Arambhada
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Aramda

The village Aramda is situated on a high tableland about 7 km south of Okha port and 23 km north of Dwarka. A creek opens to the sea in the north eastern side of the village. During high tide, a vast area gets flooded. This is also a fishing jetty and served as repairing yard.  For sometime the village of Aramda has been as a power centre of the Okhamndal region, which is attested by the presence of a medieval fort in middle of the village.

Onshore and inter tidal zone exploration was carried out to find out any possible signature of an ancient port or harbour in the region. An old jetty that is still serving as repairing yard is just located on the north-eastern side of the village. Other important findings include anchors, a dockyard and boat motifs that are described below.

Anchors

Two stone anchors were found to the north of the present jetty and their brief description is given below.

1. Upper portion of the anchor is broken and only one rectangular hole at lower end side of the anchor was noticed. It is made of locally available limestone rock.

2. A triangular anchor with three holes was noticed during low tide with a circular hole at the top and two square holes lower side. The anchor is presently serving as mooring stone for fishing vessels.

An old dockyard was noticed to the southern side of present jetty. It had a stone wall covered with mud. This is rectangular in shape and gets submerged during high tide. The length was about 125 m with a width of about 30 m. Present depth of dock is about 1 m. There is an entrance from Southeast which is silted up and the side walls have collapsed and presently it is not in use.

Boat Motifs

Several hero stones were noticed at the extreme west of the village Aramda. Three of them had boat motifs. Locally this place is called as Jhapa. Hero stones with boat motifs are known as Kharwa’s memorial. The Kharwas were the early navigators and perhaps these stones were erected in their memory. One of them is dated to  Vikram Samvat 1852 (AD 1796) and the boat motif is different than the other two hero stones. The motif has several sails and is similar those of long sea voyages vessels. The other appears to be of later period. These boat motifs indicate the importance of those persons involved in maritime trade and commerce in this region.

The discovery of stone anchors and boat motifs indicates that this was an important maritime centre. The site is well protected from high waves of the open sea and is an ideal sheltered harbour. However, archaeological evidences so far from this village do not indicate its age earlier than the medieval period.   

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