WD1323

Watercolour by Philip Meadows Taylor (1808-1876) of tumulis and a rectangular enclosure of stone at Shahpur in the Gulbarga district of Karnataka, dated 1850.

Inscribed on front with pencil notes and:’ M. Taylor. 1850. Shahpoor’; in ink: ‘No. 13.’

Note: Original sketch for engraving in ‘Descriptions of cairns’, etc., plate 12.

This is the original image for Sketch XII from Taylor's 'Descriptions of Cairns, Cromlechs, Kistvaens and other Celtic, Druidical or Scythian monuments in the Dekhan' (Dublin, 1865), which is captioned: 'East Side of the Shahpoor Tumulus, showing the Granite Boundary Rocks, and some of the Greenstone Boulders'. Taylor wrote, "...near Shahpoor...I found an extraordinary parallelogram laid out with rocks...The natural ground slopes slightly to the south from the north side; and a tumulus had been formed by raising the earth on three sides to a centre, around which, in a diameter of 60 feet, large greenstone boulders had been regularly placed, and a great number irregularly, all over the sides of the tumulus. Outside these were rows of granite rocks, six deep on the east, two deep north and south, and two on the west; but this is partly incomplete, and six rows were apparently intended. Some of the rocks which form the outer boundary are very large...There are 56 of these rocks...which are granite, were evidently brought from the Shahpoor hills, a distance of three miles. There is no granite nearer - the geological formation changing to gneiss and laminar limestone nearly from the foot of those hills; and there are two deep nullas or rivulets, with scarped banks, between, which must have proved a great obstacle in rolling these masses, which is the only means by which I can conceive that they were moved."