An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c29.1087

v2.c29.1087

Brahmapuri includes the remains of a mound the antiquity of which was first revealed in 1873, after which many antiquities have turned up sporadically. Excavation taken up in 1944 by K.G. Kundangarh brought to light a rich bronze hoard consisting of an exquisite statuette of Poseidon, the Roman sea god, a number of bronze vessels of Roman origin and Alexandrian workmanship and a few bronzes—all from a house of the Sātavāhana period. This spectacular discovery led Sankalia and Dikshit (Sankalia and Dikshit, 1953) to dig the site systematically in 1945. Their work has revealed that the site was first occupied during the Sātavāhana period (*c.* 200 B.C. to A.D. 200). The houses of this period are built of baked brick with stone foundations. One of the houses consists of three small rooms with a veranda in front. A narrow passage, about 60 cm wide, separates one house from another. The predominant ceramic industry is a non-descript red ware, but more important is the finer ceramic, the Red Polished Ware [11.23] represented mostly by the sprinkler. Pottery finials are also present, as also a few terracottas and exquisite human figurines of kaolin. Among the minor finds mention should be made of a large number of beads of semiprecious stones and glass. The glass beads are numerous and noteworthy inasmuch as they display various techniques of manufacture; there are beads inlaid with gold foil between layers of glass, folded beads of transparent blue glass and beads of copper-red glass. Four-legged querns with one end projecting can be said to be characteristic of the early historical period at least in Maharashtra. Besides over 100 Sātavāhana coins have been found. All the bronzes from Kundangar’s excavation are datable to the Sātavāhana period, or more precisely to the middle or later half of the 2nd century A.D. The settlement was destroyed by fire some time during the reign of Yajnaśrī Sātakarṇi in the third quarter of the 2nd century A.D.