State Minister for Cultural Affairs Selima Rahman assured the excavators of this during her visit there yesterday, when they asked her for immediate government steps to preserve the site.

Selima hailed the excavation team of Jahangirnagar University (JU) Department of Archaeology for its epoch-making work 'in quest of the country's root' and for unravelling further evidences of the region's glorious past.

"This findings will help us know better our thousands of years-old history and make us proud of our civilisation," Selima wrote in the visitors' book.

Joint Secretary Masudur Rahman of the ministry and Department of Archaeology Director Dewan Delwar Hossain accompanied the minister.

A JU team led by Associate Professor Sufi Mustafizur Rahman, who has been scraping and hammering at the site since 2000, discovered the 18 metre by 6 metre and 30-centimetre thick road on March 21 at Wari village in Belabo Upazila, 70km north-east of the capital.

Discovery of the road along with a fortified citadel and a raft of artefacts dating back to 450 BC promised to redefine the history of eastern India and emboldened the excavators' claim that Narsingdi was a part of the Brahmaputra civilisation and formed the eastern fringe of Mauryan Empire.

A prime trade centre flourished in Narsingdi that maintained contacts with contemporary South Asian and Roman civilisations through waterways, Mustafizur said.

The archaeologist asked the government to task them with the site's scientific preservation, saying they deserved it since they had the necessary expertise and it was they who had discovered the site and its significance.

The excavators will wrap up their works for this season on April 11 through a closing ceremony, where they will display the artefacts they have collected from the site since beginning of their work in 2000.

Hundreds of visitors, especially school and college students from adjacent upazlias, have been thronging the site hearing the news of the discovery. Yesterday, a JU team of History, Bangla, International Relations and Geography departments visited the site.