CHENNAI:Though Madras Day is celebrated on August 22 every year to commemorate the founding of the city in 1639, the city traces its origin more than 50,000 years ago, said Suresh Sethuraman, a renowned archaeologist.
Delivering his lecture at Roja Muthiah Research Library recently, Suresh said that man settled in this part of the world for its excellent water supply from three rivers - Adyar, Coovum and Elumbur river (which existed till the 19th century).
He said that Asia’s first paleolithic tool, a hand axe was discovered by Robert Bruce Foote, a British archaeologist close to the railway track in Pallavaram, among debris, on May 13, 1863 which is known as a red letter day in Indian Archaeology. Interestingly, for a long time, this tool got mixed up with other objects at the Madras Museum and on special emphasis from archaeologists, it was put on special display recently, he added.
Alluding Foote’s discovery, subsequent discoveries of paleolithic tools in Attirampakkam, Poondi, Red Hills area, Chengalpattu and Tambaram came to be called as “Madras Industry” in archaeological literature.
Though Chennai had more potential for archaeological digs to reveal its prehistoric past, no excavation took place within the city limits after 1947. Apart from those by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in Santhome, two important excavations with prehistoric connections took place in Kilpauk and Chetpet, which even today remain unknown and unpublished.
Throwing more light on this, Suresh said that an European Indian Civil Service Officer L A Cammiade, while excavating on both the sides of Poonamallee High Road in 1922, discovered several wells close to each other in Chetpet area. These could be soak pits of a drainage system indicating human civilisation. Referring to specialised books on the subject, he added that the Madras Museum authorities, in the early 1930s, dug up a French man’s residence on Halls Road. They found gold button-like structures, terracotta object resembling Shiva, a Hindu god and remains of a broken sarcophagus (used to keep dead bodies) with six pair of legs.
Suresh said that Mambalam was once yielding so many Roman coins and the real estate price there was booming during the 1920s not only for its good locality, but also for coins when they started digging wells. Punch-marked coins and Pallava coins were found in Saidapet, Mambalam and Thiruvanmiyur during subsequent excavations.
The earliest epigraphical inscription in the city was spotted at Selliamman Temple in Velachery and many other old inscriptions were found at at Thiruvanmiyur, Thiruvotriur and Triplicane. An exhibition was held alongside the seminar.