Role of Satellite Sites for The Growth of Arikamedu as Indo-Roman Tradingn Station

About The Book

This book is about the study of importance of hinterland trade centres of famous roman site Arikamedu. Because in the past two decades many scholars have discussed much about long distance trade and the material culture of Roman sites in India including Arikamedu extensively, but they never given emphasis to the hinterland I centres of any of these Indo-roman sites. During the height of the Roman trade, these smaller hinterland centres only provided the goods and services including agricultural products needed by the large and busy urban settlements like Arikamedu. But, how Arikamedu was related to inland settlements and what type of political or economic organization may have governed the location of the port needs to be explained. Further through this research book author tried to solve many questions (despite several excavations at Arikamedu) regarding Origin, development and extension of this town, chronology, ancient port, trade mechanism, etc.

The present research carried out by author helped to understand the relationship between Arikamedu and its Satellite settlements in a geographical perspective as they functioned together contributing to the economic development of the Iron Age society in South India and its transformation through time. Further this topic highly useful for the identification of the strategic location of Arikamedu in the context of Megalithic exchange system and their interaction with the other early historical sites in order to understand the evolution of urbanism in ancient Tamilakam.

The successful method (i.e. Identification of satellite settlements) used by author may useful for young researchers who wish to carry out similar studies with other major roman sites of India.

About The Author The author did his Master Degree in Ancient Indian History & Archaeology from University of Madras in the year 1999 and subsequently did P.G. Diploma in Archaeology from Institute of Archaeology, Delhi and P.G. Diploma in Tourism Management from Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu. Later in the year 2010 he was awarded Ph.D Under the guidance of Prof. Ravi Korisettar from Karnataka University, Dharwad.

The author has presented many research papers in different regional, national & International seminars and published many articles in different journals from India and Abroad. In the year 2006 the author received "Prof. Ajay Mitra Shastri Commemorative Gold Medal along with Best Paper Award" from International Conference held at Mumbai University conducted by 'Society for south Asian archaeology' (SOSAA). Besides these, the author regularly uses to deliver speech/lectures to different schools and colleges in different parts of the country in order to propagate basic idea about archaeology/ heritage/culture to them.

The author is presently working in ASI as Superintending Archaeologist in Raipur circle, Chhattishgarh state.

Preface

Unlike North India the Southern part of India especially Tamil region during the early historical period is well determined by trade activities rather than religious or political aspects in order to demark any urbanization existed here. For a proper understanding of the evolution of urbanism during this early historical period, we must consider the interaction between the metropolitan centers and various hinterland settlements (resource bases and productive units).

While long distance trade held between metropolitan centers of South India and outside world can be attested through the literary as well as archaeological remains, we did not pay much time to understand the local/ Hinterland trade. Because any long-distance trade exchange can be achieved as the result of numerous small distance (i.e. domestic) transfers.

Turing to Arikamedu, the most famous archaeological site in the South, was not fashioned by the minds of Romans, but was always at heart of a megalithic area and transformed as Romans trading station only in later part. But how arikamedu relates to any of the known sites (inland centers) in its immediate vicinity during pre-Roman as well as Roman period is still not clear. So the main purpose of this book is to place before the scholars about identification of the some of the regional Centres around arikamedu, which may help us to know how Arikamedu benefited by these hinterland centers. During last 02 decades many scholars surveyed, the hinterland of Arikamedu and identified enough habitational sites containing cultural elements of Iron Age and succeeded by early historical sites. These recent researches helped to identify nearly 50-60 Satellite Settlements around Arikamedu, which were acted as hinterland trade centers of Arikamedu. Besides the present author also identified about 14 satellites sites in and around Arikamedu. Following these latest researches on Arikamedu, debate has now started among these scholars over the inland transshipment of commodities that reached Arikamedu for export purpose, and the imported commodities of arikamedu that distributed to the inland urban centers. While paradoxly, it has been concluded that the imported goods were fully consumed by the arikamedu settlers and all the exported goods were produced from Arikamedu and surrounding area.

Foreword

Identified with the port of Podouke mentioned in the Periplus of the Erythraen Sea, the ancient site of Arikamedu in Puduchchery has been subjected to excavations since the forties of the last century. The site is also mentioned by Ptolemy. With the discovery of ancient remains and distinctly Roman antiquities found in and around the place, Arikamedu's identification as a trading centre has been clearly established. These distinctly Roman antiquities are the Arretine and Rouletted wares, amphorae, a Graeco-Roman gem with the head of Augustus in intaglio, Roman lamp of fine red ware and red ware sherds bearing on the base letters VIBII (VIBIE or VIBIF) CAMVRI and ITTA and finally an oblong building identified as a warehouse clearly suggesting its identification as an Indo-Roman trading station. Coupled with these distinctly Roman antiquities, the site also yielded other remains like a well, a ring-well, cisterns or vats, typical grey ware, black-and-red ware some of which bear inscriptions in graffito in early Tamil, all suggesting a flourishing settlement which served as an Indo-Roman trading station between the first century BCE and second century CE.

Arikamedu had been subjected to excavations by the French and American archaeologists; the Archaeological Survey of India excavated the site in 1945 and provided firm chronology of the settlement. While these earlier works were site specific, the present work Role of Satellite sites for the growth of Arikamedu as Indo- Roman trading station by Dr. Arun Raj T. is based on field work and detailed study of the site in relation to various hinterland settlements which served as the resource base for this flourishing site.

INTRODUCTION

Archaeological investigation into the Early Historic (BC 300-500 AD) settlement patterns, social and religion institutions, agrarian system, craft tradition and urbanism is crucial to tracing the evolution of modern Tamil culture as a distinctive cultural entity (Fig.01). For a proper understanding of the evolution of urbanism during the Early Historical period, we must consider the interaction between the metropolitan centers and various hinterland settlements (resource bases and production units), which maintained feedback relations. The long coastline of Tamil Nadu facilitated maritime trade, which could be traced back to later prehistoric (Megalithic) and Early Historic times. Cultural developments typical of the Early Tamilakam appear to have been governed by maritime contacts beyond its frontiers with a well-defined intra-regional trade network.

**Contents and Sample Pages**