It’s Raining Cannons

Bangalore Metro Rail workers dig up cannons of Tipu Sultan era

Digging at a Bangalore Metro Rail site last week, workers hit a heavy metal object that wouldn’t be easily pushed aside. Site supervisors instructed the men to use a pickaxe around the object. After about an hour of digging, they found the obstinate thing—a cannon. The cannon presumably belongs to the Tipu Sultan era. The next day they found another cannon. The work site is in the Krishna Rajendra Market area in the heart of Bangalore. It is close to what used to be Tipu’s summer palace, and the adjoining grounds house a minor fort. Archaeological Survey of India officials believe these cannons are from the mid-1700s, when Tipu fought the British at Srirangapatna. “He had fortified his Bangalore garrison with cannons, which were possibly manufactured in the Ulsoor area of Bangalore where artisans with expertise in metal and gun casting lived and worked,’’ one of them says.

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Anil Budur Lulla