Stories from Silent Stones: On the Shape of Wedge Marks as a Diagnostic of Stone‐Craft of Different Periods Meghana Kuppa 1 and Srikumar M. Menon 2 1 . St. Joseph’s College (Autonomous), 36, Langford Road, Langford Gardens, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560 027, India (Email: meghana.kuppa@yahoo.com) 2 . National Institute of Advanced Studies, Indian Institute of Science Campus, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560 012, India (Email: srikumar.menon@gmail.com) Received: 18 July 2018; Revised: 03 September 2018; Accepted: 05 October 2018 Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 6 (2018): 438‐486 Abstract: The Malaprabha Valley in north Karnataka, with the well‐known sites of Badami, Aihole, Pattadakal etc. are regarded as some of the earliest sites of temple architecture in stone in southern India. At the sites of the temples itself, as well as the quarries from which the stone for the temples were sourced, wedge marks created by the Early Medieval stonecutters can be noticed. These wedge marks, created by hammering in steel wedges to split the stone, are noticeably different from the wedge marks of the Late Medieval stonecutters of the Vijayanagara Empire at Hampi and surrounding areas. In this paper, we develop a method to characterize the shape of wedge marks, and suggest that it can be used to differentiate between monuments created by successive dynasties in regions which have architectural interventions of different periods. We demonstrate this in the case of Badami, by attempting to differentiate parts of the fort wall constructed by the Early Chalukyas from the interventions of Vijayanagara artisans, on the basis of the shape of wedge marks on split stones which form part of the wall. Keywords: Malaprabha Valley, Badami, Early Chalukya, Hampi, Vijayanagara, Ancient Quarries, Wedge Marks Introduction The Malaprabha Valley located in the Bagalkot district of Karnataka, South India, is an important center of early temple architecture in stone in the Deccan plateau, with the well‐known sites of Aihole, Pattadakal and Badami, in addition to several smaller but significant sites like Mahakuta, Huligemmana Kolla, Siddhanakolla etc. These sites are strung out along the valley of the Malaprabha River, which flows in a north‐easterly direction across the Deccan towards its confluence with the Krishna River (Michell 2011). Out of these three places, Badami, formerly known in medieval times as Vatapi, was the capital of the Early Chalukyan dynasty, also known as the Chalukyas of Vatapi (543 to 757 CE), who consolidated their power across a large part of South India from the 6 th to 8 th century CE. The earliest sanctuaries to come up in the Malaprabha Valley were the rock‐cut temples of Badami and Aihole, scooped out of sandstone cliffs these sites. However, these and other sites in the Malaprabha Valley also saw structural