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The results of early excavations are promoted to conclude that the site Arikamedu was a base on Indian east coast for Roman maritime trade during early current era. The question on pre-urban phase at Arikamedu which lead to the Periplus trade is yet to be known. The pre-periplus or the proto historic of Puducherry is almost the beginning stage of urban development. The proto historic age of Puducherry seems that it began with the Iron Age which is popularly known to the scholars as megaliths. The available evidence suggests that the Iron Age of Puducherry seems largely to have been restricted to burials. Many hundreds of Urn burials were unearthed either unknowingly or systematically. The systematic excavations were carried out at Souttoukeny and Mouttrapaleon by Casals in 1950s. The early one was with Cist burials and the later one was Urn burials. Very recently nearly fifty Iron Age burials of Urn and Cist types were excavated at Auroville by the author. In addition to this, the materials brought form the accidental discoveries are put together as sources for the study to understand the prehabitation of Indo-Roman trade phase (pre-periplus) and ancient urbanization at Arikamedu in Puducherry.

Keywords

Cairn Circle, Lateritic, Megalithic, Neo-Chalcolithic, Neolithic, Periplus, Sarcophagus.

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References

Casal JM, Casal G. Site Urbainet Sites Funéraires des Environs de Pondichéry. In his report Casals noted that those Faucheux’s collections like pottery, a stone object and a bronze bracelet were neo-chalcolithic. Paris; 1956. 119–129.

Leshnik LS. South Indian Megalithic Burials-The Pandukkal Complex. Wiesbaden; 1974.

Laffitte N. Reporte d’Ensembles Sur les Fouilles Exécutées dans le Sud de l’Inde. Paris; 1932.

Ravitchandirane P. Prehistoric Times of Pondicherry. HuSS: International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences. 2014; 1: 28–30.

Wheeler REM, Ghosh A, Deva K. Arikamedu: an Indo– Roman Trading Station on the East Coast of India. Ancient India. 1946; 2: 17-125.

Casals identification on Fr. Faucheux collections like perforated black lid is commonly noticed in the modern pottery. Casal described this as a black surfaced handmade lid. Even in the modern days this type of lid is used to filter the cooked rice. In addition, the illustrated materials have been found on the surface and not from the excavation which is very hard to date without any comparative sample. A bronze bracelet with trumpet ends from Faucheux collections (Faucheux L. Une Vieille cite indienne près de Pondichéry Virampatanam. Pondicherry; 1945), illustrated by Casals does not at all fit into the known peninsular Neolithic assemblage. Hence, the Casals report on Fr. Faucheux collection is not sufficient to conclude that Gorimedu is a Neolithic assemble site. At present the study found no such evidence on the surface of Gorimedu and its vicinity. However, close to Gorimedu a village named Moratandi the study found some of proto historic artifacts and a terra cotta ring well on the surface. Mangalam is located near Villionur in Puducherry. A stone tool was identified as from the collections of Fr. Faucheux. However, only two illustrations were published without any description by Casals as neo-chalcolithic.

Pattabiramin PZ.Sites Archangéliques pré Historiques de Environs de Pondichéry. Revue Historique de l’Inde Française. 1948 ; (septième): 147–50.

Begley V. Sources of Pondicherry’s History: Prehistoric to Early Historical Period. Revue Historique de Pondichéry. Pondicherry. 1987; 15: 1–20.

Indian Archaeological Review. 1984; 87: 77.

Pingel, P. “The Auroville Megaliths”. The Indian Magazine of her People and Culture; 1987. 44–51.

Pattabiramin PZ. op. cit. 1948. 147–50.

Kuppuswamy. Fernel Urns of Bahour. Pondicherry: Revue Historique de la Pondichery; 1974-75 ; 12 :1–10.

Ravitchandirane P. Stratigraphy and Structural Context of Arikamedu in East and West. IsIAO.57: Italy; 2007. 223–24.

Dubreuil JG. Les ruines romaines de Pondichéry. Bulletin de l’Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient XL. Paris; 1941; 2: 448–50.

Casal JM. Fouilles de Virampatnam – Arikamedu’. Paris; 1949.

The rouletted ware was first identified, named and dated in Arikamedu, then when the scholars are commonly using the term to describe or to date the early historical age sites. Begley V. Pottery from the Northern Sector. 1982-1992 in Begley V et al. The Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New excavations and Researches 1989-92. 1996. And also see Begley V. Chronology. Begley V et al. The Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New excavations and Researches 1989-92. 2004. II. EFEO. Pondicherry: 106–7. In some extent some scholars are relating rouletted ware sites with roman trade also (Ravitchandirane P. op. cit. 2007; 228–30).

Begley V. 1983. Arikamedu Reconsider. American Journal of Archaeology: 461–81. https://doi.org/10.2307/504104

Casal JM. op. cit. 1949; 31. And see also Begley V. op. cit. 1996; 14 for detail discussion.

Wheeler REM. Rome beyond its frontiers: London; 1954. 47.

Casal dated Arikamedu Iron Age (megalithic) levels as early 2nd century BCE. See Casal JM. ibid; 1949: 43. He excavated two Iron Age burial sites and dated those burials sites as early 2nd century BCE. See Casal JM, Casal G. Site Urbain et Site. op.cit. Paris; 1956. Recently we have excavated Iron Age burials at Auroville. We found the Burials in different types and different periods in Iron Age culture. On the basis of TL dating method the burials are dating between 500 BCE and 300 BCE. See Ravitchandirane P. Archaeological finds from Puducherry Region in Amaravathi. Chennai; 2017: 185–196.

Casal JM, Casal G. op. cit. 1956. see layer 8 in fig.15.

Casals raises the question whether the sati ritual might not be documented either in Muthrapaleaon or in Suttukeni. Ibid.

Begley V. op. cit.; 1983: 478.

Gabelé YR. La tombe mégalithique de Suttukeni. Nouvelles de Pondichéry II., 1958; 4. Reprint in Revue Historique de Pondichéry. Pondicherry; (1974-75) ; 12: 31–5.

Casal JM, Casal G. op. cit. 1956; plate-XXVI A.

Lal BB. Sisupalgarh 1948: An early Historical Fort in Eastern India. Ancient India. 1949; 5. plate-XLVI B.

Begley V. op. cit.; 1983: 469–71.

Pingel P. The Auroville Megaliths. The Indian Magazine op.cit. 1987 March: 44–51.

Begley V. Excavations of Iron Age Burials at Pomparippu, 1970’. Ancient Ceylon. 1981; 4: 85.

In Search of Lost Fort in Puducherry

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Authors

P. Ravitchandirane ¹

Affiliations
1 Assistant Professor, Department of History, Tagore Government Arts and Science College, Puducherry, IN

Source

HuSS: International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, Vol 8, No 1 (2021), Pagination: 9-20

Abstract

The fort and the fortified walled town that had never been seen before on the Indian East coast was in Puducherry during the early phase of French rule. Francois Martin had planned the town Pondichery and strengthened its defences. He constructed a great star-shaped fort called Fort St. Louis named after Louis XIV, after the plan of Vauban for the Tournai fort, was viewed as far stronger and all the way more secure and hoped that no one can destroy it. On August 25, 1706, the fort was inaugurated and then in 1745, the whole town was encircled with a fortified wall and moat. Between 1761 and 1770 the whole French town, fort and the fortified walls were razed down by the British army. Now the remains of the unconquered fort and town walls are not found anywhere in modern Puducherry. Jean Deloche made a major study to trace the early French Puducherry using records and maps. In January 2018, a team of History students from Tagore Government Arts and Science College under the direction of the author unearthed a part of the architecture of the lost fort in the heart of modern Puducherry town. This paper brings out a comprehensive summary of the archaeological fieldwork in search of French fort and fortified wall which encircled early Puducherry.

Keywords

Augsburg, Aye, Berenike, Coote, Fort Barlong, François Martin, Jean Deloche, Labernadie, Lally, Law De Lauriston, Megalithic, Podouke, Quseir Al-Qadim, Ryswick, Tournai, Vauban.

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References

On September 20, 2006, the Government of Union Territory of Pondicherry announced that the name of the territory and its capital town had been changed to Puducherry,in an attempt to reflect its indigenous, pre-colonial history, Danna Agmon, “An Uneasy Alliance: Traders, Missionaries and Tamil Intermediaries in Eighteen-Century French India” Ph.D., Thesis submitted in the University of Michigan. 2011. p. 1. However, this town had various names in the pre-Indian Union government. Tamil and Franco-Tamil-speaking people referred to this place as Pondy. The Portuguese, in their navigation records, mentionit as ‘Pudicheria’ or ‘Pudecheira’.(Livemeru H.V., A History of Portugal, Cambridge, 1947). The Dutch company first made a small settlement and called this place ‘Poelesera’ or Poelitsjeri (pronounced Pouliseri). French had only established factories at Surat on the Malabar Coast and in the mouth of the Ganges. French was the last one in the Coromandel Coast to establish its trade centre and in 1686; Francois Martin enlarged and founded a new town. People from various places settled in the newly created hamletcalledPuducherry and also ‘Putchery’. English pronounced it as Pondicherry. For a detailed study see Pierre Bourdat, Eighteenth Century Pondicherry, also in French,‘Pondichéry XVIIIéme. Pondicherry, 1995.p. 11-13.

. An ancient industrial seaport city, now as an eroding mound locally named Arikamedu (in Tamil “Arika” means ‘eroding’ and “medu” means ‘mound’) located on the east bank of river Ariyankuppam just before the Bay of Bengal in the south of Puducherry was once eminent in the long-distance commerce between the Mediterranean world on one hand and the south Asian islands, Indian east coast and Sri Lanka on other hand during early Current era (for further study see BegleyV, FrancisP, IravathamMahadevan, RamanK.V, Sidebotham S.E, K. W Slane, and WillE.L, eds., ‘The Ancient Sea Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations and Researches 1989-1992’, Vol. 1, Pondicherry, 1996; see also, BegleyV, FrancisP, KarashimaN, RamanK.V, Sidebotham S., and WillE.L, eds., The Ancient Sea Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations and Researches 1989-1992, Vol. 2, Paris, 2004.

Archaeological importance of Arikamedu in Puducherry was first noticed by Le Gentil, a French astronomer, when he tried to establish astronomic research center in French Puducherry (Le Gentil G, Voyages dans les mers de l’inde fait par ordre du Roi a l’occasion du passage de Venus sur le disque de Soleil le 6 juin 1761 et le 3 du même mois 1769, vol.2. Paris, 1779). G. Jouveau Dubreuil identifie as ‘Podoukê emporia’ of the classicalwriters (Jouveau Dubreuil G, ‘Les ruines romaines de Pondichéry, 40, 2. Paris, p. 448-50, 1941), see also the excavation report inWheeler R. E. M., Ghosh A., and Deva K., “Arikamedu: an Indo Roman Trading Station on the East Coast of India” in Ancient India, vol. 2, New Delhi, 1946.p. 17-125.

Ravitchandirane P, “Megalithic Burials at Auroville near Pondicherry” in Tamil Nadu History Congress Proceedings, Karaikudi, 2017, p. 404-409.

Ravitchandirane P, “Puducherry Before the Age of Indo-Roman (Pre-Periplus) Trade Phase” in International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Sciences, vol.4, issue 2. Erode, 2017. p. 78-85.

Tomber, R, “From the Roman Red Sea to beyond the Empire: Egyptian ports and their trading Partners” in British Museum Studies in Ancient Egypt and Sudan 18. 2012. p.201-215. See also Ravitchandirane P, ‘Amphora in Pondicherry Museum from Arikamedu” in South Indian History Congress Proceedings, Salem, 2017. p. 793-796. Ravitchandirane P., Arikamedu contacts with Red sea Ports” in Pon-ka-ma-ya. Pondicherry, January 1993. p 9-10.

Ravitchandirane P., “Kottaimedu: A Settlement in the Gingee valley contemporaneous with Arikamedu” in PILC Journal of Dravidic Studies, 5:1. January 1995. p 115-126.

Ravitchandirane P, “Archaeological Finds From Puducherry Region” in Rajavelu S., Athiyaman N, and Selvakumar V., eds., “Amaravati” Chennai. 2017, pp.185-196.

Revue de l’Histoire des Colonies Françaises, BibliothèqueNationale, 1913. p. 64.

Pierre Bourdat, op. cit.,. p. 13.

Fred Fengeir J., History of the Transquebar Mission, Transquebar, 1863

The CompagnieFrançaise des IndesOrientales (French East India Company) was established by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, finance minister to King Louis XIV.

Livemeru H.V., A History of Portugal, Cambridge, 1947, p.230.

Robert Orms., History of Military Transaction of the British Nation in Indosrn, London, 1773, pp. 7 - 9

Castonnet des Fosses, H,. : L’IndeFrançaise avant Dupleix,1887, p. 124

Kaeppelin, Paul, La Compagnie des IndesOrientales, p.28.

The Dutch plans give us a clear image of the urban structure of Pondicherry at the time of François Martin. Deloche, Jean. Origins of the Urban Development of Pondicherry according to Seventeenth Century Dutch Plans.Pondichéry: Institut française de Pondichéry, 2004.

Marguerite. V. L’abernaudie, L’abernaudie: Le Vieux Pondichéry, 1673-1815. 1936, p. 39.

Ibid.,p. 57.

Sharma L.P., History of Modern India, New Delhi, 1992, pp.88-90.

Prakash.,Foreign Trade and Commerce in Ancient India, New Delhi, 1976.

Deloche, Jean. Op. cit., .see also Fig. in https://books.openedition.org/ifp/docannexe/image/5664/img-1.jpg

G. RajeevanLal., Early French Settlement in Pondicherry., in International Journal of Creative Research Thought (IJCRT) vol. 6 (2), 2012. p. 990.

Marguerite. V. Labernadie., op. cit., p. 126.

Report of the administration of the Madras Presidency for the year 1921 - 22, Madras, 1923, p.34

Marguerite. V. Labernadie, Labernadie: op. cit., p. 57.

Pierre Bourdat, op. cit., p. 20-122.

I thank the photographer and I regret that I could not find his name. I found this photo on the website of Puducherry photos. This photo is very helpful to us to locate the Bastion on the Southeast corner of the fort wall.

The Saint Louis Fort excavation was with the support of the Pondicherry Museum, Government of Puducherry. I thank the Park authorities and my special thanks to Mr. Ganasen, The Commissioner of Puducherry, Mr. KaliyaPerumal, the superintendent of Art and Culture, the Government of Puducherry, History students Mr. Sabri, Mr. Vinayak Sai, Mr. Vijaya Balan, and Miss. Yowarani from Tagore Government Arts and Science College, and the Bharathi Park authorities. Without their role and extra effort in the excavation is not possible.

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