History of Technology in India, Vol. I: From Antiquity to c. 1200 A.D. v1.c30.s3.25

v1.c30.s3.25

With the advent of the second half of the first millennium BC a much clearer picture emerges. In the first place the literary works mentioned above received their final shape during this period and must have reflected contemporary practices. Secondly accounts of foreign officials and travellers are now available. Megasthenes, who was the Greek ambassador to the court of Candragupta Maurya states that the capital Pataliputra was protected by wooden ramparts that had sixty four gates and five hundred and odd towers. Pliny/Ptolemy, speaking of the Satavahana empire state that there were thirty walled towns in their empire. Plastic representations on Buddhist monuments of this date have already been referred to above. From 1860 onwards surveys of surface remains have been extensively conducted and numerous ancient remains have been noted (CUNN). Over the last forty years numerous sites have been subjected to excavations. Most of these however, were vertical digs, that is, the area excavated was very small. This was mainly due to the fact that most of the ancient sites or mounds of debris are covered with modern habitations and excavations could be conducted on small plots that were unoccupied. This also limited the choice of the site for digging in a given locality. The plan of fortifications have been traced in some cases mostly through