Arikamedu Archaeological Site, Ariyankuppam – History

Arikamedu Archaeological Site, Ariyankuppam – History

The first mention about Arikamedu was in 1734, in a communication from the Consul of the Indo-French colony of Pondicherry. It informed the French East India Company that villagers were extracting old bricks from the Virampattinam. The earliest mention of the Arikamedu archaeological site was by Le Gentil of France, who the King of France had assigned to observe notable astronomical occurrences in the world. Gentil, after visiting Arikamedu, confirmed the earlier report of the Consul of the Indo-French colony.

In 1765, when he visited the ruins at the site, he found the people of the village collecting large ancient bricks exposed at the river bank. The villagers told him that they had retrieved the bricks from an old fort of the king the Vira-Raguen. In 1937, Jouveau Dubreuil, an Indologist, also from France, purchased gem stone antiquities from local children, and also gathered some exposed on the site's surface. In particular, he found an intaglio carved with the picture of a man. As a numismatist, he identified the intaglio as Augustus Caesar. He also found fine beads and gems. He concluded that these antiquities belonged to the Roman Empire.

Dubreuil informed the local Governor of Pondicherry about his find, and called Arikamedu "a true Roman city." He published a short note about his findings. In the early 1940s, Service des Travaux Publics carried out random excavations. Father Fancheux and Raymand Surleau, who were not qualified archaeologists, carried out the excavations at Arikamedu and sent a few antiquities to Indian museums, and also to the École française d'Extrême-Orient in Hanoi.

Sir R.E.M. Wheeler, the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, in the 1940s saw a few potsherds of Arikamedu site displayed in the Madras Museum, which he identified as Arrentine ware, an expensive ceramic made until 50 CE in Arizzo, Italy. Thereafter, when he visited the Pondicherry Museum and saw more of the findings from the Arikamedu site, he was impressed and thought that he had found the links between the Classical Mediterranean and Ancient India. Soon thereafter in 1945, the penultimate year of World War II, he mounted excavations in a scientific manner.

He was looking for an archaeological site in India that could establish its cultural link, a datum of the Indian antiquities to the Greco-Roman period, and this quest led him to the Arikamedu site. These excavations also involved Indian archaeologists, who were trained on the site. Wheeler published his findings in 1946. He noted that, for the local fishermen of the village, the antiquities were strange—as they consisted of lamps, glass items, gemstones, cutlery and crockery, wine containers, etc. He also observed that traders traveled from west coast and from Ceylon, Kolchoi (Colchi) and the Ganges area to trade goods such as gems, pearls and spices, and silk. 

He carried out excavations carefully, so that none of the antiquities were damaged. This was followed by investigations after the war, from 1947–1950 by Jean-Marie Casal. His report of excavations was not as fully published as Wheeler's. His report was not well known in India, as it was not written in English. However, his important conclusion was that the site belonged to an early megalithic period, as he had located megalithic burials marked by stones, locally known in Tamil as Pandukal close to the site.

The excavations led to antiquities of Roman origin such as beads and gems, amphorae (wine making vats) with remnants of wine, a Roman stamp, big bricks recovered from an old wall, Arretine ware and so forth. From these antiquities Wheeler concluded that the site was related to a period of trading with Rome, and that it was first established by emperor Augustus. He also noted that this Indo-Roman trade lasted for a period of about 200 years, till 200 CE.

Wheeler also found the Chinese celadon, identified to belong to the Song-Yuan dynasty, and Chola coins from about the eleventh century, but these were rejected as despoiling items or remnants left by brick-robbers. Items Chinese blue-and-white ware were also recovered from the site. Wheeler noted that "rouletted Ware" found at the site (designated as "Arikamedu Type 1" in the scientific study under the "Arikamedu Type 10 Project: Mapping Early Historic Networks in South Asia and Beyond") was not of an Indian origin, but was from the Mediterranean region. A ceramic sherd, ("Arikamedu Type 10) has also been investigated for its style and spatial distribution.

After a gap of several decades, in the early 1980s, Vimala Begley studied the ceramics find of the site and proposed a preliminary version of the chronology of the occupation of the site. At the same time, she started researching on the beads, organized a proper sequential display of the artifacts of the site at the Pondicherry Museum, and brought out an information brochure. Begley obtained approvals to carry out excavations at the site in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Madras; she and K.V. Raman were the directors of operation from 1989 to 1992.

Steven Sidebothom of the University of Delaware, who had back ground knowledge of Roman Egypt, was in charge of the trenching at the site. Further excavations were done during six working seasons from 1989 to 1992, which led to a contradictory view that the brick structures and the wells investigated by Wheeler were of poor quality as they were founded on poor sandy foundations. The wood work was also noted to be of poor quality and the houses had no waterproofing. The excavations also lead to a view that Arikamedu's Roman trading link was more of an inference. The excavations have now established that the trading with Rome extended to a period beyond that assessed by Wheeler; that trading continued from the second century BCE to the seventh or eighth century CE.

The extensive findings of glass and stone beads at the site provided Begley the link to Arikamedu's history. She identified the beads as Indo-Pacific beads crafted at Arikamedu. Based on the antiquities and structural features from the excavations, Begley and Raman established a revised sequence of six major periods of occupation of the site. Finds of new variety of Roman Amphorae ware also facilitated revision of the dates of occupancy. They have also inferred that the site has been in continuous occupation since at least 2nd or 3rd century BCE to much more recent times.

Formerly it was considered that Arikamedu was abandoned right after 200 A.D. but fragments of amphoras and a copper coin of Constantine I minted between 306 & 324 A.D. found suggests that Arikamedu was occupied from 300 A.D. to 700 A.D. There is also considerable evidence to suggest that the site was occupied during medieval Chola times. Finds of Chola coins, Chinese Celadon pottery and other East Asian glazed ceramics suggest occupation of the site and some involvement in the medieval East-West maritime trade as well. Some pottery found here are very similar to the eleventh century pottery of "Gangaikondacholapuram".

Decorated spouts of water jars and clay lamps of the medieval period were also present. Two perpendicular walls were accidently laid open and it was suggested that the bricks of this wall and that found in Gangaikonda Cholapuram are similar, although one cannot be sure. Therefore, it was not possible to place the two walls in any specific time period yet. Except for the perpendicular walls and mission house, there is not much that can be seen on the surface as the excavated trenches have been filled up. Coconut and Mango trees were seen in abundance.