Megalithic tombs of Rajan-Kollur
On the village outskirts my inquires for "Morayara Mane" resulted in blank faces. But when I inquired "Buddara Mane" the term was recognized immediately. Its important to know the local terms.. very handy indeed. We were asked to take the dirt path running parallel to the canal and look on the left.. found it! There were 8 to 10 of them scattered over a small area, the structures were almost the same size as dolmens of Aihole. The site was open with no protection.. no efforts to preserve them??
I went around them and took pictures. Then as I was thinking if these are the only remaining dolmen, I saw two boys walking by, I hailed them and asked if there were any more dolmen nearby. Their answer made me smile.. a little further is the main site, you will see many of them
If not for those boys I might have missed the main site, thanks to them. Here's the welcome lobby at the site, an infographic gives out basic information about our megalithic culture and megaliths here.
Philip Meadows Taylor's "MEGALITHIC TOMBS AND OTHER ANCIENT REMAINS IN THE DECCAN" describes Rajan Kollur as a major megalithic site of Karnataka. I could find only two images of the dolmens and they happen to be Meadows Taylor's paintings in British Library Online Gallery- Large Stone Cist Grave and Stone Cist Graves. I was wondering how mush of the site was remaining. During our trip to Raichur in December 2012, we were quite near by but time was a constraint. Finally the day came..The day started early, my first stop was Shivasharane Neelambike memorial at Tangadgi followed by Talikoti fort (I missed Muddebihal fort though we drove by it). Then on the way to Budhihal, we happened to drive by Hagaratgi - hours of research to locate this village had gone in vain but today we found it by chance :) Hagaratgi is another important prehistoric site mentioned in Meadows Taylor's book. After a quick visit to Budihal's ash mounds we drove to Kodekal and then Rajan Kollur.
On the village outskirts my inquires for "Morayara Mane" resulted in blank faces. But when I inquired "Buddara Mane" the term was recognized immediately. Its important to know the local terms.. very handy indeed. We were asked to take the dirt path running parallel to the canal and look on the left.. found it! There were 8 to 10 of them scattered over a small area, the structures were almost the same size as dolmens of Aihole. The site was open with no protection.. no efforts to preserve them??
I went around them and took pictures. Then as I was thinking if these are the only remaining dolmen, I saw two boys walking by, I hailed them and asked if there were any more dolmen nearby. Their answer made me smile.. a little further is the main site, you will see many of them
If not for those boys I might have missed the main site, thanks to them. Here's the welcome lobby at the site, an infographic gives out basic information about our megalithic culture and megaliths here.
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