... I quickly started with my questions. “The Harappan connection reported in the press…” I was cut short by Amarnath. No, it is a misunderstanding, he explained. The size of the site can be compared to some Harappan sites but there is no real connection with Harappa. What they had discovered was exciting in its own right. This was the first time a settlement—an urban habitat—had been excavated so completely in Tamil Nadu. That is a major find.
“Could this be seen as part of the so-called second urbanization?” I asked. “No culture evolves in isolation and every civilization develops its own uniqueness. We expect to find both here,” he replied. While most archeological explorations have some comparable contemporary sites, in Tamil Nadu this is perhaps the first excavated urban habitation going back 2000 years. The discovery was not accidental or a stroke of luck. It was a result of some systematic work.
Sangam literature—the ancient Tamil poetry—describes urban centers that were cosmopolitan in nature, doing business with other countries including Rome. Both contemporary North Indian inscriptions, as well as literature prior to the Sangam age have mentioned already established Tamil royal dynasties. So, any student of history would expect a lot of archeological sites to have come up in Tamil Nadu.
The Keeladi excavations and subsequent ones may provide us with a vivid picture of how the real Sangam society lived. I phoned eminent epigraphist S. Ramachandran. He pointed out the possibility of this site being related to some events mentioned in later day Saivaite legends which he explained could have come from an older core event – possibly the South Indian expedition of Kalinga king Kharavela which he undertook in the eleventh year of his reign (first century BCE). However, at this stage these are all speculations. A lot of studies need to be done including carbon testing, study of possible pollen grains or other such materials from inside the pottery etc.
As I returned to my hometown through Madurai, big hoardings hailing Amma, the AIADMK supremo, as the new Chief Minister and the protector of Tamil culture were everywhere. She was rivaled only by the huge posters with typo-filled flowery Tamil, praising the elder son of DMK supremo as the true heir of the Sangam golden age. The archeologists continued their work unmindful of this irony.