Pattanam and Ancient Muziris: Why a Disrupted Excavation Needs a Fresh Start
A recent opinion piece has called for a renewed vision for Pattanam, an archaeological site in Ernakulam district, Kerala. Many scholars identify Pattanam with Muziris, the most famous ancient port of the Malabar coast.
Between 2007 and 2015, the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) ran nine seasons of digging here and recovered more than 1.29 lakh artefacts. The finds show links with the Roman Mediterranean, West Asia and other parts of India.
In 2015 the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) suspended KCHR's excavation licence after complaints about its methods, and work stopped. A later team led by a new research institute got ASI permits from 2019, but these were cancelled in 2021, which led to a legal challenge in the Delhi High Court.
Because of these breaks, the wider research, teaching and public programme around the site lost about a decade.
The piece argues that a revived programme could make Pattanam a global centre for multidisciplinary research (many sciences working together), learning and local community participation.
Muziris and the Pattanam Excavations
Muziris was a busy port on the Malabar coast of Kerala about 2,000 years ago. Ships from the Roman Empire came here to buy black pepper and other goods, and paid in gold. For centuries, scholars knew Muziris only from old books and poems, because nobody could find its remains. Since 2007, digging at a village called Pattanam, near the Periyar river in Kerala, has given the strongest physical evidence of where this lost port may have stood.
The call for a renewed vision is about restarting serious, steady work at Pattanam after a decade of licence disputes. The site is the best physical evidence of Muziris, so reviving it could deepen our knowledge of how ancient Kerala joined the Indian Ocean trade world.
Indo-Roman Maritime Trade and the Sangam Age
Between about the 1st century BCE and the 3rd century CE, a large sea trade linked South India with the Roman Empire. Roman ships sailed from Egyptian ports on the Red Sea across the Arabian Sea to the coasts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. They bought pepper, gems, pearls, cotton cloth and ivory, and paid mostly in gold and silver coins. This period matches the Sangam Age of the Tamil country, when the Chera, Chola and Pandya kingdoms ruled the far south.
Pattanam's amphorae, Roman tableware and West Asian pottery are physical proof of this trade on the Malabar coast. Restarting research at the site would help historians understand how Sangam-age Kerala took part in it.
- Pattanam: Ernakulam district, Kerala; widely identified with ancient Muziris
- KCHR excavations: 9 seasons from 2007 to 2015; more than 1.29 lakh artefacts
- ASI suspended KCHR's licence in 2015; permits given to a new team from 2019 were cancelled in 2021
- Earliest layers: Iron Age (megalithic); peak: around the 1st century CE
- Muziris Papyrus: 2nd century CE, Austrian National Library, Vienna; ship Hermapollon
- Periyar flood of 1341 CE linked to the decline of Muziris