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June 2004 |
Documentation of Sisupalgarh fortress
Sisupalgarh: The Fortress
With this background, one may turn in greater detail to Sisupalgarh, which illuminates and is illuminated by contemporary fortificatory architecture. While most writers address the symmetry of the eight city gates, closer scrutiny reveals differences in their individual size, shape, and details of construction. The western gate of the northern rampart appears to be the largest of all. But as year after year the encroaching rice paddies increase in size, it and the other gates decrease in size.
A published aerial photo shows the shape and size of the ramparts and that of the stream around the fortress enabling a first glance at the defenses. A zigzag water course on the southern and south-eastern sides, which has been proffered as a remnant of the moat, vaguely similar to European ones built from the 16th century onward, seems a most unlikely form. Today the borders of fields especially on the north-western and north-eastern corners parallel the ancient ramparts. Several of the borders of the plots may be fossils reflecting the positions of the moats. Others have been obliterated by centuries of the stream's meandering behaviour.
Sisupalgarh: Area D (the Column Structure)
But the most enigmatic of the structures at Sisupalgarh is what Lal in 1948 designated ‘Area D’ (Fig 1). Today, this area is known in the local tongue as ‘shola khamba’, which means 16 columns. This site is an assemblage of 13 standing and 9 pillar fragments positioned over an area of some 30 m x 30 m. Other columns lie at various points within an area of 100 m. The columns measure over 4.9 m in height and have a maximal diameter of about 70 cm. Column structures usually are associated with palaces or temples.
According to early historic written sources, the palace of the ruler should lie in the centre of the settlement. If Area D was the palace, it lies not directly in the centre, but somewhat west of the exact centre of the city defences.
Fig 1 Sisupalgarh fortress after Lal 1949, georeferenced by means of a hand-held GPS receiver 2003
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