Archaeology, History and Numismatics of South India

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The book presents a valuable collection of papers written over a period of fifty years and cover a wide range of topics like Pre-and proto-historical and historical places in South India. They include rock shelters and paintings in Tamilnadu; glimpses of early sites in Andhra and Kerala; archaeological findings places of Tamilnadu like Kaveripumpattinam (Port-town) Uraiyur of the Cholas; Madurai, the capital of the Pandyas; Kanchipuram, the capital of the Pallavas; Arikamedu with its Roman association; Mailapur and Karaikadu on the sea-coast. There are also other papers on Tamil Brahmi inscriptions; Hero stones, Merchant guilds and propects of Marine Archaeology.

Part II has nine papers on Numismatics findings in South India in general and Tamilnadu in particular.

Prof. K.V. Raman is one of the senior and distinguished scholars whose valuable contributions to the field of archaeology, history and art are well known by his discoveries and publications such as The Early History of the Madras Region (1957). Some Aspects of Pandyan History (1972), Sri Varadaraja Swami Temple, Kanchi (1975), Sculptural Art of Tirumala Tirupati (1997), Excavations in Uraiyur (Ed) (1988), Excavations in Kanchipuram; Co-author of Excavation in Kaveripumpattinam and also of Ancient Port of Arikamedu (1989-92).

He was formerly Superintending Archaeologist in the Archaeological Survey of India and later became Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology, University of Madras from 1976 to 1995. He is the recipient of many honours from India and abroad like the UNESCO Regional Educational Award for 1972, Fullbright Fellow in U.S.A. in 1983 and Senior Fellow of the Association of Commonwealth Universities in U.K. in 1989. He visited South-East Asian countries from 1992-1995 as a member of the Indo-Japanese team headed by Prof. Noboru Karashima to study the historical cultural relations and was Visiting Professor of Art History in the University of Georgia, Athens, U.S.A. (1998).

He was the President of the Indian History Congress in Amritsar (Ancient History section) in 1985; President of the Numismatic Society of India at Shantiniketan in 1989; General President South Indian Numismatic Society in 1996; President of the South Indian History Congress at Gulbarga in 1996 and President of the Tamil Nadu History Cognress in 1997. He received the Dr. V.S. Wakankar Award for excellence in Field Archaeology for the year 2002 from the Indian Archaeological Society, New Delhi.

The book presents a collection of my research papers pertaining to archaeology and culture of South India written over a period of fifty years during the author's career in the Archaeological Survey of India and later as the Professor of Ancient History and Archaeology in the University of Madras.

The articles were originally published in various national and international seminars and journals. They cover the important discoveries in ancient and historical sites and cities of South India. Amidst these, the foremost may be mentioned the cave paintings in Vellore and Dharmapuri areas besides which are sites near Madurai, the historical capital of Pandyas, Pumpuhar or the Kaveripattinam, the port-city and secondary capital of the Cholas of the Sangam period; Kanchipuram, the capital of Tondaimandalam in the Sangam period and later the capital of the Pallavas from the 7th to 9th centuries A.D. and the leading political and cultural metropolis in South India. In addition to the list of capital towns, is a paper on Kodungallur, the capital town of the Cheras of Mahodayapuram (Ma-Kothaipuram) near Cranganore (near Cochin, Kerala).

There is a detailed paper on the material culture of South India as a whole as revealed in the excavations here and also in the papers on the excavations in Pumpuhar or Kaveripattinam. My work at the latter place from 1964 to 1969 is memorable in my life on which I have written in my Tamil book Thollial Alyvuigal (1979).

My discoveries were reported and published in the volumes of Indian Archaeology-A review every year. The first comprehensive paper was written by me in the Handbook, published in the Ind International Tamil Conference, Madurai, 1968, which was compiled by the great Tamil scholar Kambaradippodi S. Genesan. Later, I enlarged it in my paper in Archaeology of the Sangam Age in my paper presented in the Indian History Congress in Calicut (1978). There is a paper on Port towns of Tamil Nadu as prospects of Maritime Archaeology in the collection (1984) brought out by the late Dr. S.R. Rao.

**Contents and Sample Pages**