Keezhadi excavation in Tamil Nadu leads to a major discovery

Recently, an excavation was carried out in Keezhadi village of Sivagangai district in Tamil Nadu where archaeologists have made some major discoveries which will add to the Indian history pages. As per historians, the artefacts unearthed in the region have a possible link between the scripts of the Indus Valley Civilisation and Tamil Brahmi (language).
The Indus Valley Civilisation in India happened between 5,000 BCE and 1,500 BCE in north-western part of the country. The civilisation crumpled in 1500 BCE and it is believed that people might have moved to the south of India. The script used by the Indus Valley people is known as the Indus script, and historians speculate that the language could be Dravidian. Now, the recent discovery at Keezhadi shows that there is a possibility that these two cultures are connected.

The discovered samples displaying graffiti belong to 580 BCE, which is believed to be the link between the Indus script and the Tamil Brahmi.
According to the Tamil Nadu Archaeological Department (TNAD) report known as Keeladi-An Urban Settlement of Sangam Age on the Banks of River Vaigai, the cultural findings belong sometime between the 6th century BCE and the 1st century CE. The artefacts could belong as far back as 580 BCE, as per report.


The report, explaining the importance of the findings mentions that “Among the available scripts of India, the Indus scripts are considered to be the earliest one and were 4500 years old. One kind of script that survived between the disappearance of Indus script and the emergence of Brahmi script is called as graffiti marks by the scholars. These graffiti marks are the one evolved or transformed from Indus script and served as a precursor to the emergence of Brahmi script. Therefore, these graffiti marks cannot be set aside as mere scratches. Like Indus script, this also could not be deciphered till date”.

In the recent discovery it was also found that Tamil-Brahmi belongs to another century altogether, which is the 6th century BCE. The report also mentions that they learned the writing art back in the 6th century BCE. To sum it up, the Sangam era, marking the social and cultural developments in Tamil Nadu, must be older than 300 BCE.