Muziris - Lost And Found - Indian Express
July 31, 2010 at 6:30:00 PM
An article in The Indian Express written by Uma Vishnu says that Muziris was a thriving port city on the western coast of India. Following the Roman conquest of Egypt, it prospered and grew to become an important hub for trade between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean areas, receiving gold coins, glass, wine, and wheat from there and exporting pepper, precious stones, silk, beads, ivory, and ceramics to West Asia and Rome.And then, Muziris disappeared. But Muziris was too real to be forgotten, so the search for the lost port city continued. In Pattanam, a team of researchers led by P J Cherian, director of the Kerala Council of Historical Research, has been conducting excavations and research since 2007—in collaboration with the Archaeological Survey of India and a host of institutions worldwide—to find those crucial links to Muziris.
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Since the early historic period, it has already been the first place on the Kerala coast to produce adequate archaeological evidence to show connections with the Mediterranean, North Africa, and West Asian countries.Muziris had to be located before anybody could explain what caused Muziris to vanish. Muziris had to be located. For many years, many believed that Kodungalloor, a town located on the northern bank of the delta and seven kilometres north of Pattanam, was Muziris. It may one day establish the role of the local community in the formation of an urban culture and even tell the story of India's role in the formation of the Roman Empire," says P J Cherian, director of the Kerala Council of Historical Research.