{"it":{"id":"ASI-HAM","kind":"site","sub":"Asia","name":"Hampi (Group of Monuments)","place":"India","lat":15.334,"lon":76.462,"date":"see measurements","mat":"granite (Dharwar craton)","nfacts":13,"tags":["Asia"],"sum":"When struck, some stone pillars in Hampi's temples in India ring like musical notes, carved so the stone itself becomes an instrument.","why":"Stone pillars in an Indian temple that ring like notes when struck, and no record of how.","src":[420],"nsrc":6,"yt":"How do you tune a stone pillar without instruments to measure sound?","rel":["SAM-003","EUR-014"],"hook":"56 stone pillars at Hampi ring like musical notes when struck."},"S":{"420":["Wikipedia: Hampi","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampi"]},"rec":{"id":"ASI-HAM","alias":[],"ms":[{"f":"Vitthala mahamandapa musical pillars","a":"pillars studied","v":"11","u":"count","o":"","unc":"","by":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","yr":"2008","m":"as stated","c":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","pg":"","url":"https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2945170","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2978"},{"f":"musical columns","a":"acoustic method","v":"sound recording, low-frequency ultrasonic, impact echo, in-situ metallography","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","yr":"2008","m":"as stated","c":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","pg":"","url":"https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2945170","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2979"},{"f":"musical columns","a":"result","v":"spectral peaks match calculated flexural frequencies from dimensions + ultrasonic velocity","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","yr":"2008","m":"as stated","c":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","pg":"","url":"https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2945170","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"explained by beam physics","id":"M2980"},{"f":"excavation","a":"history","v":"IGCAR study = first scientific investigation of pillars (2008)","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","yr":"2008","m":"as stated","c":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","pg":"","url":"https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2945170","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2981"},{"f":"musical pillar","a":"acoustic model","v":"frequencies match Euler-Bernoulli flexural modes","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Patil & Gajbhar","yr":"2012","m":"as stated","c":"Patil & Gajbhar","pg":"","url":"https://doi.org/10.1109/spcom.2012.6290213","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M2982"},{"f":"Hampi","a":"dating (Vijayanagara capital)","v":"14th-16th c. AD; sacked 1565","u":"","o":"","unc":"","by":"Wikipedia (Hampi)","yr":"","m":"derived","c":"Wikipedia (Hampi)","pg":"","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampi","b":"S","bb":"","t":"INTERPRETATION","n":"INTERPRETATION (historical)","id":"M2983"},{"f":"site point","a":"elevation (DEM SRTM 30 m)","v":"426","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"NASA SRTM via OpenTopoData","yr":"2026","m":"as stated","c":"NASA SRTM via OpenTopoData","pg":"","url":"https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/srtm30m","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3039"},{"f":"site point","a":"elevation (DEM ASTER 30 m)","v":"418","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"NASA/METI ASTER GDEM via OpenTopoData","yr":"2026","m":"as stated","c":"NASA/METI ASTER GDEM via OpenTopoData","pg":"","url":"https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/aster30m","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3040"},{"f":"Vitthala mahamandapa pillar 11","a":"column \"ding\" fundamental frequency","v":"646","u":"Hz","o":"","unc":"","by":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","yr":"2013","m":"as stated","c":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","pg":"","url":"http://durvasula.com/Taranga/Musical_Pillars_with_Video_Proc_of_Acoustics_2013.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"FFT of recording","id":"M3240"},{"f":"pillar 11","a":"column \"dong\" fundamental frequency","v":"538","u":"Hz","o":"","unc":"","by":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","yr":"2013","m":"as stated","c":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","pg":"","url":"http://durvasula.com/Taranga/Musical_Pillars_with_Video_Proc_of_Acoustics_2013.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3241"},{"f":"mahamandapa","a":"musical pillar count & height","v":"56 pillars, each 3.6 m","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","yr":"2013","m":"as stated","c":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","pg":"","url":"http://durvasula.com/Taranga/Musical_Pillars_with_Video_Proc_of_Acoustics_2013.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"40 in aisle, 16 central court","id":"M3242"},{"f":"temple enclosure","a":"dimensions","v":"164 x 94.5","u":"m","o":"","unc":"","by":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","yr":"2013","m":"as stated","c":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","pg":"","url":"http://durvasula.com/Taranga/Musical_Pillars_with_Video_Proc_of_Acoustics_2013.pdf","b":"S","bb":"","t":"MEASUREMENT","n":"","id":"M3243"},{"f":"mahamandapa","a":"acoustic study (11 pillars)","v":"peak frequencies match flexural frequencies from dimensions + ultrasonic velocity","u":"text","o":"","unc":"","by":"Kumar, Jayakumar, Rao et al., JASA 124:911","yr":"2008","m":"derived","c":"Kumar, Jayakumar, Rao et al., JASA 124:911","pg":"","url":"https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2945170","b":"S","bb":"","t":"INTERPRETATION","n":"impact-echo, metallography; solid granite","id":"M3244"}],"lab":[],"eng":[],"ori":[],"gaps":[{"a":"largest_block","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"block_mass","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"slope_face_angle","r":"no published face/slope angle in sources reached (often n/a for non-pyramidal sites)"},{"a":"wall_batter","r":"no published batter survey in free sources"},{"a":"orientation","r":"no published azimuth reached"},{"a":"corner_precision","r":"no published precision survey in free sources"},{"a":"levelness","r":"no published levelling survey in free sources"},{"a":"geochem_petro","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"quarry_source","r":"not found in free sources reached"},{"a":"mortar","r":"dry-stone construction or no binder analysis in free sources"},{"a":"tool_marks","r":"no tool-mark study in free sources reached"},{"a":"volume_labor","r":"no volume/labour estimate in sources opened"},{"a":"construction_phases","r":"no phase sequence in sources opened"},{"a":"lab_date_material","r":"no lab date with dated material in sources opened"},{"a":"magnetic_radiation","r":"no published magnetic/radiation survey found (searched site name + magnetometry/radiation; Wikipedia, Google Scholar snippets)"},{"a":"artifacts_found","r":"no finds row yet"}],"dat":[],"aa":[{"id":"AA038","a":"musical pillars imply lost acoustic science","who":"Praveen Mohan (YouTube) [not opened]","main":"flexural beam modes (Kumar 2008)","ms":"https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2945170","st":"contradicted","n":"measured peaks match calculated flexural frequencies","nl":7}],"ac":[{"v":"musical pillars imply lost acoustic science","who":"Praveen Mohan (YouTube) [not opened]","url":"","b":"I","ce":"frequencies explained by flexural beam modes"}],"me":[{"v":"skilled Vijayanagara masons","ev":"Kumar et al. 2008","s":"https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2945170"}],"ci":[],"cq":[],"sd":[],"sub":[],"site":{"age":"see measurements","dm":"","lab":"NO","weak":"","unesco":"","dens":"STUB"},"co":{"lat":"15.33444","lon":"76.46222","src":"Wikipedia/Wikidata (Q26732)","agree":"agree","b":"V","note":"Wikidata vs OSM delta 0.0014 deg (~0.15 km)","osm":"https://www.openstreetmap.org/node/345110048"},"src":[{"id":null,"t":"Kumar et al. (IGCAR), JASA 124:911","u":"https://doi.org/10.1121/1.2945170"},{"id":null,"t":"Patil & Gajbhar","u":"https://doi.org/10.1109/spcom.2012.6290213"},{"id":null,"t":"Wikipedia (Hampi)","u":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampi"},{"id":null,"t":"NASA SRTM via OpenTopoData","u":"https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/srtm30m"},{"id":null,"t":"NASA/METI ASTER GDEM via OpenTopoData","u":"https://api.opentopodata.org/v1/aster30m"},{"id":null,"t":"Durvasula et al., Proc. Acoustics 2013","u":"http://durvasula.com/Taranga/Musical_Pillars_with_Video_Proc_of_Acoustics_2013.pdf"},{"id":"VASI-HAM-7","t":"UNESCO World Heritage Centre: Group of Monuments at Hampi","u":"https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/241/"},{"id":"VASI-HAM-8","t":"Times of India: Hampi’s musical pillars with QR codes","u":"https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/hubballi/discover-hampis-unique-musical-pillars-with-qr-codes/articleshow/115741580.cms"},{"id":"VASI-HAM-9","t":"Incredible India (Government of India): Vitthala Temple complex, Hampi","u":"https://www.incredibleindia.gov.in/en/karnataka/hampi/vitthala-temple-complex"},{"id":null,"t":"Prasad, M. G. and Rajavel, B., “Musical Pillars and Singing Rocks”, Noise and Vibration Control Laboratory, Stevens Institute of Technology (conference paper, full text)","u":"https://www.durvasula.com/Taranga/Musical_Pillars_and_Singing_Rocks.pdf"}],"sum":"Tap one column with a fingertip and it answers with a clear, high note. Tap its neighbour and the note drops. Move your hand a little way along the same shaft and the pitch can change again. The columns are not bronze or wood. They are granite, solid granite, carved five centuries ago by people who had no instrument that could measure a sound wave, and they stand in a ruined temple in southern India that was looted for six months and then left to the wild animals.\n\nThe temple is the Vitthala, and the ruined city around it is Hampi. It lies on the Tungabhadra River in central Karnataka, in a strange country of piled granite boulders, rounded and rust-coloured, that look as if a giant had been stacking them and walked away. The name comes from Pampa, the old name of the river. Long before any empire, pilgrims came here because the landscape was holy: local tradition holds that this is Kishkindha, the kingdom of monkeys in the Ramayana, where the god Rama met Hanuman during his search for his stolen wife.\n\nFrom 1336 to 1565 Hampi was something much grander than a pilgrimage town. It was Vijayanagara, the \"City of Victory,\" capital of the empire UNESCO calls the last great Hindu kingdom. Historians estimate that by 1500 it may have been the second-largest city in the world, after Beijing, and probably the richest in India. Traders came from Persia and Portugal. In 1520 a Portuguese visitor, Domingo Paes, wrote that the city was \"as large as Rome, and very beautiful to the sight ... the best provided city in the world.\" He described groves and gardens, water flowing through conduits into the middle of the city, and lakes.\n\nWhat survives is still enormous. The protected area covers about 4,187 hectares, more than forty square kilometres, and holds more than 1,600 surviving remains: forts, temples, gateways, pillared halls, royal stables, bazaars and an engineered network of tanks and channels that UNESCO describes as unique. Wide chariot streets run between rows of colonnaded halls where merchants once kept their shops. One of them, outside the Vitthala, runs for almost a kilometre.\n\nThe Vitthala is the jewel of it all. UNESCO names it the most richly decorated structure at Hampi and the high point of Vijayanagara temple architecture. It stands in a walled, cloistered enclosure about 164 metres long and 94.5 metres wide, entered through three gateway towers. In its courtyard is the most photographed object in the city: a shrine to Garuda, the eagle who carries the god Vishnu, carved out of granite in the shape of a temple chariot, complete with stone wheels. It is so famous that India's tourism ministry notes it appears on the country's 50-rupee note.\n\nIn front of the chariot opens the great hall, the mahamandapa, where the music lives. It holds 56 musical pillars, each 3.6 metres high, roughly twice the height of a tall man. Forty stand in an aisle and sixteen form a central court. They are not simple posts. Each main pillar is a cluster of slender carved columns, of different thicknesses, shapes, lengths and finishes, and those slender columns are what sing. Local tradition says the hall was used for public festivals of music and dance. Visitors were long told that some columns sound the seven notes of the scale and others imitate instruments: the stringed veena, the tabla and mridanga drums, a bell, a conch.\n\nWho ordered all this, and why, is less clear than you might expect. Researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology date the temple to the 15th century. Most scholars place its main construction in the early to mid 16th century, and some books say work began under King Devaraya II and carried on under Krishnadevaraya, Achyutaraya and probably Sadasivaraya. The inscriptions carry the names of many donors, men and women alike, which suggests the complex was paid for by many patrons over many years. In an empire forever at war with its northern neighbours, a temple like this was more than devotion. It was a statement, carved in the hardest stone at hand, that the City of Victory was rich, ordered and permanent.\n\nIt was not permanent. In 1565, at the Battle of Talikota, a coalition of Deccan sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara army and beheaded its ruler, Aliya Rama Raya. The victors entered the capital and spent six months pillaging, burning and breaking it. Then they left, and so did nearly everyone else. Work on the Vitthala appears to have stopped with the city. A few decades later the Italian merchant Cesare Federici found the houses still standing \"but emptie,\" with nothing living in them \"but Tygres and other wild beasts.\" When the Scottish surveyor Colin Mackenzie mapped the ruins in 1800, he too found only wildlife.\n\nThe pillars survived it all, and they went on ringing. For generations visitors tapped them, until, before 2008, the Archaeological Survey of India stopped the practice because the stone was weakening. Today the Survey has fixed QR codes to ten of the pillars. Scan one, and your phone plays a 25-second recording of the sound you are no longer allowed to make.\n\nScience arrived late. In 2008 a team from India's Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research published what it called the first scientific study of the pillars. It chose the eleven most popular, recorded their sound, and probed the granite with low-frequency ultrasound, impact-echo testing and on-site analysis of the stone's structure. The result was clean. The strongest frequencies of each column matched the bending frequencies calculated from its size and from the speed of sound through the stone. A slender granite column, fixed at both ends, behaves like a beam. Strike it and it flexes very slightly, and the rate at which it flexes, set by its length, its thickness and the stiffness of the rock, is the note you hear.\n\nLater measurements made the point sharper. M. G. Prasad and B. Rajavel recorded two columns of the famous pillar 11, known for sounding like a doorbell. The \"ding\" came out at 646 hertz, the \"dong\" at 538 hertz, a little more than a tone and a half apart. Another column gave two different notes, 495 and 646 hertz, depending on where it was struck. Rumours that the pillars hide hollow chambers have no support: the studies found them solid, with notes that follow from their dimensions alone.\n\nThat is the mainstream account, and on the physics it is settled. The researchers describe the pillars as man-made structures that display the acoustic knowledge of Hindu temple architects. They also note that nature makes ringing stone without any help, from the \"singing rocks\" of Pennsylvania and Montana to those of Cumbria in England. Some modern commentators argue the pillars imply a lost science of sound; the measured frequencies do not need one.\n\nAnd yet the physics answers only half the question. It explains how a column sings. It does not explain how the masons chose the dimensions that made it sing a particular note. To tune a beam of granite you must cut it, test it and cut again, and a slip of the chisel cannot be undone. Neither UNESCO nor the acoustic studies record the builders' methods, tools or tuning rules. No manual survives. Whether the notes were planned to a musical scale, or simply accepted as each column came off the block, is still an open question.\n\nHampi is not alone. Musical pillars stand in the Meenakshi temple at Madurai, the Nellaiappar temple at Tirunelveli and the temple at Suchindram in Tamil Nadu, and near Chennai a single column gives two notes, 129 and 150 hertz, depending on where it is struck. Somewhere in the south of India, then, there was a craft tradition that knew how to make stone hold a note, and passed that knowledge between workshops without writing it down where we can find it.\n\nA city of 1,600 monuments was looted and emptied in a single season. Its kings, its markets and its gardens are gone. In its finest hall, the columns still give back the notes their makers gave them. Who taught those makers to hear what was hidden inside a block of granite, and what else did they know that they never set down?","qs":["How do you tune a stone pillar without instruments to measure sound?","Were the notes planned, or a happy result of shaping the stone?","Is a recording a fair trade for never hearing the pillars struck again?"],"gal":[{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Wide_angle_of_Galigopuram_of_Virupaksha_Temple%2C_Hampi_%2804%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Wide_angle_of_Galigopuram_of_Virupaksha_Temple%2C_Hampi_%2804%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wide_angle_of_Galigopuram_of_Virupaksha_Temple,_Hampi_(04)_(cropped).jpg","title":"Wide angle of Galigopuram of Virupaksha Temple, Hampi (04) (cropped).jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","by":"iMahesh","cap":"The wide-angle view of the Galigopuram of the Virupaksha Temple in Hampi captured from Hemakunta Hill complex. The photograph showcases the Gopuram's towering h"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/15th-16th_century_ruins_of_market_and_Vaishnavism_Achyutaraya_Tiruvengalanatha_temple%2C_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka_3.jpg/1280px-15th-16th_century_ruins_of_market_and_Vaishnavism_Achyutaraya_Tiruvengalanatha_temple%2C_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka_3.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:15th-16th_century_ruins_of_market_and_Vaishnavism_Achyutaraya_Tiruvengalanatha_temple,_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka_3.jpg","title":"15th-16th century ruins of market and Vaishnavism Achyutaraya Tiruvengalanatha temple, Hampi Hindu monuments Karnataka 3.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","by":"Ms Sarah Welch","cap":"Achyutaraya temple, also called Tiruvengalanatha temple, was completed by early 16th century. A Vaishnavism temple, it had a large market. Both are now in ruins"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/15th-16th_century_ruins_of_market_and_Vaishnavism_Vitthala_temple%2C_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka.jpg/1280px-15th-16th_century_ruins_of_market_and_Vaishnavism_Vitthala_temple%2C_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:15th-16th_century_ruins_of_market_and_Vaishnavism_Vitthala_temple,_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka.jpg","title":"15th-16th century ruins of market and Vaishnavism Vitthala temple, Hampi Hindu monuments Karnataka.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","by":"Ms Sarah Welch","cap":"Vitthala temple complex is one of many quarters of the Vijayanagara Empire's old capital of Hampi. It consists of a shrine complex with an entrance gopurum, a m"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3d/15th_century_aqua_duct_to_Mahanavami_platform_Pushkarani_step_well%2C_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka_3.jpg/1280px-15th_century_aqua_duct_to_Mahanavami_platform_Pushkarani_step_well%2C_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka_3.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:15th_century_aqua_duct_to_Mahanavami_platform_Pushkarani_step_well,_Hampi_Hindu_monuments_Karnataka_3.jpg","title":"15th century aqua duct to Mahanavami platform Pushkarani step well, Hampi Hindu monuments Karnataka 3.jpg","lic":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0","by":"Ms Sarah Welch","cap":"Each major Hindu temple complex in Hampi had a large water tank which were called Pushkarani (Jain temples of Hampi also feature a small water tank, usually in ","alt":"Each major Hindu temple complex in Hampi had a large water tank which were called Pushkarani (Jain temples of Hampi also feature a small water tank, usually in"},{"src":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/1_Frescoe_at_Virupaksha_temple%2C_Hampi%2C_Karnataka%2C.jpg/1280px-1_Frescoe_at_Virupaksha_temple%2C_Hampi%2C_Karnataka%2C.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1_Frescoe_at_Virupaksha_temple,_Hampi,_Karnataka,.jpg","title":"1 Frescoe at Virupaksha temple, Hampi, Karnataka,.jpg","lic":"CC BY 4.0","licurl":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0","by":"Pradipta.S","cap":"Interior Virupaksha temple."}]},"img":null,"md":null,"hh":[{"v":"Granite","h":"Made of: Granite (Dharwar craton)","s":[155]}],"hs":{"155":["Wikipedia: Hampi (and sources cited there)","https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampi"]},"lh":{"s":"img/h/ASI-HAM.webp","w":1280,"h":640,"o":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/dd/Wide_angle_of_Galigopuram_of_Virupaksha_Temple%2C_Hampi_%2804%29_%28cropped%29.jpg/1280px-Wide_angle_of_Galigopuram_of_Virupaksha_Temple%2C_Hampi_%2804%29_%28cropped%29.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail"}}