TN excavation finds link to Indus Valley Civilisation

Artefacts excavated from Keezhadi in Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu date back to 580 BCE establishing a possible continuity between Tamil Brahmi scripts and the one existed during the Indus Valley Civilisation, a report on the fourth phase of excavation in the vast area revealed on Thursday.

The artefacts found during the excavation at Keezhadi, 15 km from Madurai the capital of ancient Pandian Kingdom that is credited with developing Tamil by bringing out impeccable literature and poetry, has also established that an urban civilisation existed on the banks of River Vaigai that was contemporary to the Gangetic plain civilisation.

Five years and four rounds of excavation later, Keezhadi has been the cynosure of all eyes – the fourth round of digging done by the Archaeological Department of Tamil Nadu government had stumbled upon more concrete evidence in the form of artefacts to prove that not just a human civilisation, but an industrial civilisation existed along River Vaigai during the Sangam Era.

The fifth round of excavation is on and permission has been sought for further rounds of digging in Keezhadi, Archaeology and Tamil Development Minister ‘MaFoi’ K Pandiarajan said, after releasing the report.

The report said six-carbon samples collected from the fourth season of excavations at Keezhadi, which were sent to Beta Analytic Lab in Miami in the US for AMS [Accelerator Mass Spectrometry] revealed that they go back to 580 BCE.

“The Keezhadi cultural deposit could be safely dated between 6th century BCE and 1st century CE. After analysing the AMS dates obtained from Keezhadi excavations, Prof K Rajan, a noted archaeologist, felt that the recent excavations at Keezhadi present strong evidence to some of the hitherto held hypotheses. The results suggest that the urbanization of Vaigai plains happened in Tamil Nadu around 6th century BCE as happened in Gangetic plains,” the report added.

Likewise, the recent scientific dates obtained for Keezhadi findings pushback the date of Tamil-Brahmi to another century i.e. 6th century BCE. The results have also established that people living in the 6th Century BCE had attained literacy or learned the art of writing.

The report also suggested that people in Keezhadi during the sixth century BCE mainly depended on agriculture and cattle rearing, based on 70 samples of skeletal fragments that were sent to Deccan College, Postgraduate and Research Institute, Pune to analyse the faunal remains.

The findings also suggest that Sangam era that basked in the glory of rich literature and culture had begun much earlier than it was thought to be. The fourth phase of digging had yielded tremendous results—six gold objects, a huge-sized black and redware bowl, large collections of terracotta objects, Tamil Brahmi scripts on earthen potteries and huge numbers of drawings of ‘Fish’ – which was the emblem of the Pandian Dynasty that ruled Madurai – were found during the excavation.

The silver lining of the fourth phase was a black and redware bowl of a big size found during the fourth phase. “This shows there might have existed a social club or socialising events. Presence of terracotta mould and its face and also yarns from there points to the fact that an industrial habitation might have existed on the banks of Vaigai,” a senior official said, adding that no objects meant for worship have so far been found.