This 19th-century engraving of the tomb of Mohamed Adil Shah, the 7th ruler of Bijapur, Karnataka, was drawn by S. Prout, a British artist, after a sketch by R. Elliot, a Royal Navy officer. After the Bahmani kingdoms (1347-1526 A.D) fell apart, the Adil Shah dynasty of Bijapur rose to prominence as the most potent… Read more »
In the early history of map-making, the representation of cities was mostly done as sketches that were part of book illustrations or primarily bird’s-eye views. This composite view is part of Georg Braun and Frans Hogenberg’s, the Civitates Orbis Terrarum. The first volume of this landmark atlas was published in 1572, and its final volume… Read more »
This should give you an idea of how powerful the Vijayanagara dynasty was: they changed the entire currency system in south India. It was the ruler Hari Hara II who impressed upon the administration the importance of collecting state revenue in currency instead of in kind. This led to the mass production of coins in… Read more »
The last Sultan of Delhi was an unlucky man. When his father Sikander Lodi died, the nobles of the court saw an opportunity to curtail the power of the dynasty. So they created a dual monarchy and around the time that Ibrahim Shah Lodi ascended the throne in Delhi in 1517, his brother Jalal Khan… Read more »