New discovery in Tamil Nadu

[Dipak Bhattacharya]

The report is hardly realistic in its socio-cultural assessment but the findings are interesting. I tried Palani in the map without success.Has anybody any idea about its location?. The dating, if correct, might place it within the lifetime of or as linked to Arikamedu whose modus vevendi, according to the first reports (quite old now and may be outdated),  was limked to the urban centres of the North.. Its cultural-economic independence, too, was as much as that of Britain during Roman occupation and the few years that followed. The follow up of excavations is often not very encouraging. But link to proved Mauryan expeditions must be sought.
DB 
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--- On Sun, 28/6/09, George Hart <glhart at BERKELEY.EDU> wrote:


From: George Hart <glhart at BERKELEY.EDU>
Subject: New discovery in Tamil Nadu
To: INDOLOGY at liverpool.ac.uk
Date: Sunday, 28 June, 2009, 6:12 AM


See http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/28/stories/2009062854701600.htm

This is quite interesting, because it suggests that writing followed commerce into a rather remote area of Tamil Nadu around the 1st century BCE.  (It should also be noted that there is some dispute about whether the symbols are actually writing -- a disagreement quite familiar to most of us who have been following the IV "writing").  In any event, writing or not, this find is consistent with what is described in Sangam literature. Also notable is the word for "diamond" (if the writing decipherment is correct) as vayra < vajra, through Prakrit.  But the most interesting part of this is something no one mentions in the article -- the discovery of stirrups.  I'm hardly an expert on this, but Wikipedia says that stirrups are depicted about the 1st century BCE in Sanchi, and that is 500 years before anywhere else.  G. Hart



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