For generations, the people of Poompuhar have spoken of the days when their sleepy fishing town was the capital of a powerful kingdom, and traders came from Rome, Greece and Egypt to deal in pearls and silk.
Then, more than 1,500 years ago, it was gone. The thriving town, according to ancient Tamil-language texts, was <
Perhaps, archaeologists and historians thought, the sea water had gradually risen. Or, some think now, perhaps it was something else.
"Nobody knew what had happened," said Murugaiyan, a 38-year-old fisherman whose family has long talked of an ancient kingdom that vanished. On Dec. 26, though, it all became clear to him, when the tsunami slammed into coastlines across Asia and Africa.
"Now I know," he said. "It must have been another tsunami."
At least 170 people died in Poompuhar when last month's tsunami hit. More than 150,000 other people died across nearly a dozen countries.
The death toll in Poompuhar would have been worse, they say here, except that most of the fisherman had already pulled their boats to shore when the waves appeared.
"The sea was unusually calm. Then we saw the sea rising suddenly and we knew something was terribly wrong. We started running," Murugaiyan said. Most of the dead in Poompuhar were women and children, including four of Murugaiyan's relatives.
He survived by clinging to a coconut tree, watching the tide wash away the fishermen's hamlets.
He believes the town's past is echoed in what it's going through now.
"My grandfather used to say our town was taken by the sea. His grandfather told him there was a big town long, long ago -- very rich, very beautiful," said Murugaiyan, who uses only one name.
Poompuhar was the capital of the Chola rulers, a Tamil dynasty with a recorded history going back to 200 BC. It was a place where silk merchants and grain traders set sail for the Far East, Greece and Egypt, archaeologists say.
The town had special enclaves for foreign visitors and the king's soldiers. In the streets, languages could be heard from around the world. It was dotted with temples, a sign of a prosperous Hindu kingdom.
But the ancient city now lies under water about 3km offshore. All that remains are a few temples and the modern town, which consists of about 2,000 fishing families.
Undersea excavations and studies by historians show that Poompuhar grew into a big town during the reign of Karikal Cholan, the second-century Chola king who established trade ties with China, Arabia and the Roman Empire.
Remnants of brick buildings, water reservoirs, a boat jetty and Roman coins have been found during undersea excavations.
The archaeologists' findings are supported by ancient Tamil literature, which have frequent references to Poompuhar.
"The description we have in our ancient literature is that it was a bustling port town," said S. Jayadevan, professor of Tamil Studies at Madras University.
"The Romans would come here to buy pearls. They would bring the Arabs," Jayadevan said. "There was also trade in spices and silk."
It's not clear when the town was submerged, though most estimates put it somewhere between the third and sixth centuries.
"There is a break in Tamil history during this period. We believe we were under foreign rule," said M. Rajendran, director of Tamil Sangappalgai, a government-funded group researching Tamil Nadu's ancient history and literature.
"The Dec. 26 tsunami has added a new dimension," said Rajendran. "Previously, archaeologists in our country never factored this into their work."
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema