The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) intends to at last start a project to conserve and restore one of the country’s largest prehistoric megalithic settlements located on a rocky hilltop near Hirebenkal village, 10 kms from Gangavati taluk in Koppal district.
Although the settlement was declared a protected monument in 1955, the ASI has done little to conserve it and make it accessible to the people. It did not even put up a board signalling the presence of the site until recently.
Senior conservation assistant, ASI, Dharwad circle, J Ranganath, claims that the thorny bushes and the hilly terrain had made it difficult to restore the site for many years. “It’s not easy to take up restoration of such sites as it is difficult to focus on every monument spread across 50 acres in hilly terrain,” he contended.
Hirebenkal is one of the very few Indian megalithic sites where pre-megalithic implements like iron slag, and pottery from the Neolithic and Megalithic periods have been found. Historians and researchers say the megaliths found here date back to the period between 800 BC and 200 BC.
The Hirebenkal hillocks also have rock art from the Neolithic period. Paintings in red ochre, depicting people dancing, hunting, holding weapons and taking part in processions are found on at least 10 rock shelters. There are also paintings in geometric and mystic designs with animals like deer, antelopes, peacocks, humped bulls, cows and horses.
The site consists of several buried and semi-buried dolmens called cists and dolmenoid cists arranged in circles.
A unique stone kettledrum resting on a 10-metre high boulder has also been found at the site. When beaten with a stone or wooden hammer, it gives off a sound that can be distinctly heard 1 km away, as far as the burial complex and the habitation site. Unfortunately although there were more than 400 funerary monuments in Hirebenkal, most have collapsed and the others are on the verge of collapse.
Regional commissioner of Gulbarga, Rajneesh Goel, who visited the site recently with ASI officials, advised them to protect it, pointing out that it was of great tourism interest. Currently only a few foreign tourists visit the site, as it is hardly accessible to the people and badly publicised.
Source: Deccan Chronicle [February 02, 2011]