The archaeological site of Pattanam, on the South-western coast in Kerala’s Ernakulam district, is believed by historians to be part of the ancient port city of the Muziris that played a key role in trade and cultural exchanges between India and the Middle East, North Africa and the Mediterranean regions.
The belief stems from the classical Greco-Roman records as well as Tamil and Sanskrit sources. Scientists and archaeologists have also found human bones, storage jars, a gold ornament, glass beads, stone beads, utilitarian objects made of stone, copper and iron, pottery, early Chera coins, brick wall, brick platform, ring well, wharf with bollards, and a six-metre-long wooden canoe parallel to the wharf structure about 2.5 m below surface level at Pattanam.
These archaeological evidences and ancient DNA analyses by CSIR-Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB) scientists led by Kumarasamy Thangaraj and PAMA Institute for the Advancement of Transdisciplinary Archaeological Sciences (Kerala) P.J. Cherian strengthen the hypothesis.
