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11 India, Arikamedu has yielded the largest number of Mediterranean amphorae. Wheeler’s excavation revealed 116 fragments, from approximately the same number of vessels. Excavations and explorations at the site, before and after Wheeler, have revealed many more fragments (Fig 6). The containers came to India filled with a wide variety of edible items, including olive oil, fish sauces, apples and especially wine. The ancient port is also one of the few sites in India to have yielded the prized terra sigillata, the Roman fine tableware that included mould-made decorated vessels as well as undecorated wheel-made items, produced mainly in Italy. Among the few Indian sites where this pottery has been found, Arikamedu has yielded the highest number of finds. Wheeler’s excavations yielded 31 fragments, and subsequent investigations at the site have brought to light a handful of other specimens. By contrast, the finds of terra sigillata from other sites in India are meagre in quantity and have never been properly documented. Arikamedu is also the first site to have yielded pottery bearing inscriptions in the Tamil language and Tamil Brahmi script, dating to the period from the 2 nd century BC to the 3 rd century AD. It is also the first site in India where pottery bearing inscriptions in the old Sinhalese language and Brahmi script has been found. The ancient port is therefore the only site in India that has yielded pottery with inscriptions in at least four 12 Fig 9. The gateway pillars and walls of the Mission House at Arikamedu. Photo: Mr Ireno, Pondicherry. Fig 10. Interior walls of the Mission House. Photo: Mr Ireno, Pondicherry. Fig 11. Roman period brick from Arikamedu. Photo: Mr Ireno, Pondicherry. Fig 12. Plan of the proposed conceptual zoning plan of Arikamedu. Copyright: Housing and Urban Development Corporation Ltd, Chennai and Department of Tourism, Government of Pondicherry. different languages – Prakrit, Tamil, Old Sinhalese and Latin. Unlike many other early historical sites in India, Arikamedu was not abandoned with the decline of the Rome-India trade, and it continued to flourish until relatively recent times. In the Middle Ages the port was used for trade with Persia and China, with pottery from both the Far East and Middle East discovered at the site. A medieval Chinese text even contains a description of the port. Around 1773, a group of Jesuit missionaries from Siam (Thailand) settled at Arikamedu and built a seminary, locally called the ‘Mission House’, now in ruins (Figs 9, 10). Interestingly, the missionaries reused some of the Roman period bricks dating from the 1 st century AD, in their building work (Fig 11). The artefacts unearthed at the site are presently dispersed in various museums and private collections in Asia and Europe. In India, the major collections are held in the museums in Pondicherry and Madras, while in Europe, the British Museum and the Musée Guimet, Paris, hold material recovered from the site. Future plans Although of immense archaeological importance, Arikamedu does not presently attract many students, scholars or tourists. The site and its potential for tourist development were, until recently, never publicised or marketed. However, the Indian and the Italian governments have jointly decided to develop the site as an archaeological park with an education centre and a museum (Fig 12). Meanwhile, the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), India’s largest voluntary organisation for promoting art and culture, periodically conducts an educational tour, mainly aimed at school and college students, to the major Roman trade sites in south India, including Arikamedu. n Dr Suresh is an expert on Roman artefacts found in India. He is a former Research Fellow at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, and the French Institute of Pondicherry, and Nehru Visiting Fellow at the V&A, London. He is Tamil Nadu State Convener of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), and is currently the recipient of a grant from the Italian government to enable the documentation of Roman finds from India held in European collections. Minerva September/October 2010 31 10 9 Indian archaeology
Chinese heritage Gateway to the Gobi Ray Dunning pays a visit to Jiayuguan, ‘First and greatest pass under heaven’ iayuguan is a remote and dusty city located on the edge of the Gobi Desert in the west of China’s Gansu Province (Fig 3). An industrial centre producing chemical fertiliser, cement, coke and iron from raw materials mined in the nearby mountains, the city is a melting-pot of people from a wide range of ethnic groups including Han, Hui, Tibetan, Dongxiang, Yugu, Baoan, Hazake, Tu, Sala, Manchu and Mongolian. It has grown to its present size (200,000 inhabitants) in just over four decades and the impression one gets on first entering the city is of a 32 soulless and unprepossessing arrangement of modern buildings lining wide, perpendicular streets. It is a city with little intrinsic interest, yet, following the end of the Cultural Revolution, it became one of the first in which foreigners were allowed to travel freely by the Chinese Government. The city of Jiayuguan owes its place in history not to its present, charmless functionality, but to its proximity to a magnificent and strategically important Ming Dynasty fort (from which it derives its name), and a number of other important sites in the prefecture. The significance of the fort lies in 2 3 its position at the mouth of the Hexi Corridor, the 1000km-long mountain pass that links the heart of China with Central Asia. Sandwiched between the Mazhong (Horse’s Mane) Mountains to the north and the Qilian Mountain range to the south, the Hexi Corridor begins near Dunhuang in the far west of Gansu province and stretches southeastward via the Jia Yu Pass (Jiayuguan) to the provincial capital, Lanzhou. The corridor forms a natural highway between otherwise impassable mountains. The 10km-wide bottleneck at Jiayuguan has therefore been a major gateway between cultures throughout Fig 1. The Great Wall descends steeply southwards from the fort across the Hexi Corridor towards the Qilian Mountains, where it ends. It is broken in many places and almost buried in others. Fig 2. The view towards Jiayuguan City, showing the inner and outer walls of the fort. Also visible in the middle distance is the Great Wall extending northwards from the outer wall. Fig 3. Gansu Province, showing Jiayuguan at the eastern end of the Hexi Corridor and Dunhuang to the west. Photo courtesy of NASA: Earth Observatory Team. Minerva September/October 2010 1
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