A new site, built from published sources. Spotted a mistake? Please tell us
Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Peddabankur

Village near Peddapalli in the old Karimnagar district, beside a 30-hectare early settlement dug for the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archaeology and Museums before 1978. The dig found brick enclosures and 22 wells, two hoards of silver punch-marked coins, Roman coins of Augustus and Tiberius with Satavahana coins, and coins of the local king Samagopa.

Peddabankur is a small village in the Peddapalli taluk of the old Karimnagar district.1 Beside it lies an early settlement of about 30 hectares.1 V. V. Krishna Sastry dug it for several seasons for the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archaeology and Museums.1 Its finds show a village of the Satavahana period, with brick houses, wells, and silver, Roman and local coins.12

The site

The Karimnagar–Peddapalli road runs north to south almost through the site.1 A stream, the Hussaini Vagu, passes half a kilometre to the west and a kilometre to the south.1 It dries up in summer, but people still dig pits in its bed for water.1 The nearby granite hills gave stones such as carnelian, jasper and quartz for tools and beads.1

Krishna Sastry called Peddabankur a village of the Satavahana period.2 It had no rampart, unlike the walled town of Dhulikatta about 10 km upstream.234 Parabrahma Sastry, the historian of the Kakatiyas, named Pedubankur, with Kotilingala, among the sites that show Satavahana settlement in Telangana.5

Houses and wells

The dig found three large brick enclosures.4 Two measured 30 by 30 m and the third 18.75 by 18.75 m.4 Each had a single gateway at its north-east or north-west corner.4 Krishna Sastry thought that wealthy families lived in them.4

Inside the enclosures were houses, wells and cisterns.6 Some gateways were more than 3 m wide, wide enough for carts.6 Krishna Sastry saw each enclosure as a unit that met its own needs.6

The excavation exposed 22 wells, most of them lined with wedge-shaped bricks.37 When they dried up, people used them as rubbish pits.7 One well held the complete skeleton of a horse.7

Trade, weights and seals

The dig found iron rods from balances.8 It also found two stone weights.8 One of them, a ball of black granite, was stamped with the Ujjain symbol, four circles joined by a cross.8 Krishna Sastry took the stamp as a sign of royal control over weights.8

A terracotta seal from a level earlier than the Satavahanas carries a Brahmi legend with the title Mahatalavara.9 Rachna Lodaya lists Peddabankur among the find-places of Mahatalavara coins.10 She counts Mahatalavaras among the local governors of the Mauryas who later set up kingdoms of their own.10

Coins

The excavation gave two hoards of silver punch-marked coins, one of 168 coins and the other of 30.11 It also gave five Roman coins and four copies of them made of lead plated with gold.12 The copies have two holes, so that they could be worn round the neck.12

The Roman coins are of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius.13 All of them, with the copies, lay in the same layer as Satavahana coins of Satakarni and Gautamiputra.13 No Roman coin later than Tiberius was found.13 Krishna Sastry concluded that Roman contact with the region had ended by then.13

Coins of the local king Samagopa were also found at Peddabankur.14 His coins are best known from Kotilingala on the Godavari.14

Ajay Mitra Shastri compared the bricks with those at Satanikota in Kurnool district.15 He found Peddabankur’s bricks of the same size as those of the layer there that gave a coin of the Satavahana prince Saktikumara.15

Where the sources disagree

A coin with a large svastika (an auspicious cross) and the title Mahasenapati was found at Peddabankur.16 It came from a level earlier than the Satavahana coins.16 V. V. Mirashi had placed coins of this kind after the Satavahanas.16 From the find at Peddabankur, Krishna Sastry argued that such coins were earlier than the Satavahana coins.16

Footnotes

  1. V. V. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (PhD thesis, Karnatak University, 1978), p. 207 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8

  2. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 208 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  3. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 341 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  4. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 384 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  5. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal (1978), p. 197 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  6. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 224 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  7. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 342 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  8. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 334 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 217 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  10. Rachna Shamji Lodaya, An Integrated Approach to the Pre-Satavahana Coinage of the Deccan (PhD thesis, Deccan College, Pune, not before 2011), p. 91 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  11. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 324 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩

  12. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 331 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  13. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 332 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  14. Lodaya, Pre-Satavahana Coinage of the Deccan (not before 2011), p. 124 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  15. Ajay Mitra Shastri, Early History of the Deccan: Problems and Perspectives (1987), p. 8 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2

  16. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (1978), p. 328 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). Cite-only; paraphrased. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

People

Samagopa

King known only from his coins, found at Kotilingala, Peddabankur and Dhulikatta in the old Karimnagar district and at Chandrapur in Maharashtra. He issued more coins than any other Kotilingala king. Rachna Lodaya takes him for the last local king before the Satavahanas, ousted by Simuka about 52 BCE; P. V. Parabrahma Sastry took him for a Sunga king.

References

Sources (4)
  1. V. V. Krishna Sastry, Proto and Early History of the Karimnagar Region (opens in a new tab), Karnatak University, Dharwar (PhD thesis, supervisor B. K. Gururaja Rao), 1978, pp. 207–208, 217, 224, 324, 328, 331–332, 334, 341–342, 384. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  2. Rachna Shamji Lodaya, An Integrated Approach to the Pre-Satavahana Coinage of the Deccan (opens in a new tab), Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute, Pune (PhD thesis, guide V. D. Gogte), not before 2011, pp. 91, 124. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  3. Ajay Mitra Shastri, Early History of the Deccan: Problems and Perspectives (opens in a new tab), Sundeep Prakashan, Delhi, 1987, pp. 8. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]
  4. P. V. Parabrahma Sastry, The Kakatiyas of Warangal, Government of Andhra Pradesh, 1978, pp. 197. Cite-only; paraphrased. [All rights reserved (cited, not reproduced)]

Spotted an error on this page? Tell us

Last updated: