From among the excavations of the Keezhadi archaeological site, situated 13 km from Madurai, ivory chess pieces, ivory dice and terracotta hopscotch stones were found, T.S. Subramanian, former Associate Editor, Frontline, said on Thursday.
Speaking on “Keezhadi: Sangam Age Site Excavations” at an event organised by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), Chennai Chapter, at Ashvita, he said the excavations had shown brick structures, ring wells, drainage systems and furnaces belonging to the Sangam age. The people of those times thrived producing textiles, making jewellery using terracotta and semi-precious stones, made terracotta pottery, drilled ivory, made iron implements and used bricks made in kilns for many centuries.
Mr. Subramanian said the credit for finding Keezhadi and getting a site museum must go to V. Balasubramaniam, a history teacher at the Government High School at Keezhadi in the 1970s. He was the one who found some 14th Century terracotta artefacts in 1978 at Pallichandai Thidal and informed V. Vedachalam, who was an epigraphist with the State Archaeology Department in Madurai. Though he visited the area and found terracotta figurines, there was no progress at that point of time. Then, when Amarnath Ramakrishna undertook a study of the Vaigai Basin in 2014, he took Mr. Vedachalam as a domain expert, who suggested that the Thidal was the place to excavate. The excavation began in January 2015, hundreds of artefacts belonging to the Tamil Sangam period were found.
Sujatha Shankar of INTACH and Nirmala Lakshman, Publisher, The Hindu, were present.
Prizes were distributed to schoolchildren who won in drawing and essay competitions.
