SOUTHERN INDIA, March 19, 2004: (HPI note: this is an old, but interesting story.) Kupgal Hill was first discovered in 1892 but it has only been recently that archaelogists have documented the significance of the site in their journal Antiquity. The news release explains, “The Kupgal Hill site includes rocks with unusual depressions that were designed to be struck with the purpose of making loud, musical ringing tones. A dyke on Kupgal Hill contains hundreds and perhaps thousands of rock art engravings, or petroglyphs, a large quantity of which date to the Neolithic, or late Stone Age (several thousand years BC). Researchers think shamans or young males came to the site to carry out rituals and to ‘tap into’ the power of the site. However, some of it is now at threat from quarrying activities. These boulders may have been an important part of formalised rituals by the people who came there. In some cultures, percussion plays a role in rituals that are intended for shamen to communicate with the supernatural world. The Antiquity work’s author, Dr Nicole Boivin, of the University of Cambridge, UK, thinks this could be the purpose of the Kupgal stones.”
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