Tensions of Treasure

View of the Ariyankuppam, Arikamedu

Arikamedu lies due south of White Town, on the southern bank of the Ariyankuppam River just as it meets the sea. It is not a particularly good place for a deepwater port, but no spot along the Coromandel Coast really is. The great rivers of the Tamil heartland, engorged by monsoon rains in the west, flood the coastal plains, meeting with the Bay of Bengal to form backwaters. It is here that a dynamic form of exchange occurred between coastal hamlets and ocean-going vessels, one mediated by smaller crafts that could navigate both the shallow marshes and the open sea.

Eighteenth-century Jesuits, who built a seminary here, first noticed the presence of western finds in their backyard. As rumors of cameos and pottery spread north, French scholars (including those at the EFEO) conducted cursory explorations in the 1930s and 40s. Many began to make the link between the area and the Podouke Emporion of Greco-Roman itineraries, which may or may not have some relation to the Tamil Puduchcheri (or “New Town”). Formal excavations began in 1945 under the auspices of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), directed by Sir Mortimer Wheeler.

From left: Ariyankuppam River, Arikamedu; Jesuit seminary, seventeenth century, Arikamedu; a refresher course on site reports, EFEO, Pondicherry.

With each excavation, the site assumed a new character. For Wheeler, the last colonial director of the ASI, Arikamedu represented Rome beyond its frontiers—an empire without end just as Britain’s was ending. The French excavations under Casal (1947–50) placed the port in a regional context of Megalithic sites, but maintained parts of this Romanocentric narrative. The site lay fallow for decades, until renewed interest sparked excavations by an international team under Begley (1989–92). Their findings not only clarified the earlier excavations, but extended the chronology of the site and reclaimed supposed imports as products of Indian ingenuity.

From these missions, we get a sense of a particular moment at Arikamedu—a Tamil port with a long history of trade on the backwaters, but one that participated in wider Indian Ocean networks for roughly two centuries, from the late first century BCE to the end of the second century CE. The sheer importance of this site for understanding the mechanics of ancient commerce has always excited me as a scholar. The tensions beneath the sand do much to challenge my preconceptions.

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After hopping the fence to enter the archaeological site, you might initially think you have been duped by your rickshaw driver. Mango and coconut trees line sandy paths to a sheer drop-off above the river; low-lying vegetation and strategic backfills conceal the ancient remains. The only superstructure is the old seminary, whose arches of pilfered brick are often mistaken as Roman architecture. If you know where to look, you can find the devil in the details. Roman-era buildings peek out from the crumbling embankment. Ring wells, which once nourished the coastal settlement, can be seen in split profile, their shattered ribs exposed to the elements. Pottery of all periods litters the ground, mingling with the trash of less considerate visitors.

I am so glad to have met a local enthusiast, Ramesh, who alternates his time between reading in the EFEO library, exploring the site he loves, and publishing his discoveries. We toured Arikamedu together, musing in broken English over what we could find; he then graciously welcomed me into his family home to view his findings over coffee. I truly appreciated his knowledge and patience; without his help, I would have spent far more time scrapping my way through the brush.

From top-left: Reconstructed jewelry from bead finds in the area; traces of a ring well on the surface, Arikamedu; following Ramesh down the embankment, Arikamedu; traces of Roman period brick, Arikamedu; ring well, Arikamedu.

To bring life to the site, you must add a catalogue of excavated and chance finds from over the past 80 years. Arretine Ware, pottery linked to workshops in France, has a brief heyday in the early first century CE. Roman amphorae at Arikamedu span much longer, following the changes of production centers throughout the Roman Mediterranean, from Italian wine in the first century to Spanish products in the second. Indian Rouletted Ware adapts in this moment with foreign designs. Unworked gems from the interior arrive to the coast, waiting to be carved into the cameos of international taste. Local glass and stone beads produced here participate in a pan-Indian Ocean market. Terracotta figurines adopt Indian dress and posture, but also draw inspiration from the prodigious outputs at Alexandria.

Traces of foreigners in the city pool in the northern portion of the excavated area. Spanish fish sauce and Adriatic olive oil, products with no real market in India, perhaps sustained seasonal trading communities or even resident aliens. Pozzolana-like cement found on broken potsherds suggests the recycling of amphorae for underwater construction, a possible contribution of Mediterranean masonry for quays at the river mouth. Limited epigraphy reveals languages and scripts of merchants from throughout the subcontinent. Beyond the activities of foreigners, the port continued as it always had, watered by its ring wells, but with a view to the larger world.

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The future of Arikamedu remains in doubt. For one thing, the site’s archaeological finds are not easily accessible. Many reside nearby in Pondicherry or Chennai; others have vanished, last seen in Hanoi or Paris over 50 years ago. The Pondicherry Museum, like many regional museums in India, is a trial of academic patience. Finds are jumbled in unlabeled glass cabinets, which stand alongside tattered furniture from old colonial mansions. Bricks from Arikamedu sit unprotected on a plastic side table lined with newsprint. The collection begs for some semblance of organization and pizzazz to captivate visitors. The strict anti-photography policy, even for researchers, obfuscates rather than protects; it effectively hides the disarray for the next victim.

Arikamedu faces many of the same pressures that affect archaeological sites around the globe. Talks of renewing excavations here or constructing an interactive visitor center sprout up sporadically, like the weeds that you find along the banks of the Ariyankuppam. Each time, the prospect has been starved by bureaucratic infighting, lack of funds, or public apathy. The current nationalist government tends to suppress projects that do not corroborate a narrative of Hindu supremacy in the subcontinent. Looting is a forgone conclusion, given that finds pop out of the sand at the slightest provocation. All the while, the river erodes the structures below; what pottery and brick the mangroves do not ensnare in their roots move slowly out to sea.

From top-left: Gemstones and beads, including carnelian cameo blank; Roman amphora fragment; Type 110 pottery; onyx fragments; pottery of all ages (from ancient period through 15th century).

The site lives up to one colleague’s description of a “festering sore,” constantly reopened by the tug-of-war between scholars of east and west, between rewriting the past and forgetting it, between man and nature. It can continue to change the landscape of ancient history, and yet, the prospect of an interconnected world cannot help but aggravate the scars of the colonial past. Doom and gloom aside, the efforts of people like Ramesh give me hope. He satisfies his own curiosities with research, but also eagerly shares his knowledge with others. He walks the grounds almost every day, noting advanced stages of erosion. He repeatedly petitions the government to invest more in site preservation for future generations. His heroic dedication reminds me that to study a site without understanding the stakes of its survival is an empty affair.

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Visits to the Pondicherry Museum and Arikamedu straddled a week full of lectures on Indology at the Institut Français de Pondichéry (IFP), a fellow academic center that works closely with the EFEO. Otherwise, things in Pondy remain much the same. Last weekend, the gang made a trip to the temples of Kumbakonam; tomorrow, we may travel to Thanjavur, one of the capitals of the imperial Cholas. In the next week or so, I plan to study some of the other local sites related to ancient trade (many of which have not received extensive scholarly treatment). Stay tuned!

Written from White Town, Pondicherry

N.B. All photos are by the author unless otherwise noted. For those interested, I have whipped up a brief bibliography of the relevant site reports for Arikamedu (along with a few extra scholarly treatments).

Map of Arikamedu (Source: Google Earth)

Temples and Timelines

Our companions at Muvar Kovil, Kodumbalur 

***Note to the reader: this post contains descriptions of ritual practices that might be disturbing.***

Temple-trekking has interrupted an otherwise sedentary week of library research. Three of us at the EFEO, all graduate students involved somehow with Sanskrit, Art History, and Archaeology, have decided to organize visits to many of the great Hindu temples of Tamil Nadu. While we have several more research trips in the works, the first few have already had a profound impact on my understanding of this part of the world.

We made two treks in recent days, setting off before dawn each time. The first journey went north to the major city of Kanchipuram (known colloquially as Kanchi); a second took us south to the lesser-known village of Kodumbalur, near Pudukkottai. We spent hours in the sun and sudden rain, visually dissecting temples of the Pallava (7th–10th c. CE), Chola (11th–12th c.), and Vijayanagar (14th–16th c.) periods. I enjoyed sounding out vaguely familiar letters of Grantha inscriptions alongside a newfound colleague, syllables chiseled just as the Brahmi of north and south India diverged into entirely separate writing systems.

These temples tower overhead as achievements of Tamil masonry. Images of royals and divinities grace the galleries of circumambulatory paths and sky-high registers with dynamic poses. Others inspire terror, like the goddess Durga in all her splendor or manned horses one might find on a haunted carousel. Inscriptions of all ages crawl along every surface, reflecting not an epigraphic habit, but an obsession with the written word. Later constructions, like the Hundred-Pillar Hall at the Varadharaja Perumal Temple in Kanchi, contain an overload of vignettes in displays of artistic erudition. Sublime and playful details, the strategic variations in continuity, captivate the viewer.

From top-left: Muchu Kundesvara Temple, Chola Era, Kodumbalur; Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Vijayanganar Era, Kanchi; Vaikunta Perumal Temple, Pallava Era, Kanchi; Sandstone Lion Pillar,Vaikunta Perumal Temple, Kanchi; Vanaras, Hundred-Pillar Hall, Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Kanchi; Inscribed Temple Wall, Muvar Kovil, Kodumbalur; Durga, Kailasanathar Temple, Kanchi; Ganas on an Upper Frieze, Muvar Kovil, Kodumbalur; Nightmarish Horse Pillar, Hundred-Pillar Hall, Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Kanchi.

At Kodumbalur, the former capital of the Irrukuvel chiefdom, I encountered the descendants of ancient Tamils who sought goods from the Mediterranean world. Bhuti Vikramakesari, Irrukuvel chief and tributary to the imperial Cholas, commissioned the temples of Muvar Kovil roughly a thousand years ago. Several centuries earlier, a Sangam-era poem of the Purananuru celebrates the wealth of the Irrukuvel heartland, blossoming from the treasures of trade. The contemporary Pudukkottai hoard, the largest recorded cache of Roman gold coins found in India, remained buried in this very region until the nineteenth century. As an ancient historian, I could not help but experience the competing narratives of these spaces; they are portals to a remote antiquity I know quite well, and yet also windows to an enthralling present.

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In very few places can you read the layers of the past as clearly as in a Hindu temple. The royal chapels of old, swollen from the nourishment of popular devotion, have multiplied to form sprawling religious complexes. The plaster and paint found on sculptural reliefs—some original, much from later periods—reflect attempts to breathe life into stone over successive generations. The sloppy hand of recent interventions obliterates delicate relief, often resulting in dull, grotesque, or comic aberrations. Granite bears not only royal titles, but also the initials of later donors and figural graffiti. Victorian numerals stand out of place next to ancient scripts, the legacy of survey missions under the Raj and colonial structures of knowledge.

Motif serves as a measure of change within these evolving buildings. What I would recognize as many hoods of a nagaraja, or serpent-king, sheltering the meditating Buddha in the early centuries CE later becomes Vishnu sitting on the coils of Shesha, the endless snake of creation. The western yavanas of antiquity, often found in subservient roles in sculpture, yield to the barbaric mlecchas of the Islamic world. It is a reminder that images never truly die but find new life and meaning across space and time, hibernating in the artistic consciousness only to emerge centuries later. In my study of Roman coinage as objects of aesthetic value in India, I often delve into related phenomena: how superficial details of coin iconography become the blueprints of far more meaningful expression in Indian art.

From top-left: Detail from Pillar, Muchu Kundesvara Temple, Kodumbalur; Detail of Paint, Muvar Kovil, Kodumbalur; Inscribed Initials Va U U, Vaikunta Perumal Temple, Kanchi; Gallery 34, Kailasanathar Temple, Kanchi; Painted and Plastered Reliefs, Kailasanathar Temple, Kanchi; Modern Paint Job, Hundred-Pillar Hall,Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Kanchi; Two Laughable Modern Reconstructions, Kailasanathar Temple, Kanchi.

It was odd to confront the divergent destinies of these houses of worship, which grew over a thousand years into mega-temples or withered away almost entirely. The temples are very much alive in the pilgrimage city of Kanchi, the loud and crowded refuge of the faithful. As westerners, we could not enter their holy of holies in consideration of Hindu worshippers. The temples of Kodumbalur, on the other hand, are more akin to the Greco-Roman ruins, where flocks of tourists and schoolchildren clamber over deconsecrated features. The village cows graze peacefully in the adjacent fields; their brethren in Kanchi mull their options over urban waste.

Kanchi’s religious identity gave me pause. Several processions clogged the already-choked streets before temple gateways. Devotees of one Shaiva sect practiced extreme acts of bhakti, or devotion to the god, piercing their cheeks with sharpened poles and hanging from wooden cranes by hooks to the back. Drums sounded from the deep of inner sanctums, accompanied by priestly chants and the occasional horn or conch-blast. We witnessed the adoration of the Shiva-linga with carefully sequenced libations, as well as images of nagas caked in turmeric. The smell of incense wafts from censers in the foreground of cult statues, just as it would have a thousand years ago.

The study of the ancient world often bypasses these sensations of religious life (despite occasional reminders in scholarship). We tend to forget this in the immediate consideration of ruined spaces, whose gaudy paint and strange odors faded away centuries ago. Perhaps the living traditions of Hinduism can provide analogies for more ancient forms of polytheistic worship; with these templates of the present, perhaps we can begin to restore the colors, sounds, and smells of past revelation.

From left: A go in the gopuram (cow in the temple gate), Varadharaja Perumal Temple, Kanchi; Veneration with Incense, Ekambareswarar Temple, Kanchi; Nagas caked with turmeric, Vaikunta Perumal Temple, Kanchi; Dressed Cult Statue with Offerings, Ekambareswarar Temple, Kanchi.

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It has been nice to settle back into my normal rhythm in Pondy in between treks. My dissertation work at the EFEO has been going well, though I can feel the approach of the application season, much as you can sense the coming of monsoon rains here most afternoons. I am getting used to other aspects of life in southern India, like eating rice by hand off of banana leaf plates. I got to visit the Pondicherry Museum (and saw some Roman things!), but that can wait. Until next time!

Written from White Town, Pondicherry

N.B. All photos are by the author unless otherwise noted.

Map of Sites (Source: Google Earth)

Pondy Pondering

View of the Little Canal, Pondicherry

Greetings from Pondicherry! After my brief time in Delhi, I made the trip down south on Sunday, first by plane to Chennai, then by car to the Union Territory of Puducherry. I am based at Pondicherry’s École Française d’Extrême-Orient (EFEO), one of several campuses devoted to the study of Asia. This center prioritizes Sanskrit and Tamil studies and hosts a permanent community of scholars, seasonal researchers, and students of Indic languages. I will spend a fair amount of time here consulting the library, collaborating with colleagues, and investigating material remains for my dissertation.

Pondicherry, founded as a French trading post in the seventeenth century, is now a city of over half a million people on India’s Coromandel Coast. Beyond the beach, its main attractions are the buildings of French colonial style, brightly colored maisons de ville in varying states of disrepair. A mix of people walk its narrow lanes and beachside promenade, from local denizens to Indian and French tourists on summer holiday. It is filled with things familiar but worlds apart. Colonial churches, Hindu temples, and mosques stand side-by-side. Food options range from hybrid European cuisine to the masala puri of street vendors. Rickshaws abound, announcing themselves to careless pedestrians with clownish bulb horns.

From top-left: Rickshaw in White Town; Our Lady of Angels Church, White Town, late nineteenth century; Immaculate Conception Cathedral, a.k.a. Samba Kovil, Heritage Town, eighteenth century; Sunday at the beach, White Town; detail from Chetty Koil Shaiva Temple, Heritage Town, eighteenth century; Morning Commute on Bussy Street.

Beneath the surprising bustle of this place, you can feel an urban space delineated by the past. The former French seat and its villa-lined streets, still known as White Town, stand in stark contrast to the rest of Pondicherry by design; the old canal divides them, along with its brackish puddles that metathesize with monsoon rains. Ancient history also stands in the shadow of modernity. Arikamedu, a foundational site in the study of Indo-Mediterranean commerce, lies only about 3 klicks from here as the crow flies, gracing one of the backwaters so common to the Coromandel.

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The ebb and flow of daily life in Pondy (as it is locally known) is becoming more and more familiar: the spicy-sweet swig of morning tea from a street stall; the removal of shoes before going indoors; the unspoken gestures of greeting, comprehension, and gratitude; the unremitting parade of holidays and power cuts that shutter the town every few days. My apartment for the forseeable future, a spacious accommodation on the far side of the canal, is a sublet from a lovely family on the ground floor. The staccato of their pet parakeets punctures the morning stillness and accompanies my late-night writing.

The EFEO, housed in two colonial villas on Dumas Street in White Town, provides an ideal working environment. Its golden exteriors enclose bougainvillea-clad verandas, the playground of lizards and palm squirrels. The main library boasts cream-colored Ionic columns and white molding, towering bookcases chasing still taller ceilings, and wooden floors smoothed by the patter of bare feet. Its large north-facing windows catch the salty breezes of the Bay of Bengal a hundred meters away, providing much-needed relief from the elements, but airing out the comforting odor of decomposing book.

From top-left: Panchayammal Tea Stall, near Our Lady of Angels Church; Morning on the Bay of Bengal; Main Library, EFEO; Shoes Off; Inner Courtyard, EFEO.

The new intellectual climate has prompted some self-reflection. At the moment, I am the sole ancient historian here and one of a few individuals who deals with anything outside the Indian subcontinent (a reversal of my usual predicament). While at times I have felt academically isolated, I see it as a wonderful opportunity to broaden my own perspective. The sheer number of Sanskrit and Tamil experts in residence–including a bona fide pundit, who, according to legend, learned Sanskrit as a child upon his father’s knee–is an boon, albeit an intimidating one. Chats over afternoon tea, communal dinners in the evenings, and the unremitting kindness of people here do much to quell these anxieties.

Language has been the biggest hurdle. Although English and French (and the occasional Italian) are to be heard in the halls of the EFEO, Tamil rules the streets. Acquisition of this Dravidian language has been more difficult for me without my usual recourse to Indo-European. Even still, I relish the opportunity to learn Tamil while I am here, a language with a tremendous literary history in its own right. Its poetry, epics, and inscriptions house important clues to the structure of Indian Ocean trade. One need think only of the fifth-century “epic of the anklet,” the Silippatikaram, filled with descriptions of western traders in Coromandel ports.

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In the coming weeks, I hope to look more closely at the archaeological material here and pay a visit to Arikamedu. I am also planning trips to see some of the masterpieces of Pallava art and architecture throughout Tamil Nadu. In the meantime, please enjoy some more photos from Delhi, which can be found through the new Gallery page of this site (accessible via the main menu). More from Pondy soon!

Written from White Town, Pondicherry

N.B. All photos are by the author unless otherwise noted.

Map of India (Source: Google Earth)

Studies in Sandstone

Carved sandstone screen, Lal Qila, Delhi

Greetings from India! After a full 24 hours of travel, I arrived in Delhi late Tuesday evening. I have spent my first few days here taking care of some fellowship paperwork at the AIIS office and fighting my jet lag with copious amounts of walking and sightseeing. I have been based at the AIIS Guesthouse in Defence Colony, a quieter neighborhood to the south of many of the city’s attractions.

Delhi, a burgeoning modern city built on seven traditional foundations and a colonial capital of the Raj, teems with history. Over successive days, I managed to visit several monuments of Delhi’s Islamic rulers of the fifteenth through eighteenth centuries (naming only a few here): the magnificent tomb of Mughal emperor Humayun; the tranquil mausoleums of Lodi rulers in the eponymous Lodi Garden; the older Mughal citadel, Purana Qila, supposedly built on the site of the Mahabharata’s Indraprastha; and finally, the major sites in Old Delhi proper, Shahjahanabad’s Lal Qila (or “Red Fort”) and Jama Masjid. Along the way, I have had limited chances to practice my rudimentary Hindi and plenty of opportunities to avoid scammers.

I was repeatedly stupefied by the Mughal buildings scattered throughout the city. Overwhelmed by their presence, I fixated on detailed flourishes of material and motif and came to realize that these architectural triumphs on a monumental scale arose from artistic skill rendered in minuscule. The grandeur of these structures is only amplified by their surroundings. They seem almost set out of time, situated in gardens apart from the commotion of cars and auto-rickshaws, sheltering couples who lounge in the shade trees like something out of a miniature painting.

From top-left: Humayun’s Tomb, mid-sixteenth century; fortifications of Lal Qila, seventeenth century; mosque of Purana Qila, sixteenth century; detail from Tomb of Isa Khan, mid-sixteenth century; Safdarjung’s Tomb, mid-eighteenth century; Sish and Bara Gumbad, Lodi Gardens, late-fifteenth century.

I have found this immersion into the history of another period to be clarifying, especially as one conducting research outside of my usual academic element. It has given me the perspective of continuity, something that we often forget when operating in the vacuums of disciplinary divides. My experiences here have also prompted the development of two preliminary strategies for research in India: see where the road takes you, especially when it goes in unexpected directions and convergences; and be very, very patient.

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One of these unexpected directions, as you may have guessed from the title of this post, has something to do with sandstone–specifically, a unique pinkish-red stone, often with pale, round spots. This speckled stone, quarried from sources near Mathura, was used in many of the Mughal and Lodi monuments I visited and gives the Red Fort its name. The abundant local supplies of this material made it less costly than other marbles, yet its intense color and inherent patterning play unmistakable aesthetic roles of conscious design.

When first seeing this red sandstone at the tomb of Isa Khan (near Humayun’s), I immediately recognized the material as the fabric of images with which I am more familiar: sculptures of early Buddhism, produced in or around ancient Mathura as early as the second century BCE. Sculptors of the Mathura style of Buddhist art made extensive use of this local stone for their creations, much as contemporary Gandharan artists did with their iconic greenish-grey schist.

The long-term use of this material–moving from symbolic and figural depictions of the Buddhist pantheon, to images of Jain and Hindu divinities, to aniconic architectural elements in Sultanate and Mughal Delhi–provides hints of a persistent calculus of material, aesthetic, and transaction costs. It also highlights contrasts across media and time. Mathura carvers were content to have the mottled red at the forefront of their color palette, while Mughal artisans employed this material with other colored marbles to dramatic effect. For someone like me so focused on the commodities of trade, a history of this raw material resonates, and I hope to explore it further.

From top-left; floral detail from Naubat Khana, Lal Qila, mid-seventeeth century; sandstone elements from the mosque of Purana Qila, sixteenth century; two Mathura-style Buddhas in red sandstone, National Museum in Delhi, first–third centuries CE; layered materials, mosque near Isa Khan’s tomb, mid-sixteenth century.

I also underwent a first meditation in academic patience. I paid a visit to the National Museum in Delhi, which houses numerous specimens of ancient art from throughout the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia. As it happens, the very rooms that I came to see, the galleries housing materials from the Mauryan to Gupta periods, were closed for restoration. Alas! The museum staff noted my audible frustration as they wrapped massive statues and architectural features in tarp; they graciously stopped for a moment as I snapped some quick photographs of the few uncovered pieces. I took solace in the neighboring wings, which house a nice diagnostic numismatic collection and an embarrassingly rich collection of Indian miniature paintings.

Maintaining a positive attitude along the way is key. I sense that taking minor setbacks in stride ensures ones sanity, especially when forced to dance the tango of museum access. I have found that such patience pays dividends in research simply because when one door closes, very often another opens. Take one example from my experience at the National Museum: some of the ancient pieces still on display had visible Brahmi or Kharoshthi inscriptions; when I have some downtime, I’ll transcribe, translate, and post them!

From top-left: worshippers venerating the empty chair of the Buddha, relief from Andhra Pradesh, third century CE; miners in a cave, carving from Bharhut stupa, second century BCE; three miniatures, various periods.

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As I finish up my time in Delhi, I will try to hit a few more items of interest, including an Ashokan inscription or two. I’ll add more photos from my time here to this page below, either directly or via link. If not before, I’ll write next from Pondicherry. Until then!

Written from Defence Colony, New Delhi

N.B. All photos are by the author unless otherwise noted.

Map of Delhi (Source: Google Earth)