2,000 years ago, a man called Cikai Korran did what is arguably the most dedicated tourist flex in human history. He traveled thousands of miles from probably from the Tamil-speaking India to Egypt and wrote his name in not one, not two, but five of the ancient tombs in the Valley of the Kings, eight times in total. Now researchers have confirmed he was just one of dozens of Indian visitors to Egypt’s most sacred burial sites during the first through third centuries CE, leaving behind nearly 30 inscriptions in Indian languages and scripts, including Old Tamil, Sanskrit, Prakrit and Gandhari-Kharosthi.
This discovery is quietly changing what we know about the ancient world's version of globalization.
