City to host international history meet

Hyderabad: After the successful conduct of Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), the government is to conduct an international seminar on history on January 19-20. Telangana holds a unique position of being the youngest state in India but one of the oldest sites of human habitation in the country.

Telangana State Archaeology department director N R Visalatchi said, “Tracing Telangana’s historic roots in the above fields is one of the foremost priorities of the Department of Heritage, Government of Telangana and keeping this goal in view the department proposes to conduct a two-day international seminar.”

The theme for the seminar is “Telangana Through Ages: Perspectives from Early & Medieval Period.” Heritage activists are a happy lot. Arun V K, a student of Archaeology says, “This is going to be the first major seminar after the formation of Telangana State. We hope it would renew interest especially among the younger lot.

” Revathi, a heritage enthusiast and a regular participant of heritage walks held in the Old City says, “Hyderabad is not just about the Qutub Shahis and Asafjahis. I am looking forward to the seminar.”

This region is unique, as it has yielded prolific evidence in almost all cultural stages of human history. Strategically located at the centre of the Indian sub-continent, the region has been a point of interaction of various cultures from near and far. 

During early period this region was part and parcel of Maurya empire and later on ruled by Satavahanas, Vishnukundins, Chalukyas of Badami, Rashtrakutas, Chalukyas of Kalyani and Kakatiyas. In the medieval period Bahmanis, Padma Nayakas, Qutb Shahis and Asafjahis ruled.

During the above period tremendous development took place in the fields of art and architecture. Various religious schools viz., Buddhist, Jain and Hindu flourished in the region. In their wake, they paved way for evolution of iconography and religious pantheons in the region. Great strides were made in coinage. 

Coins made of gold, silver, copper, potin and lead were minted from this region and they developed to be great source of information for linguistics, art and history. Potter crafts and paintings, mainly Deccani miniatures are the other important art forms emerged from this region.