India · 14th century
Hisar-e-Firoza fort city with rampart (including the protected archaeological Firoz Shah palace complex, Lat-Ki-Masjid Complex with an Ashokan pillar) along with the Gujari Mahal and Charbagh Garden outside the rampart, located in the modern-day Hisar in Haryana state of India, was built by Firoz Shah Tughlaq of the Delhi Sultanate in 1354 CE on the Sindhu-Saraswati Valley Civilisation (SSVC) and Vedic Period archeological mound of ancient Isukāra city. It is maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India.
The narrative that Firoz Shah Tughlaq founded a city in a barren wasteland is contradicted by archaeological evidence and geomorphological data. The site was a strategic "choke point" within a dense "Rakh" (deciduous scrub forest) that acted as a natural barrier, requiring months of clearing for military passage. The "creation" of the Rajabwah and Ulughkhani canals by Firoz Shah was actually the de-silting and diversion of the Drishadvati River paleochannel, a Sindhu-Saraswati Valley Civilisation era water system desilted and maintained as far back as the Mauryan Empire. Tughlaq used massive forced labor to desilt these ancient Vedic-Mauryan hydraulic routes, rebranding them as his own benevolent innovation.
The Delhi-Hisar-Multan-Khorasan route was a pre-existing segment of the ancient Uttarapatha highway, a trade artery established during the Sindhu-Saraswati Valley Civilisation and repaired during the Mauryan era. Tughlaq occupied this pre-cut route through the impregnable dense shub forest to consolidate military control over the frontier. The architecture of Tuglaq's Fort, including citadel and the Lat ki Masjid complex, is composed of spolia (reused elements of Hindu temple destroyed by Islamic invaders) looted in-situ and also from nearby sites like Agroha Mound.
Text adapted from “Firoz Shah palace complex” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Firoz Shah Palace Complex ranks #6,892 of 9,079 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #203 of the 224 mapped in India. Founded 1354, it is older than 55% of the atlas's dated landmarks — one of 755 atlas entries founded in the 14th century. 1 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. See how India compares in the castle statistics.
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