Thirty Tamili and Prakrit scripts reveal 2,000-year-old India-Egypt trade

CHENNAI: About 30 inscriptions in Indian languages, primarily Tamili (Tamil-Brahmi) and Prakrit, have been discovered from the rock-cut tombs in the Valley of Kings, a renowned UNESCO World Heritage site, in Egypt, providing yet another clinching evidence of ancient trade links between India and the Middle Eastern country about 2,000 years ago.

Among the inscriptions found in six rock-cut tombs, 20 are in Tamili and the remaining 10 are in Sanskrit and Prakrit, implying that people from several regions of the Indian subcontinent were visiting Egypt, specifically the Valley of Kings within the ancient capital of Thebes, between the 1st and 3rd centuries AD to trade spices and other goods.

Prof. Ingo Strauch, Department of Slavic and South Asian Studies (SLAS), Lausanne, Switzerland, and Prof. Charlotte Schmid, EFEO, Paris, France made the disclosure here on Wednesday at an international conference on Tamil Epigraphy organised by the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology (TNSDA).

One of the inscriptions found in Egypt. 

Cikai Korran (Sigai Korran in modern Tamil), believed to be a trader who spoke Tamil and sailed from the ancient Tamilagam, has inscribed his name eight times in about five of the six tombs, in a significant discovery by the two researchers.

Korran is believed to have been derived from Korravai, a goddess of the Chera kingdom era who was mentioned in Silappathikaram (The Tale of an Anklet), an epic from the 2nd century CE. In one of the inscriptions, another individual was described in Sanskrit as a duta of a Ksaharata king.

“I could not believe finding Tamili inscriptions in Egypt. The tombs have been visited regularly by hundreds of thousands of people, but nobody had found them. Cikai Korran was inscribed in tomb number 14, and the interesting part is that there was only one graffiti in the whole tomb, which is about 6 metres tall,” Ingo Strauch told DH.

Ingo Strauch first found the Indian-language inscription in 2024, and he, along with Charlotte Schmid, has since uncovered 30 inscriptions. Prof. Charlotte Schmid termed the findings “really extraordinary,” because the 20 Tamili inscriptions found in Egypt represent a significant addition to the roughly 100 Tamili inscriptions found in India.

“This find raises questions about script usage, literacy, and why fewer inscriptions exist locally. It could well be due to the medium used, and trade practices of merchant communities like those of Korran, or limited readership and writing among certain groups,” she told DH.

The findings emphasize Tamili’s enormous scholarly value, the professor added. Both Ingo Strauch and Charlotte Schmid said the ancient travellers might have been multilingual masters of several languages and that they assumed that they were also reading Greek. Musiri trade contracts were written in Greek which shows that traders from India knew the local language.

“I don't think that the people who knew Greek were reading the Indian inscriptions, but the reverse was certainly true. No one could survive in the Roman period without reading and writing Greek,” Charlotte Schmid added.

Prof K Rajan, academic advisor, TNSDA, said that ancient India has had extensive maritime and transoceanic trade networks, spanning from the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) to the early historic period, emphasizing a predominantly one-way flow of goods from India westward.

After the IVC, the second phase intensified in the early historic era along India's west and east coasts with two trader groups emerging from Gujarat and from Tamilagam (Muziri in Kerala), using Tamil.

It has been established that Romans craved Indian luxuries like pepper, Rajan told DH, adding that the new findings by the two professors further demonstrate the trade links with ancient India and the Roman empire, and reopen debates on Tamil Brahmi's role in early literacy, and cultural exchanges.

The inscriptions from Thebes can be correlated with recent discoveries from Berenike, a Red Sea port that has been under excavation for more than three decades. At Berenike, longer inscriptions in Indian languages, including a recently discovered Tamil inscription-have been found, the professors said.