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Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Thursday said that the Union government’s decision not to publish the Keeladi excavation report was an “onslaught on Tamil culture”, reported The Hindu.
In a letter to the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam cadre, Stalin said his party would not rest until the Centre recognised the greatness and antiquity of Tamil civilisation.
On May 23, the Archaeological Survey of India had directed archaeologist Amarnath Ramakrishna to resubmit his report on the Keeladi excavations after making corrections suggested by two experts.
On May 27, The Indian Express had reported that Ramakrishna had refused to revise the report, defending the findings and methodology that were used in documenting details about the archaeological site.
“The BJP government, which consistently views Tamils and the Tamil language with hostility, is trying to suppress and bury the findings from Keeladi,” Stalin told his party cadre.
He also criticised the Opposition party, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, for “remaining silent” on the issue. The AIADMK is an ally of the BJP in Tamil Nadu.
Stalin said the DMK government has always worked to protect the Tamil language and culture, even building a museum for the excavation findings. On the other hand, “the state unit of the BJP has also abandoned its love for language and culture to appease the party high command”, he alleged.
Keeladi has been at the centre of a political debate in recent years.
Ramakrishna, who led the two excavation phases at Keeladi between 2014 and 2016, had unearthed more than 5,500 artefacts pointing to an urban civilisation in Tamil Nadu during the Sangam era. The Sangam era is the period between the 3rd century before common era to the 3rd century common era in southern India.
In 2017, the Archaeological Survey of India transferred Ramakrishna to Assam. Political parties had described this move as “unusual” at the time, The New Indian Express reported.
The discovery had attracted widespread attention and Ramakrishna’s transfer was viewed as an attempt to downplay the excavation’s significance, according to The Hindu.
The Archaeological Survey of India carried out the third phase of the excavation. But it announced in 2017 that no significant findings had emerged and halted the excavation.
The decision was criticised by politicians in Tamil Nadu, who accused the Union government of attempting to suppress evidence of an ancient Tamil civilisation, according to The Hindu.
However, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court intervened and asked the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology to take over the excavation, the Deccan Herald reported. The eleventh phase of excavation will take place in June.
About 20,000 artefacts have been recovered from Keeladi since 2014.
In the report submitted in 2023, Ramakrishna, who is now the director of antiquities, relied on accelerator mass spectrometry dating of 23 artefacts, which determined that they were from around 300 CE, the Deccan Herald reported.
Using this data, he established the chronological span of the Keeladi site to be between the 8th century BC and the 3rd century CE.
This article first appeared on Scroll.in
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