Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology (No.2, 2005)

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

he tsunami that lashed the shores of the Indian Ocean in December 2004 caused a catastrophe unprecedented in recent memory. Entire communities and townships were washed away and thousands died. The Indian Ocean tsunami also caused the destruction of living and non-living heritage. The sea washed over a number of islands in the Andaman chain, reducing further the small populations of the last 'prehistoric tribes alive on this planet. The great waves, triggered by an earthquake in the Andaman Sea, reached as far as east Africa It is feared that archaeological sites on the Home of Africa may have been inundated. However, there was also hope The medieval temple complex at Mahabalipuram and the Danish fort at Trangebar on the south Indian coast remained strangely unscathed by the fury of the seas. A Buddha figure that washed ashore on the Tamil Nadu coast has characteristic features of Myanmarese art. The notion spread that the artifact was transported by the tsunami from the further shore of the Bay of Bengal. The proposition does not appear to be sound on many counts. Perhaps a sunken vessel threw up the treasure due to the unnatural surge. In any case, the appearance of the Buddha image did much to create awareness of our common Indian Ocean heritage. While bringing out this issue, we remember the thousands that still remain uprooted by the disaster.

We have been encouraged by the response from home and abroad to the first issue of the JIOA (2004). A thousand copies have been distributed and the press of fresh orders makes us consider another print run. The articles in the present volume have been contributed by scholars from India and abroad. We present here the field reports of excavations and explorations on the Indian coastlands. The final season of excavations by the World Zarathustra Foundation at Sanjan have been reported in this volume. Sanjan, a medieval port-site on the western coast of India, has yielded evidence of a dukhma, the traditional 'tower of silence' where the Zoroastrian community lays its dead. Sanjan is associated with the migration of Zoroastrians to India during the 8% century AD. Also in this volume is the field report of explorations along the Kanara coast, the littoral tract of peninsular India little known in history. A number of scholars from the Deccan College, Pune and the National Institute of Ocean Technology, Chennai have submitted results of an underwater and coastal survey of the Gulf of Khambhat. There is a report on the imported ceramics from Kamrej. This Early Historic port-site, excavated by the Indian Archaeological Society in 2003, was reported on in the inaugural issue of the 110A (2004). In this issue, Roberta Tomber identifies as Aksumite an amphora-like pottery fragment found at Kamrej. Raj Somadeva offers a holistic perspective of early historic contacts between Sri Lanka and south India. Felix Chami seeks to place east Africa within the broader Indian Ocean Interaction sphere.