Friday, October 2, 2009

RaniKot Fort - Dadu Pakistan

Ranikot Fort. Located about 30 km southwest of Sann, in the Kirthar Range, approximately 120 kms from Hyderabad Toll Plaza and 262 kms form Karachi. It is one of the largest forts in the world.
It has an approximate diameter of 9 km. Its walls are on the average 6 meters high and are made of gypsum and lime cut sandstone and total circumference is about 29 km. While originally constructed for bow and arrow warfare it was later expanded to withstand firearms.

World's largest Fort - Rani Kot - Sann - Dadu. It is reputed to be the largest unexplored fort in the world. The purpose of its construction and the reason for the choice of its location are still unknown.

Ranikot is the most talismanic wonder of Sindh. Visible from five kilometers away its massive undulating walls twist and dip over the hills. With the circumference of more than twenty nine kilometers, its walls, built with dressed sandstone and reinforced with 45 bastions along the outer wall, of which 7 are rectangular and the remaining are round. All modified through the ages to accommodate the use of gunpowder, this perhaps makes it the largest fort in the world. Who constructed it first and why? Is an enigma yet to be resolved by researchers. Some historians attribute it to Arabs, built by Imran Bin Musa Barmaki, the Governor of Sindh in 836 A.D., some to Sassanians, and some to the Greeks or Romans and some to the Persians, and some even to the Great Wall of China! Though the prehistoric site of Amri (Aamri) is nearby, and fossils and animal skeletons are found inside the fort on the Lundi Hills, there is no trace of any old city inside the fort. The present structure doesn't appear to be 'prehistoric'. Some historians point to 17th century AD as its time of first construction but most agree that some of the present structure was constructed or reconstructed by Mir Karam Ali Khan Talpur and his brother Mir Murad Ali in 1812 AD at a cost of 1.2 million rupees (Sind Gazetteer, 677). Read More

1 comment:

RennyBA's Terella said...

Thanks for taking us with - have never been there you know and it's seams quite exotic to a Norwegian.

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