Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Sisupalgarh to Manikapatna

Probable Archaeology

Sisupalgarh was a huge walled city a little way inland, and Manikapatna was a port on Chilika lake not far away. The very same kind of patterned pottery has been found in both places.

The same fine, dotted pottery has been dug up at big walled Sisupalgarh and at the little port of Manikapatna.

Sisupalgarh was a huge walled city, a little way inland. Manikapatna was a port on Chilika lake, not far away. Diggers found the very same kind of pottery at both places. It is called rouletted ware, a fine pottery with a dotted pattern. A third site, Radhanagara, had it too. Scholars read this shared pottery as a sign of one trade network across the Bay of Bengal. [Patra, n.d., p. 110]

Historians think inland cities sent their goods to the nearest port first, and then on by sea to bigger ports. This is the general pattern one source describes for old Odisha. [Patra, 2014, p. 118]

For scholars

No source read here records an actual journey or road between Sisupalgarh and Manikapatna. The link is inferred, from the shared pottery style and from a general pattern of inland cities using their nearest port. Sisupalgarh sits roughly 70 km inland of Chilika lake, by the shortest line. No site along the way was checked for a link. The line shown here is schematic. [Patra, n.d., p. 110; Patra, 2014, p. 118]

Facts

Mode
Overland
From
Sisupalgarh
To
Manikapatna

Ports on this route

  • Manikapatna

    Manikapatna is an old port on the shore of Chilika lake. People digging there found coins and broken pots from China, Sri Lanka and lands far to the west.

    [Tripati, 2021, pp. 1211-1212]; [Patra, n.d., pp. 111-112]; [Patnaik, 2014a, pp. 104-105]; [Tripati, 2022, Introduction; Sci. Rep. 12:13559]; [Patra, 2014, p. 120]; [Dayalan, 2019, offprint p. 23, section 'Manikapatna']
    1. Sila Tripati. *Indo-Arabian stone anchor of Manikapatna, Odisha, east coast of India: an indicator of maritime contacts of Odisha*. in Current Science 120. 2021 , pp. 1211-1212 (p. 1211: OIMSEAS, Bhubaneswar excavated 1989-1993; site lies on the bank of Chilika Lake in Brahmagiri taluk, Puri district. p. 1212: two periods, 2nd c. BCE to 5th-6th c. CE and 9th to 19th c. CE; Kharoshthi inscription, knobbed and rouletted ware, Puri-Kushan and Chola coins, Yuan/Ming porcelain.)
    2. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , pp. 111-112 (Finds list: Chinese celadon and porcelain, rouletted pottery and amphora fragments, knobbed ware, Burmese and Siamese pottery, a Ceylonese coin of Sahassamalla, Indonesian terracotta, egg-white Arabian ware, and a Kharoshthi potsherd read as 'Dasatradeva'.)
    3. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Puri: A Study of Early Trade and Pilgrim Routes*. in Odisha Review. 2014a , pp. 104-105 (Excavation seasons 1989-90 and 1992-93; site c. 45 km south of Puri; mounds topped by the 13th-c. Bhabakundaleswar temple; period I 2nd c. BCE to 5th-6th c. CE, period II 9th c. to early 19th c. CE; East India Company copper coins, Mughal and Shah Alam coins, a British medal.)
    4. Sila Tripati, Jyotiranjan S. Ray, Rudra Prasad Behera, Prakash Babu, Milan Kumar Mahala, Murali Kocherla, Vijay Khedekar. *Geochemical provenance of an Indo-Arabian stone anchor from Manikapatna highlights the medieval maritime trade of India*. in Scientific Reports 12. 2022 , Introduction; Sci. Rep. 12:13559 (Confirms OIMSEAS 1989-1993 and Deccan College 2010 excavations, same two phases; a stone anchor near the mosque, 2018-19. Also: 'Chinese ceramic sherds ... of the 13th to 14th century CE ... produced in Fujian and Zhejiang Provinces of China' (pers. comm. Ran Zhang).)
    5. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014 , p. 120 (Prints a coordinate for the site: 'Lat. 19 deg 43' 54" N and Long. 85 deg 33' 14" E', in the northern tip of the Chilika Lake, Brahmagiri tahsil, Puri district. Also the Sahassamalla-coin network linking Manikpatna, Polonnaruva and Kotchina (Sumatra), and Maratuan (Burmese) brown glazed ware.)
    6. 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 p. 23, section 'Manikapatna' (Independently gives 19 deg 43' N; 85 deg 34' E, agreeing with Patra 2014 to the arc-minute. Records Abul Fazl (1595-96) on Manikapatna as a large port where salt tax was collected. Journal pagination not verified.)
Scholar notes

No source read here records a journey or road between the two places; the link is inferred from the shared pottery style and from Patra's general model of inland cities using the nearest port. Sisupalgarh lies roughly 70 km inland of Chilika by the shortest line; no bridging site or riverine link was checked. Line schematic.

  1. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 110 (Rouletted ware from Sisupalagarh, Manikpatna and Radhanagara in Orissa is listed together with the same ware from sites across the Bay of Bengal, read by the authors as evidence of one shared trade network.)
  2. Benudhar Patra. *Ports in Ancient Odisha: Historical Perspective*. in Odisha Review. 2014 , p. 118 ('people from different parts used to come by land and river route to the nearest port, then made a coastal voyage to different big ports' - the general model of inland centres feeding the nearest port.)