In A.D. 75 a sea-faring, Greek-speaking Egyptian merchant wrote a book called Periplus, which talks about various ports in India. One of the ports he mentioned is Musiris, which is near present day Kodungallur in Kerala. Dr. Shajan, an archaeologist thinks that ancient Musiris is a town called Pattanam, located 12 KM away from Kodungallur.
Pattanam, on the other hand, has yielded amphora (holding vessels) of Roman make and those made elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. This shows that Pattanam had trade not only with Rome but also with places in the Persian Gulf, she added. [Tracing an ancient trading route]Is this enough evidence to identify Pattanam as Musiris? While there has been evidence of trade between Kerala and ancient Rome, more research is needed according to visiting fellow of Southampton University, Roberta Tambor.
See Also: Hunting for Muziris, The myth of Cheraman Perumal's conversion
Comments (1)
People have claimed to have discovered Musiri atleast since the 1900s. PattaNam is the generic Tamil name for "port city" (Poompuhar was called Puhar PattaNam). There have been several hundred trading ports in the last few thousand years. He'll need to come up with an early Christian Era dating *and* evidence of a large scale settlement similar to Puhar to convince me.
Posted by Kingsley Joseph | April 21, 2006 10:46 AM
Posted on April 21, 2006 10:46