Some more burial urns found at Adichanallur

A burial urn excavated at Aditchanallur near Tirunelveli on Thursday.

Archaeologists involved in excavation of ancient burial sites of Adichanallur have found a few more burial urns while one of them has been closed.

While the sixth phase of excavation began at Adichanallur near here, known as the ‘Cradle of ancient Tamil civilization,’ on May 25, a maiden excavation at another archaeologically important site at Sivakalai near Eral was started simultaneously by the Department of Archaeology.

Though Minister for Tamil Development K. Pandiarajan had announced that excavation in the archaeological sites at Adichanallur and Sivakalai, both in Thoothukudi district, would commence on March 15, the exercise got delayed due to the lockdown caused by COVID-19 pandemic.

While excavation is done at Sivakalai near Eral for the first time after repeated demands made by academics from various departments and Tamil scholars following recovery of articles used by ancient Tamils, the sixth phase of digging resumed at Adichanallur in May last after the exercise was carried out earlier in 1876, 1902, 1905, 2004 and 2005 during British regime and by the Archaeological Survey of India.

As the sixth phase of the excavation commenced amidst a lot of expectations, a team of officials of Department of Archaeology, led by Deputy Director Sivanandam launched the work in areas close to Sivakalai. Led by its Excavation Director M. Prabhakaran, a team of experts are doing excavation at Sivakalai while the work was being executed at Adichanallur by J. Bhaskaran, Excavation Director.

After the excavators resumed the excavation at Adichanallur and Sivakalai on May 25, more than 35 burial urns have been retrieved in these places. While some of the burial urns were found to be partially damaged, others were retrieved intact.

As the excavators started moving towards the colony from the existing spot in Adichanallur, which is said to be the burial ground of the ancient population, they stumbled upon 3 more burial urns in a same pit, each measuring about 4 feet tall, near Pandiaraja Temple on Thursday. While one of the urns remains closed, the excavators believe that it would contain human skeletons, which would be sent for dating and associated analyses.

“While the top portion of the burial urn with stand is black in colour, the lower portion is red. Small pots had been placed around these urns, which could be a custom followed by the ancient Tamils. We’ve planned to send the entire set of burial urns for analysis, which will throw more light on the ancient civilization and bring out more interesting information” the excavators said.

Officials said the work that would go up to September this year, i.e., before the onset of north-east monsoon, is expected to give vital information about ancient civilization in this region.