Our Bureau
Chennai
This Saturday, on September 20th, the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M K Stalin has announced that after Keezadi, the undersea excavation has started in Poompuhar and it will reveal to the world an ancient civilisation that flourished long ago.
Chief Minister Stalin took to his official X account and wrote, “Keezhadi is our motherland, we declared! We made the world aware of the antiquity of iron! Next, we will reveal the glory of Poompuhar, brimming with abundance, “with the pride of ships arriving by sea, and heaps of black stones arriving by land…”!!!”
CM Stalin was reacting to a post by the state Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu, who is well-versed in Archaeology and holds a portfolio in the field. Thennarasu on Friday had announced the commencement of the undersea exploration at Poompuhar through his social media account,
“The history of Tamils will now be explored even beneath the sea. At Poompuhar, a celebrated Sangam and post-Sangam literature as a flourishing seaport of great renown, archaeological explorations have begun to rediscover and study the antiquity of ancient Tamil civilization,” the minister had said in the post.
The Archaeology Department of Tamil Nadu, yesterday, on September 19th along with the Indian Maritime University commenced the deep-sea excavation. The excavation will take place between the Chola capital, Poompuhar, and Nagapattinam, which was a medieval trade hub with maritime links to Southeast Asia.
This will be the first undersea survey conducted in Poompuhar in the last 34 years, as the last time an excavation was done was back in 1991. Poompuhar was an ancient port city known widely as Kaviripoompattinam, located in the current day Mayiladuthurai district. In 1981, there was a preliminary underwater exploration carried out that confirmed the existence of archaeological remains such as brick structures, rolled pottery and pier walls in the intertidal zone.
