From jayabarathi Mon Apr 19 00:06:12 1999
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Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 15:05:18 +0800
To: agathiyar@egroups.com
From: jayabarathi
Cc: "Mani M. Manivannan"
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Subject: [agathiyar] Re: [tamil] Early Tamil Coins' Pictures
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At 01:02 AM 4/6/99 -0700, Manivannan wrote
>Dr. Jayabarathi quizzed us:
>
>> O.K. I have given you a lot of info.
>> Now let us have your views.
>> There are a number of things there. They are very marked.
>> In fact, they jump out at you.
>
>
>OK, let me take a crack at this!
>
>The first row coins, the Cera coins, are quite surprising.
>They look more like a doctored Roman coin in that they
>heads look more Roman than Tamil. Long, sharp noses,
>not much facial hair and no ornaments, not even a crown!
>Is that how the ancient Tamils look like? Or is it that
>the Kings really had Aryan features?

They could have looked like this.
They had a lot of intercommunication with the other ancient
peoples. There could have been a lot of cultural exchange as
well as fashions and styles. There was also a lot of inter-marriage
among the royal houses.

The Romans were employed as technicians, soldiers, and they
were in large numbers as merchants. They had colonies in
Tamilzhagam. Temples to Augustus Caesar were in places like
Vanji. The Arabs were also there.
Then there were the settlers and mercenary groups. The "KOsar"
of the Sangam times, according to Raghava Aiyengaar, were
from Persia. The people who later on became Vaanaadhiraayaars
and several other groups were from across the Khyber pass.

In Tamilnaadu, we come across what is known as "MudhumakkaL
Tahaalzhi"(முதுமக்கள்தாழி).
They were very big burial urns made of burnt clay.
When people died , the bodies were folded up in the position of
the foetus, and kept inside the Thaalzhi. In fact, the Thaalzhi itself
resembles the shape of the Uterus roughly.
There were also other methods of burial called dolmens and cysts.
In the Thaalzhis, small egg-shaped pottery were put with the body.
These pots contained rice, paddy, and other food stuff.
this was the primary burial.
There were also secondary burials where the body was first cremated
and kept in a smaller urn and placed in the bigger thaalzhi. But, all
the same, eatables were kept.
In the primary burial urns, we can see the skeletal remains.

The "Mudhu makkaL thaalzhi" burial custom is mentioned in
the Sangam literature.

My associate professor of Anatomy, Prof. Dr.Jayavelu, was also an
Anthropologist. He was interested in these urns. In Piranmalai,
there are three site where groups of "Mudhu makkaL thaalzhi"
are found. The local people call them as "Madha madhakkaa thaali".
(மதமதக்கா தாலி)
So I took them on an expedition to the hill-side where
the sites are found.

Prof.Jayavelu use to tell us about the anthropometry of the
skulls found in Tamilnaadu. Most of the skulls that he saw had
a slanting fore-head with an elongated head. But the brain capacity-
cranial index - was the same as what it is to-day among the Tamils.

If you reconstitute the features, you will get a long-headed person
with a receding forehead. We don't know the colour of the hair or skin.

These types were also predominant among the Tamils in those days.
In KodumbaaLur, near Thiruchi, there is a small museum.
Many terracotta figurines are found in it. You can see figures of
clean-shaven men with varieties of head-gear. They have a certain
degree of Caucasian features.

What I am trying to say is that the features and styles of the
"Kothai" kings is a possibility.

The problem is, we are having stereo-typed mental pictures and
visualisations, ideas and preconceptions about so many things.
We have so many built-in paradigms:-)
And this is one of them. We expect ancient Tamil kings to have
Girudha Miisai whiskers and long Bhagavathar hair-style
with a lot of ornaments.

Even the real RajaRaja Cholzhan of 1000A.D. was clean-shaven.
He definitely does not look like Sivaji Ganesan:-)

You would be getting tired reading all this.

I'll deal with rest later.

Regards

Jayabarathi
>
>And as for the horse and the fish in the Peruvazhuthi coin,
>I cannot make out either, I'll just have to take your word
>for it. If it is really a horse, is it an Arabian horse? Or
>did it come from North India?
>
>What was the metal used to make the coins in the bottom
>rows? Where did they mine Silver? How did they develop
>mettalurgical techniques? Did they use Roman methods?
>More importantly, this is a metal coin with writing on it.
>So, it can be carbon dated. That should give us a
>"no later than" estimate for the development of Tamil
>writing. What script is it? Brahmi or Thamizhi?
>
>The elephant coin of the Pandiyas vaguely looks like
>an Indus valley seal. But then again, that pattern
>may have been copied by other cultures that came
>after IV and brought to Tamil Nadu by Ashoka's
>missionaries.
>
>And none of the coins contain any numerical value.
>So, its value must have been by weight. What do we
>know about the standards used in the sizes and
>weights of these coins? Do they match the Roman
>coins? Or do they match the Ashoka coins? Or are
>they unique to the Tamil kingdoms?
>
>Mani M. Manivannan
>Fremont, CA, USA
>
================================================>

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