Two large pits, about 30 feet deep were discovered in a road adjacent to Gun House and Vishwamanava Udyanavana in Mysore, on Monday.
While conspiracy theories, such as, the pit was the entrance to a secret tunnel, or was once used to store gun powder during Wadiyar’s rule and others surfaced, both historians and the department of Archaeology have rubbished the theories.
The pits have stairs for a person to climb down to it, with iron bars along the sides of the stairs. The sides of the pit have been constructed in concrete.
The pits were discovered, after Manjunath B V, Corporator of ward number 1, instructed Mysore City Corporation officials to close a pothole in the road during the first week of May. The work inspector who inspected the spot, observed that there was a 30 foot pit right below the pothole, and said that the pothole could not be closed.
Manjunath said that after a few days, a decision was taken to close the pothole with a concrete slab. “Prior to that, I had written to the Department of Archaeology, Heritage and Museums to explore the pit. On Monday, when workers started clearing the area to cover the pothole with a concrete slab, another pit of the same dimension was discovered near the old pit,” he said.
C G Betsurmath, Commissioner of the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage, said that such pits were a common feature, and ruled out that the pits could be entrance to either secret tunnels or was used to store gun powder by the Wadiyars. He said that it could have either been for underground drainage, or could have been used for water supply for establishments around the Palace. Moreover, the structure has features of a storm water drain, rather than a secret tunnel, he said.However, experts will take a look into the pit, in order to assess whether it was structure of historical significance.
Historian Nanjaraj Urs, said that the pit could have been used either for water supply or as a purification pit. Ruling out that it could be a secret tunnel, he said that it was unnecessary for the Wadiyars to dig secret tunnels, at least during the period when the pits were constructed.
“There was a township inside the Palace premises, where about 8,000 people lived. The pits could have been used to store water from the nearby Doddakere, for the use of people living in the township,” he said.
Sources in Archaeology department said that the pits were not more than 60-70 years old, considering the material used for their construction.