Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Arikamedu

Probable Archaeology

Arikamedu is an old trading village on a river near Pondicherry. The same shiny patterned pottery turns up here and at Kalinga's ports.

Arikamedu is an old trading village on the Ariyankuppam river. It sits close to modern Puducherry, in south India. Long ago, it may have been the port called “Poduke” in an old Greek sailing guide. [Dayalan, 2019, p.12]

Diggers found the same shiny, stamped pots here as at Kalinga’s port of Manikapatna and its walled town of Sisupalgarh. This pottery is called rouletted ware. Historians think it links Arikamedu and Kalinga in one shared trade web. That web was busy around two thousand years ago. [Patra, n.d., p.111; Dayalan, 2019, p.12]

No record of a real trip between Arikamedu and Kalinga has been found. So historians are careful here. They call this only a shared trade web, shown by matching pots, not proof that any single ship sailed between the two coasts. [Patra, n.d., p.110; Dayalan, 2019, p.12]

For scholars

The Kalinga link rests only on matching pots. No written record shows ships sailing between the two coasts. [Patra, n.d., p.111; Dayalan, 2019, p.12]

Facts

Coordinates
11.88°, 79.80°
[Dayalan, 2019]
  1. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019
Modern name
Arikamedu, near Puducherry
Also known as
Poduke (proposed identification), Virampatnam
Region
south-india

Routes through Arikamedu

  • Chilika coast to Arikamedu

    Arikamedu near Pondicherry traded with the Roman world. Broken jars and the same patterned pottery turn up at Odisha's ports as well.

    [Patra, n.d., pp. 110-111]; [Patnaik, 2014a, p. 103]; [Dayalan, 2019, offprint pp. 12-16, section 'Arikamedu']
    1. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , pp. 110-111 (p. 111: 'The rouletted wares of Manikpatna have much similarity with those of Sisupalagarh and Arikamedu.' p. 110: the same ware from Kaveripatnam, Uraiyur and Arikamedu is grouped with the Odishan finds as one Roman trade network along the east coast.)
    2. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Puri: A Study of Early Trade and Pilgrim Routes*. in Odisha Review. 2014a , p. 103 ('the land routes extended from Taxila to Kaveripattinam in the south and Tamluk in the east up to Broach in the west'; Tosali, Kalingapatnam, Tamralipti and Pithunda were 'all in the trade circuit'.)
    3. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019 , offprint pp. 12-16, section 'Arikamedu' ('Arikamedu (11 deg 53' N; 79 deg 48' E), a well-known Indo-Roman trading station, is identified with "Pouduke" of the Periplus Maris Erythraei and Ptolemy.' Journal pagination not verified.)
Scholar notes

The Kalinga connection rests on pottery resemblance, not on any record of a voyage: rouletted ware at Manikapatna and Sisupalgarh looks like rouletted ware at Arikamedu. That shows a shared trading network, not sailings between the two places, so the tier is Probable. The identification of Arikamedu with the Periplus's Poduke is itself a scholarly proposal.

  1. Duraiswamy Dayalan. *Ancient Seaports on the Eastern Coast of India: The Hub of the Maritime Silk Route Network*. in Acta Via Serica 4. 2019 , offprint pp. 12-16, section 'Arikamedu' ('Arikamedu (11 deg 53' N; 79 deg 48' E), a well-known Indo-Roman trading station, is identified with "Pouduke" of the Periplus Maris Erythraei and Ptolemy. It is about 6 km from Pondicherry, situated on the bank of the Ariyankuppam River.' Journal pagination not verified.)
  2. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , pp. 110-111 (p. 111: 'The rouletted wares of Manikpatna have much similarity with those of Sisupalagarh and Arikamedu.' p. 110: rouletted ware from Sisupalagarh, Manikpatna and Radhanagara is grouped with finds from Kaveripatnam, Uraiyur and Arikamedu.)