The historic Qutub Shahi tombs in Hyderabad now has a digital twin. Hexagon, a reality technology solutions company, has used drone scanners to capture over 10.7 billion data points, representing the 10,000- square metre area.
IndiGoReach, the CSR arm of IndiGo, and InterGlobe Foundation, the philanthropic arm of InterGlobe Enterprises, organised their fifth Heritage Walk, which took place at the Qutb Shahi Complex in Hyderabad, Telangana, on January 20, 2024. This walk is part of the ‘My City My Heritage’ campaign, which seeks to promote awareness regarding the significance of heritage and culture in India.
By 2013, parts of the baolis (ancient stepwells) inside Hyderabad’s centuries-old Qutb Shahi tomb complex had collapsed. Rubble had collected. Granite stone blocks were missing. The park itself, a vast and wondrous necropolis, containing the tombs of the Golconda kings, lay dilapidated and ignored. But last month, 10 years after restoration commenced here, it was recognised with a UNESCO award of distinction.
The road beyond Toli Chowki is still called the saat gumbad (seven domes) road. But inside the necropolis of the rulers of Qutb Shahi dynasty, it is no longer the seven domes that are wowing tourists and visitors. The attention is drawn to the greenery, to the medieval hammam,funerary mosques, subterranean water channels, and stepwells. A dramatic transformation is underfoot at the necropolis that has shifted the spotlight from the monuments to a more holistic experience at the foothills of the Golconda Fort.
By 2013, parts of the baolis (ancient stepwells) inside Hyderabad’s centuries-old Qutb Shahi tomb complex had collapsed. Rubble had collected. Granite stone blocks were missing. The park itself, a vast and wondrous necropolis, containing the tombs of the Golconda kings, lay dilapidated and ignored. But last month, 10 years after restoration commenced here, it was recognised with a UNESCO award of distinction.
Think Qutb Shahi tombs, and the first image that probably comes to one’s mind are huge domes. Given that the massive tombs in the royal necropolis make for an imposing view of the city’s skyline, it is not surprising. With the royal necropolis, where all of the Golconda dynasty’s royalty is buried, being recently restored, the tombs complex has become one of the city’s must see heritage sites, even for locals.
In a first major boost to Hyderabad's claim for the world heritage tag, stepwells in Qutub Shahi necropolis bagged an award of distinction on Saturday at the 2022 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation at Bangkok. In another cheer for Telangana, the Domakonda Fort, 115km off Hyderabad in Kamareddy district, also won an award of merit from 50 entries across 11 countries in the Asia-Pacific region.
In a first major boost to Hyderabad’s claim for the world heritage tag, stepwells in Qutub Shahi necropolis bagged an Award of Distinction on Saturday at the 2022 UNESCO Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation at Bangkok.
UNESCO heritage sites — the Qutub Shahi tombs of Hyderabad stand resplendent 505m above sea level in what can be called one of the world’s largest medieval necro.
Unlike the Pharaonic catacombs of Alexandria in Egypt embedded deep in the ground or the scattered Makli mausoleums straddling 10km of Pakistan's Sindh province — all UNESCO heritage sites — the Qutub Shahi tombs of Hyderabad stand resplendent 505m above sea level in what can be called one of the world's largest medieval necropolises, built on an epic scale in sepulchral splendour.
The Qutb Shahi tombs have for long been a landmark in Hyderabad. But the baolis were only discovered in recent years and restored as part of a conservation effort undertaken by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) since 2013 in partnership with the state government — then of Andhra Pradesh and now truncated to Telangana after a division.
Restoring the necropolis of the Qutb Shahi dynasty of Golkonda, which ruled the region from 1518 to 1687, is an arduous task, one that has been in the works at the expert hands of Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC). For ten years now, integrated conservation and landscape restoration project at the Quli Qutb Shah Tomb complex in Hyderabad has been underway, which hopes to put this once-decrepit site on the world map, especially after its nomination to the Unesco&rsquos World Heritage List.
