Adichanallur is located in thiruvaikundam thaluk of toothukudi district. If you travel around 24kms from Tirunelveli to Tiruchendur on the high road you can find Adichanallur in the southern bank of Porunai River. The village is placed slightly on a higher ground than the surrounding areas. It is a general belief that this area is named after Aadicha nadar who lived in 17th century in Adichanallur, since many stone inscriptions about him found in this area.
Robert Caldwell “Porunai (ancient name of Thamirabarani River) banks civilization is the biggest and ancient of the South India civilizations”.
The first excavation started in 19th century after ancient articles found while they digging the ground for installing railroads. Dr.Fedor Jagor, was the first one to start excavation at the place in 1876, followed by Englishman called Alexander Rea, between 1889 and 1905 and Frenchman called Louis Lapique in 1904.
First excavations, by Alexander Rea resulted in about 1,872 objects, and later excavations resulted about 4,000 objects. Things found here includes
- Burial Urns
- Knives
- Hatchets
- Vessel
- Bronze Ornaments
- Stone Beads
- Cloths
- Husks of rice and millet
- Lamps
- Jars
- Bangles
- Spears and Arrows
- Romain coins
Excavations also resulted in huge number of pottery, 137 bigger pots and thousands of smaller versions. Importantly, several gold diadems with a hole on each end for tying them around the forehead were found. Rea also discovered a number of bronze figurines of the buffalo, the goat or the sheep, the cock, the tiger, the antelope and the elephant. Rea’s discovery of gold diadems is intriguing, for gold does not occur at Adichanallur it is believed that it should be traded from other parts of the world. It looks like people of Adichanallur has trade connections with Southeast Asia and Europe and the iron tools are made for trade with this people.
Excavations resulted in finding around 150 burial urns within a 60 square feet of area. They are clustered one above other rather than scattering around the place so it is decided that this could be the burial ground for the village. Huge numbers or urns also proved that this place was heavily populated and people lived here for long period.
According to Government Revenue records Adichanallur is part of Velloor village, we can safely assume that they are the remains of people who lived in Velloor village. Excavations also revealed that Adichanallur also supplied bricks for the surrounding villages like kongarayan kurichi which is situated on the other side of the bank.
Thermo luminescence research done on excavations showed that they are from 500Bc. This proves that there was a flourishing civilization before 2500 years in Tamil Nadu. This proves that Tamil Nadu has one of the oldest civilization in world along with Harappa and Egypt.
-Tamilan
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