On Thursday December 15 we were joined by Venkatesh Rao, who had arrived in the night by train. We spent the day at the Peda Uppalam site.
There was little visible above the surface, after the locals had leveled off the fields. The locals said that some years ago they had come across a concentration of brick fragments some 30 m away from the Buddha statue.
We collected surface sherds from a few fields. Most of the fields were not currently under cultivation, which made it possible for us to walk around easily. Whether there were any sherds or bricks to collect was heavily dependent on whether the fields had been recently plowed or not.
After lunch we walked around the village and recorded an isolated standing stone and an ancient water reservoir.
Some villagers
The standing stone
In the late afternoon we drove around the area and went to the beach a few kilometers away at Patapolavaram. There were remnants of a brick structure at the top of a hill there.
Our vehicle got a flat tire, which took a while to change and get fixed in the neighboring village, so we got back to Raju’s farm well after dark.
The dug-out field
We also saw an isolated stone carved with feet in the middle of a field.
In the late afternoon I walked to a nearby hill, where there was only slight trace of any site.
The nearby hill
We returned to Raju’s farm at sunset.
The team at Peda Uppalam
We walked around and thought through what to do. At the core of the site is a statue of the Buddha that a local farmer had found some decades ago, which he placed in a small structure as a shrine. That structure served as our base as we walked around the agricultural fields of the village.
Some local boys bringing flowers to Anja and Ilse at the Buddha statue
There was little visible above the surface, after the locals had leveled off the fields. The locals said that some years ago they had come across a concentration of brick fragments some 30 m away from the Buddha statue.
The area of concentrated brick fragments.
General view of the area
After lunch we walked around the village and recorded an isolated standing stone and an ancient water reservoir.
Some villagers
Ilse and Venkatesh measuring an ancient water reservoir
In the late afternoon we drove around the area and went to the beach a few kilometers away at Patapolavaram. There were remnants of a brick structure at the top of a hill there.
The remnants of a brick structure at the beach at Patapolavaram
Our vehicle got a flat tire, which took a while to change and get fixed in the neighboring village, so we got back to Raju’s farm well after dark.
On Friday December 16 we returned to Peda Uppalam. Anja spent most of the day processed the pottery we had collected, while Ilse and I walked around the general area, especially a field where the soil had been dug out, producing sections that revealed the layering of soil. There were sherds only in the top layer.
The soil section at the dug-out field
We also saw an isolated stone carved with feet in the middle of a field.
Anja and the stone carved with feet
The nearby hill
We returned to Raju’s farm at sunset.
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