It is spread over 3 km and can be dated to 1,000 BCE-300 CE
An Iron Age megalithic burial site, dotted with cairn-circles, has been discovered near Veeranam village, at the foot of a chain of hills, in Tamil Nadu's Tiruvannamalai district.
This sprawling site, spread over about three km in Tandaramapattu taluk, can be dated to 1,000 BCE-300 CE. What is interesting about the discovery is that many of the cairn-circles have dolmenoid cists on the surface within the circles. Cairn-circles are rough stones arranged in a circle, and dolmenoid cists are box-like structures made of granite slabs. The cairn-circles indicate burial chambers below, with urns containing bones and pottery with paddy, beads, knives, swords and other artefacts.
Poems in the Tamil Sangam literature (300 BCE to 300 CE) celebrate these megalithic burials, which can unlock the secrets of the social life of that age. But residents of nearby villages have already destroyed a large number of these cairn-circles near Veeranam and carted away the stones and granite-slabs for building cowsheds and compound walls, and for laying floors. A quarry is working nearby, in the hills.
The discovery was made by a team led by K.T. Gandhirajan, who specialises in art history. The team included Professor G. Chandrasekaran, former principal of the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai; K. Natarajan, sculptor; and A. Amirthalingam, painter.
Terming it a vast, unexplored site, Mr. Gandhirajan said: “It is an important site in northern Tamil Nadu, which is being destroyed fast. It has not been excavated so far, and it may yield a lot of Palaeolithic tools.” There are two types of burials here: cairn-circles with dolmenoid cists on the surface and plain cairn-circles.
Hidden secrets
“These burial sites have hidden secrets of the social life of the Sangam age. The poets of the Sangam age talk about such burial sites, which are equally or more important than the Tamil-Brahmi sites,” Mr. Gandhirajan said. But the cairn-circles near Veeranam are being destroyed by villagers living a few km away. A quarry is mining granite in the hills close to the site and “if the quarry extends its operation, the site will be destroyed.”
K. Rajan, Professor of History, Department of History, Pondicherry University, said there were several references in the poems of the Sangam literature to the megalithic burials. One of the poems, for instance, spoke about ‘paral uyar padhukkai,' that is, elevated stone circles (‘paral' means stones, ‘uyar' referring to elevated and ‘padhukkai' meaning circles).
Dr. Rajan, who has discovered scores of megalithic burial sites including cairn-circles, dolmens and menhirs, said the Veeranam and other sites in Tiruvannamalai district could be dated to 1,000 BCE — that is, 3,000 years before the present.
“Destruction of these megalithic burial sites is going on at a very fast rate,” he said. Vandalism had destroyed the superbly built dolmens at Mallanchandiram in Krishnagiri district. Industrialisation has erased the megalithic burials at Mankulam near Madurai. Urbanisation and construction of a dam at Orathupalayam have destroyed the Iron Age burial sites near Kodumanal, near Erode.
Sites destroyed
Hundreds of megalithic burial sites that have been destroyed include those on the Vandalur-Kelambakkam Road near Chennai, Venpakkam near Singaperumal Kovil, also near Chennai, in and around Pudukottai, at Kallampalayam in the Nilgiris, Vellaripatti, near Madurai on the Madurai-Tiruchi Road, at Porunthal village and Ravimangalam, both near Palani.
The advent of huge earth-moving machines, used for laying highways and digging big pits, hastened the destruction of the Iron Age burial sites, Mr. Gandhirajan said.
He wanted the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department or the Archaeological Survey of India to prepare a list of the surviving sites, fence them off and declare them protected monuments under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act.
Keywords: Megalithic burial sites, Iron Age, Cairn-circles
What is the current status of these/Thiruporur megalithic burial site? Have they been fenced off/under excavation/open to visitors? Looking forward to an udpated story on the state of preservation of these and other such megalithic sites in TN...
almost all megalithic sites are associated with iron. similar sites are abundantly seen in Kerala.
Congratulations ! When archaeological department protecting any of this type of places, they should also review whether the monolithics are not in the damaged state and it is adding value in protecting this place. Example : There is a monument in Zameen Pallavaram and the place is now a thickly populated residential area and even some ASI members know the monolithic is not in the recovered state but still it is announced as a protected area and causing problems to lot of residents who are planning to build houses in the available land areas. We should take care of the past and be realistic about the present.
Nice Job. Keep Going to Expose the world to our Tamil culture, history etc.
I am happy about this discovery. I wish everything like this in Tamil Nadu is not destroyed and must be protected to show the greatness of our Ancient Tradition and Civilization. Government must take care of these antique and precious sites.
The discovery of this site is of great significance to Indian acrheology and thereby, to construct the history of the nation. It would provide great insights not only into the social life, but also to the development of town planning, architecture and belief systems of our ancestors. Along with the other sites at Thiruporur and other parts of the state that were discovered and reported earlier, the structure of the society, trade and interactions can be well established.
Shri Rajan points out the perilous issues facing the site: the villagers (who, in all possibility, do not understand the value of the site) and the quarry. Will the Govt. step in to do the needed?
Congratulations again to the work of these enterprising archaeologists. Let us hope the State and Central archaeological bodies heed the warnings they and Dr. Rajan advance. If archeologists of a distant future dig up sites of present tribal occupation in India such as Nicobar and having access to 21st century Indian literature also to a limited extent, conclude that all of indian life in the 21st century was Nicobarese tribal in its content, it would be because they would have selectively chosen references from the limited literature available to them. Any intelligent person who has access to even limited pre-Christian era Indian literature in Tamil and Sanskrit who follows these wonderful excavations is justified in assuming that tribals who were following much older practices were permitted to co-exist in packets along with much more civilized neighbours for several millennia in India.
It is high time that the powers that be took due notice of such rare archeological findings and save the same to posterity. When great things are said about the Stonehenge, Acropolis etc. abroad we are oblivious of the historical wonders in our backyards. Awareness of our own history and culture should be imbibed from the early school days among the present generation. I really wonder whether the present syllabus gives due importance to our own history - history of mankind. When I studied PUC in late fifties, "World History" was one subject with text book like "Man and his World".
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