Tamil Nadu: Adhichanallur’s megalithic burial site rediscovered. Coimbatore News – Times of India

Seventeen years ago, the discovery of a burial urn with human skeletons and utensils created a buzz around adhichanallur, 24km tirunelveli. But over the years the spotlight faded away. Now, the officers of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is back to dig deeper as the central government has selected it as one of the five iconic heritage sites in the country. The history of the place will soon be displayed in a state-of-the-art museum.
Archaeologist Arun Raj T, ASI superintendent of Trichy circle, says that all the burial urns will be maintained and the land for the museum has been identified. “For the first time, ASI has also found evidence that the site was inhabited during the megalithic period and that the early historical or confluence era,” he said.
The planned museum is on the lines of the Terracotta Army Museum of Soldiers in China. “It’s a cemetery, so to show it we’ll cover the quadrangle with toughened glass that visitors can walk on and see the site from above,” he said. It will be like a virtual reality walkthrough with information about the objects attached to the urns, and we are going to set up a circuit for this walkthrough,” he said. Tuticorin District Collector K Senthil Raj has identified five acres of private land in Adhichanallur village for the museum, and the process of handing over is underway.

The renewed interest in the site comes after a court wrap. In 2004, the ASI was pulled up by the Madras High Court for not sending the collected samples for carbon dating, after a report by the Beta Analytical Testing Laboratory of the US revealed that the artifacts were from the period between 905BC and 696BC . . The site was cordoned off on the orders of the court. In the excavation that started on October 10, 14 burial urns have been found. The urns, excavated at a depth of 50 cm in the last few weeks, may be of a later period, says Arun Raj, who expects to find larger and older urns at a depth of one meter.
The archaeological importance of Adhichanallur was discovered in 1876 by the German explorer Fedor Jagor, and later by the former superintendent of the ASI, Alexander Rei, the Southern Circle between AD 1899 to AD 1905. Arun Raj says that Ri said that if 100 acres were to be excavated at Adhichanallur, there would be enough artifacts to fill several museums. Ri had pulled out 9,000 artifacts in 34 bullock carts. The objects taken by Jgor are now in the Berlin Museum and the objects discovered by Ree are in the London Museum. The central government is planning to take all these back and display them in the on-site museum. Arun Raj said, ‘It will be a big achievement for us.
Ri said in his study that the diverse nature of the objects was evidence that people from several communities were buried at the site. “They were providers for the ancient port of Korkai, which is widely mentioned in Sangam literature and by the Greek historian Ptolemy. When. korkai Lost their prominence, so did the people of Adichanallur. Ri had said that the residents of Adhichanallur knew the use of cloth. He (Riya) had estimated that there would be thousand graves in one acre of land, and now the ASI has 125 acres,” said Arun Raj. The size of the population is reflected in the size of the cemetery.
He said that at present, in one of the three sites excavated by the ASI, a lime and mortar floor-like structure has been found, which shows that the people of the Sangam age were settled after it was abandoned by the megalithic people. . A pot with the mark of an iron blacksmith with Tamil Brahmi inscription has also been found.
Unlike earlier excavations, burial urns and artifacts discovered in this phase will be kept in place, which will require a great deal of technical expertise, as these are fragile organic materials.
The ASI has also identified experts to analyze and date the specimens, including bones, iron objects and pollen grains. Once the design is finalized, they will start classifying the objects they excavated in the year 2004, which are kept at the Secretariat in Chennai. The ASI will work closely with the state government as the site has now been proposed for heritage tourism, which can be combined with the religious tourism of Tiruchendur.
The ASI is also focusing on 36 sites along the Tamirabarini River, some of which are part of the Porunai civilization. Arun Raj said, “We are going to re-survey the 36 places mentioned by Ri and see if they are still rich in ancient treasures, and if so they will also be displayed in the proposed museum.”