A two-day national seminar on ‘Recent trends in archaeology,’ organised jointly by Meenakshi College for Women and the State Department of Archaeology, Tamil Nadu, began on the college premises at Kodambakkam here on Wednesday.
Inaugurating the seminar, Principal Secretary and Commissioner of Museums S S Jawahar stressed that education was not something confined to the four walls of the classroom or within the first and last pages of a text book. “Education is supposed to have a modern outlook,” he pointed out. “It is not just thrusting of information, but understanding, analysing and digesting of information,” he said.
Recalling his student days at the Pachiayappa’s College, where he studied history, the 1988-batch IAS officer said he still preserved the notes of lectures delivered by his professors such as the late T R Ramachandran. “From the manner in which my teacher lectured, on the French Revolution for example, we could visualise the mob scenes.” The senior official said that history was not a calendar of events, about different wars or kings digging tanks or building inns or planting trees. “They are just ordinary stories,” he stressed. “History is the study of the evolution of mankind and the thought process.”
Quoting couplets from the Tirukkural, Jawahar exhorted the large student gathering to put in a lot of hard work in order to succeed in life. “Just as the bees mix their body enzymes to their extractions from flowers, adding medicinal properties to the honey, students too must contribute their own thoughts to the knowledge they acquired through education,” he said. Touching upon the role of archaeology, he said the objects unearthed should be studied in a scientific manner in order to understand the past. “Validation and corroboration are important aspects of archaeology,” he stressed.
Jawahar said there were several excavations, which still needed to be studied in detail and several places that still needed to be unearthed. The first excavation in Adhichanallur was conducted in 1905. After that, there were no excavations until recently.
“Had they been continued, many more things about Tamil history and culture would have come to light.” He said the excavations conducted by ASI at Poompuhar revealed coins used during the Karikala Chola period. Also, an ancient Roman copper coin was recovered at Vellaiyan Iruppu. Explaining the theme of the national seminar, R Vasanthi, commissioner in-charge, state department of archaeology, said many recent discoveries had been made in the field to change and re-ascertain history.