Instead of protecting the 2,374 year-old site, which hosts an ancient capital city named Pundranagar, local people have been seen cultivating winter vegetables, onions, rice and other crops on more than one square kilometre of land there. The 15 sqkm site is surrounded by villages.

Residents say precious artifacts, including gold coins, jewellery, utensils and inscriptions, were dug out and smuggled away from the site, which is located 18 kilometers away from the northern town of Bogra.

"If the government does not take steps soon to establish authority over this land, we will no longer be able to protect the site," said Curator of Mahasthangarh Museum, Md Abdul Zabbar.

While unwarranted farmers have taken over one sqkm of land, the government has only acquired less than 10 acres of land in the last several years. Such apathy has encouraged some to build houses and steal bricks thousands of years old to construct their houses.

According to land records, farmers still own over 800 acres of land in the archaeological site, archaeological officials said. But since the government has not taken any steps to acquire the land, they still farm on the area and cause damage to the site by taking away bricks and other materials, local people claim.

"We are doing everything within our means to save it. We have submitted many projects but the government could not do anything due to lack of funds," said Abdul Khaleque, regional director of Rajshahi Division.

A Unesco official said the government has been preparing a proposal asking Unesco to announce Mahasthangarh as a world heritage nomination and provide financial and technical help.

"After receiving the government proposal, the Unesco experts will decide whether this site should be marked as a world heritage site or not," notes Shahida Parvin from the cultural desk of Unesco.

During a recent visit, this correspondent saw that many new houses have been built inside the site and people have been taking away the bricks of the archeological site to construct their own buildings.

Aaliboddi Mia, a local who was seen carrying two baskets of ancient bricks, believes he has the right to take the bricks.

"We have been living in that area for generations and we own these lands," Mia points out. He explains how he got the bricks, " I got it by digging the land. I will make a wall using mud and these bricks at my house."

Some other people have been seen blissfully cultivating vegetables there.

"This land is high and we were not affected by the floods. In this season we already sold radish, potato and pumpkin and made Tk 21,000 profit," said Tofazzal Hossain, while irrigating his vegetables with a shallow pump.

Another local cultivator, Mokless Hossain, said they have been cultivating vegetables there for a couple of years.

An excavation of the site has been underway since 1993, as part of an academic exchange scheme between Bangladesh and France. Shafiqul Alam, chief of the excavation team notes that Mahasthangarh is an open site and its land is public property. And he believes cultivation is not a problem for the site.

"It would take a lot of money to acquire all those lands. But the government do not have that money and so we cannot do much," Shafiqul Alam points out adding, "if the farmers do not dig out the site very deep, it would not be a problem."

Perched on the western bank of the Korotoa River, Mahasthangarh is one of the oldest settlements in Bangladesh. Discovered in the early 1930s, this one-time affluent city was buried under the soil and is said to hold scores of priceless artifacts.