- Sisupalgarh
Sisupalgarh or Sishupalgarh are ruined fortification in
Khurda District inOrissa ,India . It is the largest and best preserved early historic fortification in India. [cite web | url = http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/08/stories/2008020859211100.htm | title = Sisupalgarh had a flourishing urban life: researchers| accessdate= 2008-02-19]Description
As at
Jaugada , in plan the quadrangularglacis is 1125 x 1115m and tips 10° clockwise of north. Its defences are the highest known of this period. Two gates pierce each side of the fortress. The gates themselves measure over 90m in length from the inside to outside and vary considerably in size, shape and in details of building. The western of the two gates in the northern glacis seems to be the largest and/or best preserved. The two in the southern glacis are the smallest. But as year for year the encroaching rice paddies increase in size, these and the other gates decrease in size. Excavation facets in the gate structures can be seen from the windows of commercial aircraft which pass by Sisupalgarh on the way in and out ofBhubaneshwar . The settlement probably was not dense, but rather there was room inside the fortress to graze. Claims about the population and exact age of the settlement have not been generally agreed and require further investigations. [cite web | url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7250316.stm | title = Ancient city discovered in India | accessdate= 2008-02-19]In 2005
ground penetrating radar revealed the probable position of the southernmoat . A column structure toward the centre of the fort has been recorded three-dimensionally by means of alaser scanner . These may belong to an incomplete major structure. This defensive settlement originated during theMauryan empire.References
*
Martin Brandtner , Kalinga und seine Hauptstadt in frühgeschichtlicher Zeit. Zum Bedeutungswandel einer ethnischen und geographischen Beziehung (Hamburg 2000)
*B.B. Lal, Sisupalgarh 1948: An Early Historical Fort in Eastern India. Ancient India 5, 1949, 62-105
*M. Smith, Sisupalgarh Project (2001), http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/ioa/smith/
*Dieter Schlingloff , Die altindische Stadt eine vergleichende Untersuchung (Mainz 1969)
*Paul Yule , Early Historic Sites in Orissa (Delhi 2006) ISBN 81-89645-44-7Notes
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