DELHI, INDIA—The Hindustan Times reports that a covered drain paved with stones and topped with an arch lined with thin, burnt clay bricks was discovered by members of the Archaeological Survey of India at the Red Fort, a fortress built of red sandstone by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in A.D. 1639. The drain once connected the fort’s Delhi Gate to the surrounding moat. Researchers are now removing silt from the drain, and then will strengthen it, so that it will once again be able to serve as a channel for rainwater. Historian Swapna Liddle suggests that all of the drainage collected in the fort was probably funneled to the moat, while water collected in the surrounding city was transported to another large drain. To read about trade routes maintained by the Mughal and Persian Empires in what is now Afghanistan, go to "Satellites on the Silk Road."
