Iron Man's country

M.G. Radhakrishnan
January 18, 2008

Pattanam, a sleepy hamlet on the banks of the river Periyar does not show up on the map of central Kerala, but there is evidence now that this tiny village once had maritime contacts with far-off lands in the 1st century A.D. Research, done in February-March 2007, reveals that this village, 25 km north of Kochi, was a busy, international hinterland port town and had an Indo-Roman settlement.

The recovered artefacts hint at Pattanam having an urban habitation since the Iron Age dating to 1500 B.C. Accelerator Mass Spectrometry radio carbon analysis done by Bhubaneswar's Institute of Physics of the charcoal samples, remnants of a wooden canoe and bollard has established the town's pre-historic antiquity.

Besides the sand layers and megalithic pottery, excavated material includes pieces of Roman amphora (wine jar), rouletted ware, Parthian-Sassanian pottery, West Asian ceramics, glass beads, semi-precious stones, chera copper coins and Roman golden rings dating between 1st century B.C. and 5th century A.D.

"It's the first habitation site of the Iron Age unearthed in the Malabar Coast. The excavations mark a breakthrough," says P.J. Cherian, director, Kerala Council of Historical Research (KCHR), which led the two-month-long exercise.

It was in 2004, that Pattanam first caught the attention of archaeologists. They were trying to trace Muziris, a legendary port mentioned in many ancient literary pieces and travelogues.

Trial excavations and surface surveys by local archaeologists provided preliminary understanding of the site as the Iron Age wares and shreds were recovered from homesteads and school grounds.

This led to the launch of a multi-disciplinary and archaeological study as a part of Heritage Project of the Kerala government with technical assistance from various scientific institutions and laboratories.

KCHR scholars say that indigenous people seem to have settled here when the area was covered by sand beaches. The sand deposits contained shreds of black and-red ware and other megalithic pottery.

Iron nails, fragments of Roman glass bowls (pillared bowls), shreds of terra sigillata (Arretine ware), Mesopotamian ceramics and Yemenite ceramic torpedo jar were also recovered. "They are evidences of brisk overseas trade and intense occupation," says K.P. Shajan, who pioneered this discovery.

Rouletted wares, which were found extensively in the Eastern Coromandal coast, were reported for the first time in the West Coast. Excavations have also unearthed sand layers containing shreds of Sassanian-Islamic turquoise or blue-glazed pottery dating back to early medieval period (5th to 10th century A.D.).

Prominent findings include remnants of a wooden canoe, which was dug out of a homestead. Carbon dating has estimated its age to be between 1300 B.C. and 100 B.C. Another structure, seeming to be a wharf according to KCHR scholars, was adjacent to a waterfront as the water-logged traces indicate.

A component of this carefully-built, bricklined structure was a row of seven wooden pegs, which were possibly used as bollards to secure boats moored to the wharf. Its age is somewhere between 800 and 200 B.C. A 6m x 6m platform with numerous pits assumed to have been used as a warehouse, was found in a trench.

These findings also indicate an unexplained break of habitation between 11th and 16th century as no remnants have been found from that period. However, it appears to have resumed in the 17th and 18th centuries, as indicated by the recovery of shreds of Chinese blue-and-white ceramics.

It is inferred that the port town was abandoned between 10th and17th centuries, which marks the beginning of the colonial occupation. Pallippuram Fort, the firstever European fort in India, is located less than 5 km from this site.