Sunday 8 April 2018

When my children were small, I used to take them to the Birla Science Museum in Hyderabad. It soon became our vacation "must do". Below the science exhibits, the museum houses a small by very well curated art and archeological museum. In that I saw an exhibit labelled "stone tools from Hashmatpet cairns".
Hashmatpet is a locality close to where I lived, and my children and I were very keen to visit. We persuaded my husband to drive us there one Sunday morning.
Apparently there is a huge ring of cairns of which the ASI has excavated one. It is about 25-30 feet wide circular with steps carved in the earth and inside is a dolmen. It is perhaps a shrine or a funeral site. There is no explanatory signage, so it's just our guess.
This location is surrounded by flats a little way off, but around it, is the local rubbish dump and outdoor toilet. We had to navigate on tiptoes from the car to the excavation.
This was the state in 1995 or so (I think). I haven't been to see it since. It is probably razed and flats built over it.
I was reminded of this on reading the blogpost   http://suvratk.blogspot.in/2018/04/crisis-in-indian-palaeontology.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ReportingOnARevolution+(Reporting+on+a+Revolution)

PS:   http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/When-culture-comes-to-naught/article16602153.ece

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