Munckal Beach

Now renovated Muncackal beach is readily waiting for tourists.This is new project With the part of Muziris heritage project

Muziris: Ancient Kerala's trading city

These are conclusive evidence that even centuries before the dawn of Christian era, Kerala's teak found its way across continents. Teak was used for manufacturing ships in the Battle of Trafalgar that brought victory to Nelson.

Historian A Sreedhara Menon from Kerala wrote in his book The Survey ofKerala History that “it was the demand for pepper of Kerala that brought European powers like the Portuguese, the Dutch, the French and the English to Kerala coast and led to the establishment of European domination of the country”.

Aromatic plants and spices of Kerala attracted the attention of foreigners from time immemorial. It was pepper, cardamom, cinnamon and ginger that largely filled our export basket while we got gold in return. The ancientgateway that facilitated such trading was neither Kochi nor Calicut but Muziris, which is now linked to Kodungallur in Ernakulam district.

Recently, worldwide attention was again focused on the destroyed seaport of Muziris following excavations done by a team of scientists led by Dr Alberta Tomer in Pattanam near to Kodungallur.

They had unearthed Chera and Roman coins, a bead chain and Roman artefacts in the sub-soil behind Mahadeva temple in a house owned by Rajagopal, an employee of Hindustan Machine Tools. Tower was assisted by Dr Selva Kumar, Dr Shajan and P K Gopi. The find attracted international attention and some claimed that Pattanam was indeed Muziris.

Kerala government had last year constituted a Muziris heritage project and directed Kerala Council of Historical Research (KCHR) to conduct further excavations. However, P J Cherian, director of KCHR, told Commodity Market that it was impossible to conclude from available evidence that Pattanam was indeed Muziris.

It is true that traders and merchants stayed in the place but the area and infrastructure is too small to accommodate a major port like Muziris. The area between Kodungallur and Cheranallur is the most likely place of Muziris, he added.

KCHR director said that further excavations beginning from February 2008 may come up with more evidence of maritime activities of ancient times. KCHR exploration so far has revealed that maritime activity in the region was as old as BC 500. Pattanam could have had links with the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea and the South China Sea since ancient times.

WHAT LED TO THE FALL OF MUZIRIS?
Any historian or anyone connected with spices cannot help wondering what would have happened to Kerala and also India if the sea-faring merchants had not identified the Muziris port. Muziris is referred to as Murachipattanam in the Valmiki Ramayana, as Muchiri in Tamil Nadu and as Muzirikode in the Jewish Copper Plate of Bhaskara Ravi Varman (1000 AD).

Pepper formed the bulk of West-bound cargo from Kerala. “Though Roman trade declined from 5th century AD, Muzuris continued to enjoy its old commercial prosperity as it attracted the attention of other nationalities, particularly the Chinese till the flooding in Periyar river in 1341, which choked the mouth of the harbour of Muziris,” Sreedharan Menon wrote in his book. The destruction of Muziris proved a blessing for Cochin port and Calicut.

Pattanam, a sleepy hamlet on the banks of the river Periyar

Pattanam, a sleepy hamlet on the banks of the river Periyar does not show up on the map of central Kerala, but there is evidence now that this tiny village once had maritime contacts with far-off lands in the 1st century A.D. Research, done in February-March 2007, reveals that this village, 25 km north of Kochi, was a busy, international hinterland port town and had an Indo-Roman settlement.

The recovered artefacts hint at Pattanam having an urban habitation since the Iron Age dating to 1500 B.C. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radio carbon analysis done by Bhubaneswar's Institute of Physics of the charcoal samples, remnants of a wooden canoe and bollard has established the town's pre-historic antiquity.

Besides the sand layers and megalithic pottery, excavated material includes pieces of Roman amphora (wine jar), rouletted ware, Parthian-Sassanian pottery, West Asian ceramics, glass beads, semi-precious stones, chera copper coins and Roman golden rings dating between 1st century B.C. and 5th century A.D.

"It's the first habitation site of the Iron Age unearthed in the Malabar Coast. The excavations mark a breakthrough," says P.J. Cherian, director, Kerala Council of Historical Research (KCHR), which led the two-month-long exercise.

It was in 2004, that Pattanam first caught the attention of archaeologists. They were trying to trace Muziris, a legendary port mentioned in many ancient literary pieces and travelogues.

Trial excavations and surface surveys by local archaeologists provided preliminary understanding of the site as the Iron Age wares and shreds were recovered from homesteads and school grounds.

This led to the launch of a multi-disciplinary and archaeological study as a part of Heritage Project of the Kerala government with technical assistance from various scientific institutions and laboratories.

KCHR scholars say that indigenous people seem to have settled here when the area was covered by sand beaches. The sand deposits contained shreds of black and-red ware and other megalithic pottery.

Iron nails, fragments of Roman glass bowls (pillared bowls), shreds of terra sigillata (Arretine ware), Mesopotamian ceramics and Yemenite ceramic torpedo jar were also recovered. "They are evidences of brisk overseas trade and intense occupation," says K.P. Shajan, who pioneered this discovery.

Rouletted wares, which were found extensively in the Eastern Coromandal coast, were reported for the first time in the West Coast. Excavations have also unearthed sand layers containing shreds of Sassanian-Islamic turquoise or blue-glazed pottery dating back to early medieval period (5th to 10th century A.D.).

Prominent findings include remnants of a wooden canoe, which was dug out of a homestead. Carbon dating has estimated its age to be between 1300 B.C. and 100 B.C. Another structure, seeming to be a wharf according to KCHR scholars, was adjacent to a waterfront as the water-logged traces indicate.

A component of this carefully-built, bricklined structure was a row of seven wooden pegs, which were possibly used as bollards to secure boats moored to the wharf. Its age is somewhere between 800 and 200 B.C. A 6m x 6m platform with numerous pits assumed to have been used as a warehouse, was found in a trench.

These findings also indicate an unexplained break of habitation between 11th and 16th century as no remnants have been found from that period. However, it appears to have resumed in the 17th and 18th centuries, as indicated by the recovery of shreds of Chinese blue-and-white ceramics.

It is inferred that the port town was abandoned between 10th and17th centuries, which marks the beginning of the colonial occupation. Pallippuram Fort, the firstever European fort in India, is located less than 5 km from this site.

Search for India's ancient city

Archaeologists working on India's south-west coast believe they may have solved the mystery of the location of a major port which was key to trade between India and the Roman Empire - Muziris, in the modern-day state of Kerala.

For many years, people have been in search of the almost mythical port, known as Vanchi to locals.

Much-recorded in Roman times, Muziris was a major centre for trade between Rome and southern India - but appeared to have simply disappeared.

Now, however, an investigation by two archaeologists - KP Shajan and V Selvakumar - has placed the ancient port as having existed where the small town of Pattanam now stands, on India's south-west Malabar coast.

"It is the first time these remains have been found on this coast," Dr Sharjan told BBC World Service's Discovery programme.

"We believe it could be Muziris."

Key evidence

Pattanam is the only site in the region to produce architectural features and material contemporary to the period.

"No other site in India has yielded this much archaeological evidence," said Dr Roberta Tomber, of the British Museum.

"We knew it was very important, and we knew if we could find it, there should be Roman and other Western artefacts there - but we hadn't been able to locate it on the ground."

Muziris is located on a river, distant from Tindis - by river and sea, 500 stadia; and by river from the shore, 20 stadia Roman description of the location of Muziris

Until recently, the best guesses for the location of Muziris centred on the mouth of the Periyar river, at a place called Kodungallor - but now the evidence suggests a smaller town nearby, Pattanam, is the real location.

Drs Shajan and Selvakumar now meet locals on a regular basis as they continue their work, with some older people in particular remembering picking up glass beads and pottery after heavy rains.

Undoubtedly, they told Discovery, the many pieces of amphora are from the Mediterranean - a key to establishing Pattanam as the place where Muziris once stood.

"These amphora are so common," Dr Shajan said.

"We have hundreds of shards of Mediterranean pottery."

Mystery disappearance

Muziris became important because of the Romans' interest in trading, and their desire to have contact with regions beyond the reach of conquest and set up trading routes with these places.

"India had a long fascination for the Romans, going back to Alexander the Great," Dr Tomber said.

Glass and precious stones are key finds in the site area

"Alexander was a huge model for succeeding Roman emperors, and the fact that he had been in India and brought back tales of the fantastic things, the people and products there, heightened the Roman desire to continue that association."

What is known, from a 1st Century document, is that the harbour was "exceptionally important for trade."

Clues to its location are provided in ancient Indian texts. Professor Rajan Gerta, from Mahatma Gandhi University in Kerala, said that there are many references to "ships coming with gold, and going back with 'black gold'" - pepper.

"These ships went back with a whole lot of pepper and various aromatic spices, collected from the forests," he added.

Merchants from a number of different cultures are believed to have operated in the port, and there are numerous Indian finds from the time as well as Roman ones.

In 1983, a large hoard of Roman coins was found at a site around six miles from Pattanam.

However, even if Muziris has been found, one mystery remains - how it disappeared so completely in the first place.

Dr Tomber said that it has always been presumed that the flow of the trade between Rome and India lasted between the 1st Century BC through to the end of the 1st Century AD, but that there is growing evidence that this trade continued much longer, into the 6th and early 7th Century - although not necessarily continually.

"We're not quite clear how long it went on in Muziris, and the more evidence we can gather from the artefacts, the clearer the picture that will build up," she added.

"What is interesting is that in the 6th Century, a Greek writer, writing about the Indian Ocean, wrote that the Malabar coast was still a thriving centre for the export of pepper - but he doesn't mention Muziris."

Kerala city date back to 500 BC

n ancient city excavated on Kerala's Malabar coast had trade links with many key centres around the world as far back as 500 BC, fresh archaeological evidence says.

The Institute of Physics in Bhubaneswar has also concluded that the site, which archaeologists named Pattnam, was actually the ancient city of Muziris. It is located seven kilometres from Kodungallur in Ernakulam district.

According to P.J. Cherian, director of the KeralaCouncil of Historic Research (KCHR), the city had maritime links with cities along the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, Arabian Sea and South China Sea.

"The antiquity of Pattanam extends back as far as the first millennium BC as determined by the Institute of Physics," said Cherian. KCHR and the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) are conducting the ambitious research as part of the Muziris Heritage Project.

Cherian, the project director, said experts have analysed charcoal samples and parts of the wooden canoe and bollards recovered from a waterlogged context and excavated from the site.

"The mean calendar dates of these five samples place the antiquity of ancient maritime activity of Pattanam at about 500 BC, with an uncertainty of less than a century," Cherian told IANS from Thiruvananthapuram.

He said the samples have undergone Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) - the analytical technique of choice for the detection of "long-lived" radio nuclides which cannot be practically analysed with decay, counting or conventional mass spectrometry, apart from radiocarbon analysis.

"It is the first time such analysis has been done for an archaeological site in Kerala," Cherian said.

The organic samples from the site are also being analysed at the Hyderabad-based National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI). The results are awaited.

Pattanam is the first habitation site of the Iron Age unearthed in Kerala.

Excavations there - the last of which were carried out in February last year - have produced evidence of the area's strong trade ties with ancient Rome, Yemen, the Middle East and even the Nabatian civilisation of the Arabian peninsula.

Archaeologists K.P. Shajan and V. Selvakumar along with Cherian have been involved in the excavations. The Indian Navy's Southern Command is supporting the team in underwater excavations.

The state government is moving to declare the area "protected" in order to prevent further damage to the samples, some of which may have been damaged already. "The government has begun the procedure to acquire the land," Cherian said.

The excavations had produced fragments of imported Roman amphora, mainly used for transporting wine and olive oil, Yemenese and West Asian pottery, besides Indian roulette ware that was common in the east coast of India and in Egypt. (IANS

The project was launched by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Govt of Kerala. It aims at retrieving the historical heritage of the Kodungallur-Paravur region and plans a combination of heritage management initiatives in its restoration, conservation and access to the public. KCHR, identified as the nodal agency for Muziris Heritage Project provides academic guidance and undertakes archaeological / historical research in the region. KCHR Chairman Dr. K. N. Panikkar submitted a concept note on Muziris Heritage Project pointing out the possibilities and potential of the proposal.

researchers had not so far been able to identify the actual physical location of Muziris. The search for the legendary town on the Malabar coast had been focussed on the northern banks of the Periyar, on the basis of literary evidence from Sangam literature and "Periplus of the Erythrean Sea", among others.

However, the remains unearthed from the area belonged to the 12th century AD, whereas Muziris had been a bustling urban settlement more than 1,000 years earlier. Nothing had been found from the area with a clear Roman connection, a fact which baffled both Indian and foreign researchers. All that they knew was that it was located near the mouth of the Periyar.

Among other things, what led Dr. Shajan and his team to Pattanam was clear geological evidence which suggested that the river Periyar had shifted its course from the south to the north over the millennia. A branch of the Periyar, called the Periyar Thodu, runs close to Pattanam and satellite imagery indicates that the Periyar delta lies on the southern side and the river could have flowed close to Pattanam about 2,000 years ago. This would place the ancient site alongside the Periyar in keeping with the descriptions in literary sources.

The residents of the Pattanam site, which is known by the names of `Neeleswaram' and `Ithilparambu' at present, regularly used to come across a large amount of broken pottery shards and ancient fired bricks while digging the ground. In fact, the ancient bricks were commonly being used along with laterite blocks for construction purposes, Dr. Shajan said.

The site covers an area of about 1.5 sq km and the deposit is about two metres thick. It has produced fragments of imported Roman amphora, mainly used for transporting wine and olive oil, Yemenese and West Asian pottery, besides Indian rouletted ware common on the East Coast of India and also found in Berenike in Egypt. Bricks, tiles, pottery shards, beads and other artefacts found at Pattanam are very similar to those found at Arikamedu and other early historic sites in India.

The most striking finds from Pattanam are the rim and handle of a classic Italian wine amphora from Naples which was common between the late first century BC and 79 AD, when pottery production in the region was disrupted by the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Islamic glazed ware from West Asia indicate that the site remained active beyond the early historic period. The finds from Pattanam were displayed at the Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan today.

The director of the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR), P.J. Cherian, said etymological evidence supplemented the other evidence gathered from Pattanam. "The word `pattanam' is derived from Prakrit and Pali and means coastal town in almost all Indian languages. Oral traditions in the area too suggest that Pattanam was inhabited by foreigners in the distant past and was a well-known marketplace with wealthy people."

Project Muziris Heritage

The project was launched by the Department of Cultural Affairs, Govt of Kerala. It aims at retrieving the historical heritage of the Kodungallur-Paravur region and plans a combination of heritage management initiatives in its restoration, conservation and access to the public. KCHR, identified as the nodal agency for Muziris Heritage Project provides academic guidance and undertakes archaeological / historical research in the region. KCHR Chairman Dr. K. N. Panikkar submitted a concept note on Muziris Heritage Project pointing out the possibilities and potential of the proposal