Photo: Jayaseerlourdhuraj · CC BY-SA 3.0A Tamil port of the Sangam age where Roman pottery, wine jars and Indian beads were found together.
The trenches held red-glazed Arretine ware made in Italy, amphorae for Mediterranean wine and oil, and a great quantity of glass and stone beads made on the spot, with sherds carrying Tamil-Brahmi letters. Scholars identify the place with Poduke, a market named in the 1st-century Greek sailing guide, the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea.
It shows the Tamil coast trading directly with Rome, as the Sangam poems describe Yavana ships bringing gold for pepper.
ExcavationHundreds of sandstone shelters where people lived and painted for thousands of years, the oldest gallery of human art in Bharat.
ExcavationEleven molar crowns from nine adults with neat holes drilled into them, the earliest evidence of dentistry on living people anywhere.
ExcavationA Sarasvati-valley settlement whose levels run from Hakra ware pit-dwellings up to a mature Harappan town, and whose earliest dates are argued over.
ExcavationThe oldest ploughed field yet excavated anywhere, with its furrows still visible in a grid.
ExcavationA Harappan city in a dry land that lived by catching every drop: dams on two seasonal streams fed a chain of reservoirs cut into the rock around the town.
ExcavationThe first city of the civilisation to be dug, which gave its name to the whole culture.
ExcavationThe largest city of the Sindhu valley, laid out in a grid of baked-brick streets with covered drains and a great bath on its citadel.
ExcavationRows of small clay-lined fire pits on raised brick platforms, with a well and bathing floors beside them.
