Golkonda: Home of Diamonds

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The tourist is bound to marvel at the military architecture and civil engineering works in the fort, which is in the shape of a rhombus surrounded by a glacis. The fort, really a complex of four forts, remained unscathed till a traitor opened the Fateh darwaza for Aurangzeb’s army to enter. This darwaza is 13 feet wide and 25 feet high and is one of the eight gateways, which are well known. Another important gateway is the Banjara darwaza.

Today’s engineers cannot but wonder at the acoustics system of the fort. Even the rustle of leaves at the Fateh darwaza, which is at the lowest level of the fort area, can be heard clearly at the Bala Hisar pavilion on the top of the acropolis. What seems today fun for the tourists was in reality a strategic signalling system to alert the barracks about attempts to attack or sneak into the fort by hostile forces.

The water supply system is no less ingenious. Water was stored in huge cisterns at the foot of the hill and transported upwards through clay pipes to all quarters of the fort. Water was brought to the fort tanks from the Durg tank, which is about five kilometres from the fort. Remnants of the networked clay pipes (which carried water to the upper levels of the fort through the mechanism of a series of Persian wheels) can still be seen as a reminder of the hydrological engineering skills of the day. Water was thus pumped up to the fountains, the royal baths and kitchens in the fort.

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