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India's southern state Tamil Nadu has seen a political and historical fight over the archaeological discoveries at the Keeladi village. Among coconut groves, a chain of 15 ft (4.5m) deep trenches exposes early artifacts buried under layers of soil— shards of pot made from terracotta, and vestiges of lost brick buildings.

 

The Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology estimates the artifacts as being between 2,000 and 2,500 years old, with the oldest ranging from about 580 BCE. They aver that these discoveries undermine and redefine conventional accounts of early civilisation in the Indian subcontinent.

 

Politicians, historians, and epigraphists are joining the fray, while Keeladi is transcending archaeology to become a symbol of state pride and identity amidst rival histories. But history buffs insist it is still one of the greatest and easiest finds of modern India, giving a rare chance to enhance our knowledge of a common past.

 

Keeladi, a village 12 km (7 miles) from Madurai along the Vaigai river, was among 100 sites shortlisted for excavation by Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) archaeologist Amarnath Ramakrishnan in 2013.

 

Since 2014, 10 rounds of excavations at Keeladi have yielded more than 15,000 artifacts— coins, beads, terracotta pipes and urns used for burials, among others — from only four of the 100 demarcated acres. They are now being exhibited in a neighbouring museum.

 

Ajay Kumar, head of the state archaeology team at Keeladi, states that the most important discoveries are intricate brick structures and water networks — proof of an urban settlement of 2,500 years ago.

 

"This was a literate, urban culture in which individuals had distinct spaces for residence, burial and industrial activity," Kumar added, explaining it's the first major well-defined ancient urban site discovered in southern India.

 

 

Keeladi discoveries have, thus, created a buzz throughout Tamil Nadu and beyond.

 

The politics of Keeladi mirrors an entrenched north-south divide— highlighting the fact that knowing the past is necessary to know the present.

India's first large-scale civilisation — the Indus Valley — developed in the north and middle parts of the country between 3,300 and 1,300 BCE. Following its decline, a second urban phase, the Vedic period, arose in the Gangetic plains, lasting up to the 6th Century BCE.

This period witnessed the major cities, strong kingdoms and emergence of Vedic civilisation — a prelude to Hinduism. It goes to follow that ancient Indian urbanisation is typically considered to be a northern phenomenon with the prevalent view that the northern Aryans "civilised" the Dravidian south.

This is particularly true in the dominant perception of the expansion of literacy.

 

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It is thought that the Ashokan Brahmi script — discovered on the rock edicts of Mauryan king Ashoka in northern and central India, from the 3rd Century BCE — is the ancestor of the majority of scripts used in South and Southeast Asia.

Epigraphists such as Iravatham Mahadevan and Y Subbarayalu have been firm in their belief that Tamil Brahmi script — the Tamil language used in Tamil Nadu and written in the Brahmi script — branched off from the Ashokan Brahmi script.

But archaeologists from the state department of Tamil Nadu are now telling the world that excavations in Keeladi are putting this into question.

While they argue over the discoveries, the politicians are already making connections between Keeladi and the Indus Valley— others go so far as to say the two co-existed or that the Indus Valley was one part of an early southern Indian, or Dravidian, civilisation.

The storm over the transfer of ASI archaeologist Ramakrishnan — who directed the Keeladi digs — has fuelled the site's political tensions. In 2017, two rounds of digs later, the ASI shifted Ramakrishnan on the grounds of protocol. The government of Tamil Nadu charged the central agency with willfully disrupting the excavations with the aim of derailing Tamil pride.

The ASI's 2023 request that Ramakrishnan resubmit his Keeladi report — on grounds of a lack of scientific rigor — has added fuel to the debate. He declined, maintaining that his results adhered to the standard conventions of archaeology.

In June, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin labelled the federal government's refusal to make Ramakrishnan's report public as an "onslaught on Tamil culture and pride". State minister Thangam Thennarasu blamed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led federal government of purposely hiding details to remove Tamilian history.

India's Culture Minister, Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, has now made it clear that Ramakrishnan's report has not been spurned by the ASI but is "under review," with expert comments still to be finalised.