The Three Towns
The Three Towns
In ancient times Bayana was a great fortified city. By the time of the Āʾīn-i Akbarī, the shift of population following the 1505 earthquake had left the Fort abandoned and people scavenged there for weapons and utensils. The impregnable Fort had, however, been the reason for Bayana’s strategic importance, and the first Muslim town, called Sultānkūt, founded at the time of the Ghurid conquest, was built on the plain below. Within the old Tahangar or Vijayamandargarh fort the Muslims reconfigured the defences and also built a fortified town with a citadel or upper fort, a walled town, and an enclosure with farmland, wells and reservoirs to ensure self-sufficiency in times of siege. Later, at the time of Sikandar Lodī, when Bayana was considered for his capital, he built a new walled city called Sikandra between the town and the Fort, with many mansions and orchards outside the walls: a forerunner of the garden city of Agra. The three Bayana towns are surveyed and analysed in terms of their historic development and urban morphology.
Keywords: Fort, Sultānkūt, Ghurids, Tahangar, Vijayamandargarh, Sikandar Lodī, Sikandra of Bayana, Urban morphology
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