Mudumal's prehistoric site: Telangana's UNESCO hope

Hyderabad: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), including Telangana’s prehistoric archaeo-astrological site in Mudumal village to its tentative list of world heritage sites, has added a feather in the cap of Telangana’s rich culture and heritage, which has spanned ages.

While it is a great achievement, there is still a long way to go to get the world heritage tag, which is subject to scrutiny by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) whose visit is due.

The recent announcement will be followed by dossiers that will be exchanged between the Department of Heritage, Telangana and ICOMOS, and then the visit of experts from ICOMOS to Mudumal in Krishna mandal of Narayanpet district of Telangana, which is located on the banks of the Krishna River.

Nizam declared the site as protected monument

The site was declared a protected monument by Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam of the erstwhile Hyderabad State, after it was discovered by K Krishnamurthy in 1942, which was also published in the journal ‘Geological Report of Hyderabad State.’

British archaeologist Frank Raymond Allchin had also mentioned the site in his various works.

The Menhirs at Mudumal Megalithic burial site in Narayanpet district

Since 2003, Professor K Pulla Rao ( KP Rao), history professor at the University of Hyderabad, has been studying the astronomical factors at megalithic burials in 5-6 sites, including that of Mudumal in Narayanpet district, Goplapur in Jadcherla and Devarkadra of Mahabubnagar district.

It was in 2004, when he spoke at the Oxford archaeo-astronomy conclave held at Arizona State University in the US, that the Mudumal site grabbed global attention for the uniqueness of prehistoric humans who thrived there for thousands of years.

The east-west aligned Menhirs at the Mudumal Megalithic burial site in Narayanpet district The megalithic burials at Mudumal

Originally spread over 80 acres of land on the banks of the Krishna River, the megalithic burials at Mudumal have been conserved in 5-acre and 11-acre patches of land located close by.

The 5-acre land was originally assigned land, which was acquired by the Department of Heritage Telangana, and a boundary wall has been constructed around it along with a fence.

There are 164 menhirs that were placed where Neolithic people were buried. Among those, presently only 30 menhirs are still standing, even as rains and other weather events have been causing the menhirs to fall.

The legend of the Jogini and the shepherds

A local legend has it that there used to be a ‘Jogini’ who was living inside a temple located there. Jogini is a woman who is dedicated to the service of god after attaining adolescence, and is known to have been sexually exploited by the villagers.

The jogini went to some shepherds who were grazing their sheep and guarding their kodo millet produce, which was dried there. She requested them to give her some of their produce. The shepherds asked her to bring all their cattle from the banks of the river, and in return, they would give her the millets.

When she returned with their cattle, and the shepherds filled a basket with sand, topped it up with millets and asked her to leave.

As the jogini felt the basket was too heavy, she opened it to find that she had been tricked by the shepherds.

She cursed them to turn into standing stones (menhirs), and that was how they transformed and stayed that way. She cursed the sheep to turn into stone boulders, which can be found spread across the area.

Archaeological significance

The megalithic burials at Mudumal are unique, not just because of the arrangement of menhirs on the burials, but also because of boulders placed on the burials in different patterns. Some of the boulders were aligned perfectly with each other, while others were arranged in circles.

The boulders were not sourced from the Krishna river banks, but from some nearby hillock, and were brought all the way to the banks by Neolithic humans, to perform the burial.

There were a total of 1,639 boulders which have been placed in various forms on the burials inside and outside the 11-acre protected land. These were believed to be aged between 500 BC and 1500 BC, according to Dr KP Rao.

He cautions against arriving at an estimation on the age of the burials without conducting excavations and using carbon dating and other techniques. He tells Siasat.com that there is a possibility of different human settlements living in the same area, who could have followed different methods to bury their people in those days.

The unique archaeo-astronomical aspect of the Mudumal site

Mudumal Megalithic burials are unique because of the use of star constellations by prehistoric humans to know the directions while calculating seasons, and navigating.

One of the stones has the cup marks of the Ursa Major star constellation, which is popularly known as the Saptarishi Mandal in India.

The top two stars among the Ursa Major constellation, along with its peripheral stars, contain ‘Dubhe’ and ‘Merak,’ which always point to the ‘Pole Star,’ also known as the ‘North Star’, when an imaginary line is drawn through them.

What is remarkable is the genius of the Neolithic humans, who not only had astronomical knowledge but knew the exact orientation of stars, some 3,000 years ago.

“These kinds of Ursa Major depictions through cup marks have been found in other countries like Japan, South Korea and elsewhere. But nowhere in the world could Dubhe and Merak be seen pointing to the north. They succeeded in making the depiction, but the orientational fidelity or the directional synchronisation they didn’t succeed in observing. Whereas in Mudumal, very interestingly, we have this orientational fidelity,” Dr KP Rao told Siasat.com.

The Ursa Major/Saptarshi Mandal depiction at Mudumal Megalithic burial site

“This is the most unique feature of depictions at Mudumal site, and it is a strong point for us in proposing the site for inclusion in the list of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites,” Dr KP Rao affirmed.

It is not just the stars that they kept gazing at. They oriented their burials with the Sun, specifically, with the sunset and sunrise. The precision in their work could be seen in the way the menhirs were arranged in the 5-acre protected land.

Scientists, archaeologists, and heritage enthusiasts have been claiming that on the day of the Equinox, when the sun rises and sets, the sun orients perfectly with the Menhirs, some of which are oriented in straight lines.

What was seen on March 20, the day of equinox

During the recent ‘Equinox’, which appeared on March 20, at least one of the orientations could be seen. On one of the burials where stones/boulders were placed in circles, there was a small passage left towards the eastern side, which was believed to have been left like that to enable the spirit of the departed to enter the burial and leave.

The Sun setting on the evening of the equinox set exactly behind that burial, and that too between the passage left between the stone circles.

The alignment of the passage between the store circles on a burial clearly seen during the sunset of equinox on March 20, 2025

“Right now, we don’t know what is below these stone circles. When we excavate, we may find a pit burial, a cist burial, or even a pot burial. One special feature of this burial is the passage, which is oriented exactly in the east-west direction. There are 27 stone circles we have observed here, and there are various orientations of boulders scattered here, in different formations, which we are studying,” Dr KP Rao told Siasat.com on the evening of the equinox.

Just one of the stone circles at the Mudumal Megalithic burial site

There are many more east-west orientations/alignments of the Menhirs, stones arranged in circles, and boulders seen at different locations, with the rising and setting of the Sun. Dr KP Rao’s research on the archaeo-astronomical aspects of the site is still ongoing.

Need for excavations at Mudumal

Though the site has been conserved, thanks to the efforts of Dr KP Rao and Deccan Heritage Trust, there is a strong need for performing excavations at the site, which Rao says will reveal more about the burials and the Neolithic humans who lived on the banks of Kthe rishna River at Mudumal. He feels that it would strengthen the case for inclusion in the World Heritage Sites list if excavations were done and more aspects were studied.

An example of what excavations could reveal was seen in Pullur village of Siddipet district, where the heritage Telangana department had conducted excavations in 2015. The mortal remains found in the megalithic burials found there were sent to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) for DNA analysis. Interestingly, the DNA of the prehistoric people who had settled in Pullur matched with the people of Iraq, as per highly placed sources.

The report has been hushed up to enable an IAS officer to submit her PhD thesis on the subject for all these years, without putting the revelations in the public domain.

Environmental destruction around Mudumal

ICOMOS is very stringent in their screening, which was seen when the Ramappa Temple in Mulugu district was proposed to be included in the world heritage sites list. One of the aspects ICOMOS was very particular about was the larger perspective of the Kakatiyan architecture, including the lakes, other temples and specifically the boundaries of the site.

Though the case of the Mudumal site is different, environmental destruction has been happening unabated in that area.

For instance, there is only one major hillock located in Gudebellur, which is a few kilometres away from the Mudumal site, which has fallen prey to mining activity. The hillock, which locals call ‘gattu’, was probably one of the sources from which the Neolithic humans of Mudumal carried the boulders for their burials.

Mining of Gattu, a hillock in Gudebellur village located close to Mudumal site

Even before any studies could be done on that hillock, it has been indiscriminately destroyed over several years. The sight of monkeys squatting by the side of the road, while the stones are blasted on the hillock, is a telling tale of human, especially administrative, apathy.

Another issue of ecological degradation in Mudumal is the relentless illegal transportation of sand from the banks of the Krishna River.

The villagers told Siasat.com that the sand mafia has been paying Rs 50,000 per month to one of the farmers, just for using his land for transporting sand, as his land was coming in the way of heavy tractors and trucks being ferried in and out of the village. One can imagine the profits the sand mafia might be making.

Another issue directly concerning the Mudumal site is that though 16 acres have been protected, the burials are spread over 80 acres, which have become agricultural lands. One may not be able to ask the farmers to stop tilling their own land because they have title deeds.

The stone formations lying scattered and used as boundaries for fields in Mudumal village

However, Dr KP Rao has done a drone survey and satellite mapping and numbering of all the boulders, and he said that even if a single boulder is disturbed, it will be known. M Vedakumar of Deccan Heritage Trust has in the past warned the farmers against disturbing the boulders, though they could continue farming.

The Ramalingeshwara temple located on the banks of the Krishna river in Mudumal

Mudumal is rich in cultural diversity, as there are temples and a dargah from the medieval period, which add to the village’s portfolio of heritage.

A dargah in Mudumal village

Despite the bottlenecks, Dr KP Rao, who has spent the last couple of decades on researching and protecting the Mudumal site, is confident that the site will achieve the UNESCO’s world heritage tag for all the scientific reasons, which have put the village on the global stage, where it is bound to amaze the global heritage enthusiasts.

Get the latest updates in , , , , and on & by subscribing to our channels. You can also download our app for and .