stone pillars and turned discs, Hampi

August 13, 2017
We arrived near Mahanavami Dibba around 1-45 PM. I found a spot of shade to park my Santro and happened to notice a pair of identical pillars. Simple looking but beautiful. The circular pillars had square bases and spherical top. It seems like the pillar's circular section was turned. Close to the top-end is a circular hole. The pillars are positioned such that the horizontal holes are aligned perfectly. It seems like a wooden pole or a metallic rod would have passed through these holes fixing it parallel to the ground.

A view through the hole.. the holes are aligned to drive a shaft through them.

Another view of the twin pillars. There are two more objects of interest here.. the stone slab and disc lying in the dirt. All these pieces seem to be related.

The middle portion of the slab has a circular hole and turning marks.. like in a lathe but the rotational axis is vertical. It seems like a circular spindle was fixed onto the plate which was rotated. And a cutting tool fixed to vertical shaft.

Here's how I'm imagining it to be. However, I'm still thinking how the job was rotated fast enough to perform the cutting action.

Looking at the job.. it has a center hole and turn marks. It seems like a work-in-progress job survived and somehow damaged. Was it meant to be a wheel or something else, I don't know.

This reminds me of the twin pillars near Zenana Enclosure which I called as elephant posts. Those pillars have two holes each which are alignment. So was that a heavier lathe. I did not see any other items near them.. something I must check out next time.
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