An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v2.c42.615

v2.c42.615

**Porkalam** (10°40'; 76°4'), Dt Trichur, literally meaning a battlefield, lying on the sloping laterite formation about 4 km to the n. of Kunnamkulam in Talapalli Taluka. The site, marked by the location of the Vedakad temple, the most sacred place of worship of the local priestly class, the Nambudris, shows various types of Megalithic monuments [4.17.10] like rock-cut caves, dolmens, port-holed cists within stone circles and urns within stone circles. The potentialities of the site were first brought to notice by a summary digging conducted by the State Archaeologist of the erstwhile Cochin Government. In the early part of 1948 an urn burial surrounded by a circle of dressed laterite blocks and covered by a granite capstone was systematically excavated by the writer on behalf of the ASI (*AI*, 8, 1952, pp. 3-16). While the laterite for the circle stones is locally available the granite must have been brought from the nearest neighbouring quarry over 1 km away.