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EXCAVATIONS NEAR MANIKYALA.
JUNE, 1880.]
deep masonry remains opened out. There is an entire absence of ornament, even of the simplest kind. Two of the three copper coins found were partly legible, and are described further on, but they do not show that the masonry was of that age, though of course it may be so without any stretch of probability.
The excavations consisted of five cuts. One of them is a large and a regular one, commencing in the west side of the mound and running completely into the centre of it. Of the other four, two were merely pits in the body of the north-east quarter of the mound; the remaining two being cuts, in continuation of each other, from the south side of the mound towards the centre.
The first mentioned of these cuts was the only one which repaid the trouble and expense, as it will be seen, from the plan, that it everywhere opened out walls and floors, and disclosed, more or less completely, four chambers (which are marked A, B, C and D on the plan). This cut was commenced 9 or 10 yards from the fakir's hut, and over the four-inch drain near the south corner of chamber A, and was suggested by an older excavation (made by the present fakir in search for stones), which had discovered several large blocks of stone (among them being one of two supposed doorpivot slabs shown in the plan). Carrying the excavation along the long south wall of chamber (A), another rectangular chamber (B), 10/ 5" x 9' 3", was found in the centre of the mound, with steps leading out of it, on one side, eastward.
The following are the details of each of these chambers, and the pavements near thempremising that the sandstone masonry is mostly a coursed rubble, which in solidity and regularity is almost like block-in-course, and is laid dry, without mortar.
Chamber A.-The west, or outside end of this chamber, was about four feet below the surface of the mound; the rest about three feet. It is 5 feet wide and (possibly) 36 feet long. [This qualification as to its length is given, because only one end of the interior was cleared out, though the exterior of the southern side wall was disclosed for a length of 40 feet.] The north and west walls are 3' 10" thick; the south 2' 0" thick. All are stopped at one level, about 2 feet above the base. Outside the north wall,
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and close to it, is a drain 4 inches deep. This drain was lined with large blocks of stone, and was more than 18 inches deep; (it was not cleared to its full depth). Beyond (north of) this drain a rough stone floor was partly exposed.
On the south side of chamber A another 4 inch drain was found, but this, instead of being close under the wall (as in the foregoing case). runs diagonally up the middle of a paved passage (5 feet wide) leading to chamber B (though chamber B has no door where that passage meets it). This drain was also more than 18 inches deep.
It is impossible to say what chamber A was, but it resembles that opened up by General Cunningham at Sarnath, near Banaras, in 1835 (Arch Reports, Vol. I, p. 120), being similarly without doors. It also resembles the long chamber in the Ionic monastery at Shah-kidheri figured by Fergusson (Indian and Eastern Architecture, p. 176), though the latter is too large to afford so good a parallel as the Sarnath example.
The absence of doors to chamber A points to the remains found being merely the foundation of a superstructure of wood. The walls are cut off, quite smoothly, at an uniform level, and are not of an irregular height and rough top surface, as they would have been had a masonry superstructure been rudely thrown down.
Chamber B. This is in the centre of the mound, 40 feet from the west outside edge of chamber A, its centre being 64 feet from the southern edge of the mound. It has a door on one side, with two steps leading eastward, and its dimensions are 10' 5" X 9' 3". The walls are of an uniform thickness of 2' 6", cut off level 2' 6" from the floor. The second of the two 4 inch drains runs diagonally through it.
Chamber C.-This was probably 12' x 11' and is roughly paved inside and outside.
Chamber D.-The walls of this chamber (2′ 6" thick) are much ruined and are 3 feet high on the north side and 8 inches on the west side. One of the stones in its west wall is 8' long by 2' 6" broad. Outside the chamber is a flagged floor (of which one of the stones is 4' 3" X 3' 4") which was cleared out for 10 feet westwards.
The floors of all the chambers are nearly at one level, which may be, say, 4 or 5 feet above
