GPR is a general term to describe methods that use radio waves (10 MHz – 1.2 GHz) to probe subsurface objects or geological features. GPR is pushed along on a wheeled frame and is also used in archeology to detect and map subsurface artifacts and features.
The nature of soil affects the depth to which the GPR can penetrate. Loam (a mixture of clay, silt and sand with high humus content) poses a problem for GPR because its high electrical conductivity causes signal strength to be rapidly attenuated. The paper ‘The Alexandra Bridge, Punjab Northern State Railway,’ states that in the “…….Wuzerabad Reach, the Chenab had become wide to an abnormal extent. The fine sand of the bed was ascertained to be about 65 feet in depth, overlying clay of moderate consistency.” The Department of Soil Survey of Punjab may have specific information on the nature of the soil in our area of search. However, in all probability, it is ‘khadar’ which is composed of fine silt and clay.
With so many options in the market some costing as much as $8,000, I contacted a manufacturer who recommended a metal detection system with a 1-meter coil that worked best with non-ferrous objects and can locate a 4.5-ton cannon at a depth of 15-20 feet. At under $2,000, it is affordable and the area of search probably has the best conditions for this type of detector. The soil is soft and damp with a low acidity and salt content. I then consulted treasure hunters on a blog site called TreasureNet and received some very helpful tips regarding the proposed project. One blogger strongly recommended using an 8″ x 48″ Oval coil which has the largest detection area of all the optional coils – both in width and depth. The unique oval design gives this coil both good sensitivity to small objects (rings, coins, etc.) as well as deep detection of larger targets. The coil is mounted on four small skis for dragging along the ground and is connected to the detector by a long cable. The total price its approximately $4,000 i.e. double the price of the one-meter coil.
Field expenses would include transport, salaries, board and lodging for 3-4 survey teams consisting of retired personnel from the Army Engineers. Management expenses would cover a small office for a couple of years with a manager and 2-3 staff including an accountant. The detectors would form a major portion of the initial investment. Also factored in would be expenses for hiring excavators for the digs and compensation to the farmers for damage to their crops/fields. Finally, if the barrel is located, expenses would be incurred on the hiring of a crane and transport to a facility where it would be cleaned and restored.
Since the cannon was originally cast at Mughalpura, it would be befitting if the restoration is carried out by the Railway Workshop at Mughalpura. They would restore the barrel and mount it on a gun carriage similar to the Zamzama with the frame of Shesham Wood and wheels made of Keekar because of its toughness.
It is my earnest hope that after reading this article, someone with the financial resources and the vision takes this idea to the next level, i.e. undertaking a project / feasibility study with input by professionals.
References
Books
Research Papers
Articles
Gazetteers
