After a decade of disruption, Pattanam needs a renewed vision

Beneath an apparently ordinary village on the Periyar delta in southwestern India lies an archaeological record linking the eastern and western Indian Ocean worlds — from the Atlantic shores of western Europe to the South China Sea opening to the Pacific.

That village is Pattanam, near North Paravur in Ernakulam district, Keralam.

Houses, shops, tarred roads, pathways, a government primary school, a couple of hospitals, coconut groves and waterbodies now occupy much of this coastal landscape. Beneath it, however, lies evidence that has changed our understanding of Keralam’s early history and the maritime world of the Indian Ocean and beyond.

The archaeological evidence broadly dates to between 300 BCE and 300 CE, with particularly substantial evidence from 100 BCE to 300 CE. Structures, pottery, beads, metals, coins, biological and geological remains, industrial and workshop contexts, and a harbour complex with a wooden canoe dated between 100 BCE and 100 CE have been scientifically documented.

Materials from South Asia, West Asia, the Red Sea, Africa and the Mediterranean have been found alongside evidence of the movement of people, goods, technologies and ideas across considerable distances.

The evidence suggests that Pattanam was part of the maritime world conventionally associated with Muziris, or Muciri Pattinam. Whether the entire ancient port can be identified with present-day Pattanam remains an open archaeological question.

This is one reason the excavation and scientific investigation of Pattanam must resume.

What did the research reveal?

Excavations and explorations beginning in 2006-07 gradually transformed what initially appeared to be an ordinary archaeological mound into an international multidisciplinary research laboratory.

Between 2006 and 2023, 67 trenches were excavated, yielding around 1.3 lakh registered artefacts and nearly 45 lakh pottery fragments. Yet less than 1% of the archaeological mound, which extends over more than 100 acres, has been excavated.

The discoveries were important not merely because of their quantity. Structures, urban features such as toilet facilities and water-drawing wells, industrial remains, artefacts and environmental evidence together point to a highly connected settlement.

Pattanam emerged not as an isolated site in Keralam, or simply as a centre of Keralam-Roman trade, but as a node in a much wider network spanning the ancient world.

The Periyar and the river systems between the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea were central to this story. Recent studies have identified nearly 51,800 rainforest islands, together with the human geographical landscapes represented by the Kurinji, Mullai, Marutham, Paalai and Neithal thinai traditions.

Pattanam occupied an ancient river-mouth landscape connected to the Western Ghats, their forests and resources. Through the Periyar, the Palakkad Gap and the Vaigai basin, the western coast was linked to the eastern seaboard and, beyond it, to the Bay of Bengal, the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea.

Archaeological parallels link Pattanam with sites extending from Corbridge in England in the west to Hepu in southern China in the east, and from Tissamaharama in Sri Lanka in the south to Kopia, near the India-Nepal border, in the north, close to the Lumbini-Kapilavastu region.