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Excavations at Satanikota (1977-80 An Old and Rare Book)

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Item Code: NAX450
Publisher: ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA
Author: N. C. Ghosh
Language: English
Edition: 1986
Pages: 242 (62 B/W Illustrations)
Cover: HARDCOVER
Other Details 11.00 X 8.50 inch
Weight 1.10 kg
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Book Description
Foreword

Rapid development and industrialisation in independent India necessarily has included many irrigation projects. In the early 1950's, the famous Nagarjuna Sagar project, involved submergence of several villages and towns. Just as rehabilitation of the people from the, submergence was essential, Government considered the rehabilitation of the cultural property equally necessary. We have, therefore, today the famous Nagarjunakonda island in the Nagarjuna Sagar lake, where the famous Buddhist remains have been bodily transplanted and rehabilitated. Nagarjunakonda is an idyllic spot, a tourists' paradise, with an excellent archaeological museum.

Similar exercise is on, from the submergence area of the Hydro-electric Project at Srisailam, about 100 kms. upstream from Nagarjuna Sagar. Archaeological Survey of India, in collaboration with the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Andhra Pradesh, is engaged in the task of rehabilitating the cultural heritage of the area. Several temples belonging to the period of early Chalukyas, Rashtrakutas and later Chalukyas have already been transplanted to safer places. Many more in the process of being transplanted.

Another aspect of the transplantation of the cultural property, is to record the cultural history of the submergance area. The area contained many valuable evidence of the man's development from savagery to civilization. This data could 'only be retrieved from scientific excavations of prehistoric and historic sites, in the submergence area. The present report of excavations at the ancient site of Satanikota carried out from 1977 to 1980, embodies the documentation carried out by the Excavations Branch of the Archaeological Survey of India. The excavations have revealed evidence of human habitation from lower palaeolithic culture to the late medieval period. It is hoped that the results of this detailed investigation contained in this volume will be welcomed by Scholars and Researchers in Archaeology.

We are grateful to Sri N. C. Ghosh and his team of archaeologists for having fulfilled the obligation of preparing the report for publications. Since 1985, Archaeological Survey has taken up in right earnest to clear the backlog of pending reports on excavations. We have already published Lothal Volume II. We are happy to present this Second Volume, on the excavations at Satanikota.

Introduction

Newbold, Rea, Foote and Cammiade were the pioneers of archaeology in south India, though they were chiefly geologists. Their collections ranged from objects of Stone Age to those of the Medieval Period. Fortunately these were mostly catalogued. Others in the field continued their efforts and the lists of the objects were expanding. However, a 'time table', remained a desideratum. Wheeler was called from war-services to head the archaeological activities of this country in the year 1945. He planned his strategy and excavated at Arikamedu, an Indo-Roman trading-station on the east coast of India, and came out with a firm chrnological datum line for South Indian archaeology, pay, for the history of South India itself. Following him Krishnaswamy, Thapar, Srinivasan, Banerjee and Soundara Rajan explored and excavated in the South extensively. The general cultural sequence of the peninsula is now well established. The gaps in this frame are judiciously being filled. New problems that have come up in the wake of new discoveries are being tackled. By and large the archaeological activities in the South, like their counterpart in the North, became problem oriented. Sites were excavated with a view to solve some particular problems connected with the region or a culture. In the early fifties, for the first time in India, a large scale excavation was planned in the Nagarjunakonda valley with the aim to rescue the cultural wealth before its submergence due to the construction of a dam on the River Krishna. Excavations from 1954 to 60 yielded remains from Stone Age to Medieval Period, and important monuments were transplanted on top of the Nagarjunakonda hill.

Likewise the construction of a Hydro electric Project at Srisailam, some 100 km upstream from Nagarjunasagar across the same River Krishna, submerges nearly 107 villages, 60 in Alampur, Kollapur and Wanaparthy taluqs of District Mahbubnagar and 38 in Atmakur, Kurnool and Nandikotkur taluqs of District Kurnool, covering an area of 656.82 sq. km. In order, therefore, to discover the archaeological wealth of this area, an extensive exploration was carried out from the late sixties to the middle seventies, and 251 temples dating from the time of the Satavahanas to the Vijayanagar kings, and nearly 85 sites-situated all along the banks of the rivers Krishna, Tungabhadra, Bhavanasi and their many tributaries-with antiquarian remains ranging from the Prehistoric to the late Medieval period were listed. Of them all, 10 sites distributed among the Excavation Branch, Archaeological Survey of India (Nagpur), Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Andhra Pradesh (Hyderabad), Nagarjuna University (Guntur), and Birla Institute of Culture and Archaeology (Hyderabad), were taken up for excavation.

Satanikota, reported to have yielded in the course of exploration the antiquarian remains ranging from Stone Age to the late Medieval Period, was one of the four sites-the other three being Kudavelli, Malleswaram in the District Mahbhubnagar and Vamulapadu in the District Kurnool-assigned to the Excavation Branch of the Archaeological Survey of India, Nagpur. As stated above, the main object of these excavations was to unearth and report the antiquarian wealth of the sites before the construction of the dam.

The planning of the operation was done keeping in view the antiquarian remains-Stone Age, Megalithic and Early historical periods-scattered over a wide area, present habitation which occupies a major portion of the site, and the time at our disposal. The Stone Age tools and the Megaliths are mainly confined to the eastern part of the revenue jurisdiction of the village. This portion is elevated and designated as 'High Ground' in this report. Early historical pottery and bricks were found from in and around the mound on which the present village is situated. This is referred to here as 'Village Mound'. The habitations on the western and eastern (near High Ground) ends of Satanikota are mentioned by their traditional names as Enugulakota (elephant stable) and Gurramugadda (horse stable) (Fig. 2). The trenches on the 'High Ground' were laid to study the distribution of the artefacts in the profile of the gravel and named as HLG-1, HLG-2, etc. Selected megaliths from each cluster labelled serially, prefixed by A, B, and C, indicating the three groups have been opened. The major portion of the 'Village Mound' is under occupation at present. The trenches, here, were laid in grid pattern with a provision for extension in cardinal directions in the vacant southern portion. It was divided into four sectors A, X, Y and Z. In each sector trenches were numbered alphabetically from left to right and Arabic numbers were followed vertically. The north-west corner peg carried the reference number of each trench. Each trench in its turn was subdivided into four quadrants and numbered in Roman numerals in clockwise direction. Trenches were excavated keeping in view the special nature of this multi-cultural and fortified settlement. The elephant and horse stables, however, were badly eroded and clearance revealed only a part of the remaining structures.

B. PREVIOUS WORK

Along with Orissa and the southern parts of Madhya Pradesh, the region, now constituting the Andhra state, is older than the Himalayas, the entire Gangetic system and the plains of the east and west coasts.' In Andhra, the Kurnool District is traversed by two long hill ranges, the Nallamalais and the Erramalais, running north-south respectively on the east and the west of the district. These are the subridges of the Eastern Ghats which are the oldest rock formations on earth. Smaller rivers like the Bhavanasi and Gundlakamma with their tributaries drain this district, while the big River Tungabhadra skirts the western and northern limits of the district. The sections of the smaller rivers reveal rich information about the Stone Age tools. These interesting physiographical conditions of the district attracted the attention of the geologists in the forties of the last century, when Captain Newbold discovered the prehistoric ossiferous Billasurgam group of caves in Nandyal taluq and collected from them some fossil bones. Impressed by these finds Dr. King and Robert Bruce Foote explored this region in 1865 and 1866 and came across a few palaeoliths in the lateritic gravels. Again during the last quarter of the 19th century, Foote explored this region and picked up interesting prehistoric and historical relics from Patpad, Kappatrala, Tsanugondla, Itikyala and discovered Yerra Zari Gabbi group of caves in Banganapalle taluq. Moreover, he carried out considerable excavations in the caves to find the stalagmite floor levels wherein he expected to find embedded fossil bones. But he could not find any. However, he discovered some neolithic tools in the vicinity of these caves. During 1880 Robert Sewell prepared the list of antiquarian remains in the Madras Presidency. Although his work was mainly confined to listing the inscriptions and monuments he included some known sites which yielded prehistoric and early historical remains in the Kurnool District. However, it was only in the year 1914-15 that any serious archaeological exploration 'and excavation was carried out in the district when A.H. Longhurst, in the capacity of Superintendent, Department of Archaeology, Southern Circle, Madras, had undertaken the excavation of a few megalithic cairn circles at Gajjalakonda. His excavations revealed interesting features of the megalithic culture. Later, in 1930 while touring along the Eastern Ghats L.A. Cammiade discovered several important Stone Age sites at Giddalur, Yerragondapalem and Krishnapuram which yielded Series I, II and III tools made by the Victoria West technique, having their counterparts in Africa and which were, in due course, described at length by K. V. Soundara Rajan.

**Contents and Sample Pages**












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