A hitherto unrevealed significant early historic habitation site was recently explored at Krosuru village in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.
Narrating the explorations to The Hindu, D. Kanna Babu, former Superintending Archaeologist, Archaeological Survey of India, Chennai, said that while he was conducting extensive exploration and architectural survey of the Kakatiya shrines, he stumbled upon the habitation site. After surveying the historical swayambhu kshetras of Sri Kunda Pada Aishwarya Lakshmi Narasimha Swamy rock-cut temple, an interesting ancient habitation mound is explored at the foot of the hillock, he said. “Unfortunately, the mound is cursed by nature by means of hectic rainy erosion and poor people have taken shelter there.
However a part of it is still intact, but trees are well-grown over it,” he said.
The cultural debris is about one-metre thick and characterises the habitation of early historic period. A fairly good number of ancient potsherds strewn over the mound were noticed during the course of exploration.
The ceramic finds include black and red ware, red ware, dull red ware, red slip ware, and burnished black ware.
The notable pottery shapes consisted of dishes, bowls, storage jars, basins, small to medium sized jars etc.
“These domestic earthen dishes bear a striking similarity with pottery discovered at Dharanikota, the fortified capital city of the celebrated Satavahana kings which is nearer to this village,” Mr. Babu said.
“Further, an interesting finding of this exploration is a fragmentary inscribed shred with letter ‘ka’ in Brahmi script of 1st Century A.D. These objects strongly suggest that the site may be dated to 1st or 2nd Century A.D. This chance discovery would surely strengthen the list of early historic sites so far found in the lower Krishna valley and also bring name and fame to Krosuru as a habitat of early man,” he said.