Hawitta
As havitta is on the Maldives artificially incurred hill, contains the building structures from pre-Islamic times. These could have been dagoben or step pyramids. Originally, outer retaining walls in these buildings were made of neatly machined stone slabs, even decorated with reliefs in older times, and any kind of bulk material. For the latter, in addition to limestone, sand or untreated coral blocks, demolition material from earlier buildings was also used.
The first descriptions of Hawittas were made in the West by HCP Bell , who carried out archaeological studies in the Maldives for the first time in 1922.
Emergence
In the course of Islamization, all earlier sacred buildings were destroyed and most of the outer shells were removed as building material. The Buddhists had shown similar fanaticism six hundred years earlier. It was not until 1980 that such vandalism was officially banned by law.
The square foundations of some of the early buildings were also used for the oldest mosques in the Maldives (for example Malé and Nilandu), so that these were not oriented towards Mecca, as actually prescribed, but exactly north-south and east-west.
Thor Heyerdahl visited the archipelago several times between 1982 and 1984, and under the direction of archaeologist Arne Skjølsvold , excavations were carried out for the first time according to 20th century standards. A number of well-preserved boundary walls were uncovered below the ground level of the looted stone piles. Radiocarbon dating showed that the buildings were built around the year 500 for the places examined, but the bulk material also contained fragments of neatly worked stones from earlier times.
Even before the Buddhist Dagoben, which were created around 500 and were simply plastered with lime, there must have been buildings with much finer stone carvings that remained undated, but whose relics were found in the bulk material. Heyerdahl makes it credible that these step pyramids were similar to the ziggurats , on the top platform of which a temple or shrine could have stood. Local traditions, in which there are up to nine platforms with a “house” on them, also indicate this.
purpose
The material collected by Heyerdahl, Prof. Skjölsvold and Skjölsvold's student Johansen documents the existence of Buddhist stupas from pre-Islamic times, as Bell was already certain.
However, there were references to earlier Hindu places of worship at the same place, as well as references to even earlier sun worship.
literature
- HCP Bell: Excerpta Máldiviana. Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Colombo 1922-1935. (Reprint: New Delhi 1998, ISBN 81-206-1221-3 )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Thor Heyerdahl: Fua Mulaku. Journey to the forgotten cultures of the Maldives. Bertelsmann, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-570-01800-8 , pp. 145 .
- ↑ Thor Heyerdahl: Fua Mulaku. Journey to the forgotten cultures of the Maldives. 1986, p. 143 .