Kuthannoor (or Kuthanur, Kuthannur, Kuthanoor) is a
gram panchayat
Gram Panchayat () is a basic village-governing institute in Indian villages. It is a democratic structure at the grass-roots level in India. It is a political institute, acting as cabinet of the village. The Gram Sabha work as the general bo ...
in the
Palakkad district, state of
Kerala
Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South C ...
,
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
. It is a local government organisation that serves the villages of
Kuthannur-I
Kuthannur-I is a village in Palakkad district
Palakkad District () is one of the 14 districts in the Indian state of Kerala. It was carved out from the southeastern region of the former Malabar District on 1 January 1957. It is located ...
and
Kuthannur-II
Kuthannur-II is a village in Palakkad district
Palakkad District () is one of the 14 districts in the Indian state of Kerala. It was carved out from the southeastern region of the former Malabar District on 1 January 1957. It is located a ...
.
It is a part of the Tharoor assembly constituency.
One of the six "
sangams
The Tamil Sangams (Tamil: சங்கம் ''caṅkam'', Old Tamil 𑀘𑀗𑁆𑀓𑀫𑁆, from Sanskrit ''saṅgha'') were assemblies of Tamil scholars and poets that, according to traditional Tamil accounts, occurred in the remote past. ...
" or associations of
Tholpavakoothu
Tholpavakoothu (Malayalam:തോൽപാവകൂത്ത് , Tamil:தோல்பாவைக்கூத்து) is a form of shadow puppetry that is practiced in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, India. It is performed using leather puppets and is per ...
, a form of puppetry, originated in Kuthanur.
Krishnan Kutty Pulavar Memorial Tolpavakoothu & Puppet Centre
Krishnan is a common name in South India. Krishnan refers to the Hindu deity Krishna. Krishnan is also combined with other names into a single name such as Ananthakrishnan, Balakrishnan, Gopalakrishnan, Jayakrishnan, Muralikrishnan, Ramakrishnan ...
perform puppetry performances at Nadumannath Bhagawathi and Kuthannur Kavu temples in Kuthanur.
Megalithic
A megalith is a large stone that has been used to construct a prehistoric structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones. There are over 35,000 in Europe alone, located widely from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea.
The ...
relics have been discovered in ten acres of reserved forest at
Muppuzha, Kuthanoor. These comprise 100 port-hole cists that show strong similarities with
dolmen
A dolmen () or portal tomb is a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb, usually consisting of two or more upright megaliths supporting a large flat horizontal capstone or "table". Most date from the early Neolithic (40003000 BCE) and were so ...
s from different parts of Europe, such as the
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula (),
**
* Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica''
**
**
* french: Péninsule Ibérique
* mwl, Península Eibérica
* eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...
, France, Caucasus mountains, Great Britain, Ireland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Israel.
The ''Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology'' describes a port-hole cist thus: "a box-like burial chamber, largely underground and built of gneissic orthostats floorstone and capstone but arranged inside a rectangular pit scooped out of the native laterite. The e. orthostat has a port-hole which is blocked by a small slab on the outside. The entire structure is surrounded by a stone circle. The cist sometimes has a bench inside ..."
References
Gram panchayats in Palakkad district
{{Palakkad-geo-stub