1,000 Mysurean rockets of Tipu Sultan found in a well in Karnataka

More than 1,000 rockets of Tipu Sultan's era have been found in the course of an excavation exercise inside a well in Shivamogga (Shimoga).

Known as Mysurean rockets, the ordnance was used during Tipu Sultan's era in the 18th century.

The smell of gunpowder from a closed but abandoned well at Shivamogga district in Karnataka led to the finding of more than 1,000 corroded rockets.

A team of 15 archaeologists took three days to excavate these rockets and unearthed the armoury. The rockets measure between 12 to 14 inches.

The rockets will be displayed at a museum in Shivamogga. There is a fort in Shivamogga, that belonged to Tipu Sultan's kingdom. These rockets are said to be used in wars Tipu Sultan fought against the East India Company in the 18th century.

One of the most riveting  episodes of Tipu Sultan's war against the East India Company involved the use of such rockets. His father Hyder Ali was known to have used such rockets in his battles too.

An English soldier in Colonel Arthur Wellesley's army, Bayly had to say this about the rockets: "So pestered were we with the rocket boys that there was no moving without danger from the destructive missiles".

"The rockets and musketry from 20,000 of the enemy were incessant. No hail could be thicker. Every illumination of blue lights was accompanied by a shower of rockets, some of which entered the head of the column, passing through to the rear, causing death, wounds, and dreadful lacerations from the long bamboos of twenty or thirty feet, which are invariably attached to them," Bayly wrote in his memoirs.

Tipu Sultan's fight with East India Company also resulted in the British learning about the rocket technology. It is said that they advanced European rocketry and had the Congreve rocket in 1805.

Tipu Sultan died in the fourth Anglo-Mysuru War against the East India Company on 4 May 1799.

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