Kalinga Ancient Trade Routes

Radhanagar

Strongly Supported Archaeology

Radhanagar is an old town in Jajpur district ringed by a huge mud wall. Diggers found coins, beads and pottery that had come from far away.

Radhanagar is an old town in Jajpur district. It sits on the bank of the Kelua river. A huge mud wall once ringed it, covering about ninety hectares. Archaeologists dug here from 2010 to 2013 [Patnaik, 2014b, p.89].

They found about thirty coins of different kinds. They also found roughly two hundred beads of carnelian, chalcedony and crystal. One fine glossy pottery, called Northern Black Polished Ware, usually comes from cities far to the north [Patnaik, 2014b, pp.93-94].

Diggers also found sherds of rouletted ware. This is the same stamped pottery found at Sisupalgarh and at ports around the Bay of Bengal. The excavator says more testing is needed. Only then can anyone say if it was made here or brought from far away [Patnaik, 2014b, p.93; Patra, n.d., p.110].

For scholars

The full dig report, from 2015, was not read for this entry. It rests on the excavator’s own earlier summary instead. The rouletted sherds have not been tested yet. So they should not be called imports just yet. A claim that Radhanagar was once a Mauryan capital city circulates elsewhere. But it is not made in the sources used here [Patnaik, 2014b, pp.88-94].

Facts

Site type
fortified early historic settlement
Coordinates
20.68°, 86.18°
[Patnaik, 2014b]
  1. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Kankia-Radhanagar: An Early Historical Buddhist Settlement*. in Odisha Review. 2014b
Modern name
Radhanagar (Kankia), Dharmasala, Jajpur district, Odisha
Excavated by
Odishan Institute of Maritime and South East Asian Studies (OIMSEAS), Bhubaneswar, 2010-13, under Sunil Kumar Patnaik

Key finds

  • Mud fortification enclosing about 902,500 square metres

    A great earth wall with gateways and corner projections, showing a planned town rather than a village.

    [Patnaik, 2014b, p. 89]
    1. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Kankia-Radhanagar: An Early Historical Buddhist Settlement*. in Odisha Review. 2014b , p. 89

  • Northern Black Polished Ware

    A glossy luxury pottery of the middle Ganges plain. Finding it here links Radhanagar to the north Indian cities of the same centuries.

    [Patnaik, 2014b, p. 93]
    1. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Kankia-Radhanagar: An Early Historical Buddhist Settlement*. in Odisha Review. 2014b , p. 93

  • Rouletted ware sherds

    The same fine patterned pottery found at Sisupalgarh, Manikapatna and ports around the Bay of Bengal.

    [Patnaik, 2014b, p. 93]; [Patra, n.d., p. 110]
    1. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Kankia-Radhanagar: An Early Historical Buddhist Settlement*. in Odisha Review. 2014b , p. 93
    2. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 110

  • Coins: silver punch-marked, uninscribed cast and Puri-Kushana

    About thirty coins of several kinds, showing money changed hands here over a long stretch of time.

    [Patnaik, 2014b, p. 94]
    1. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Kankia-Radhanagar: An Early Historical Buddhist Settlement*. in Odisha Review. 2014b , p. 94

  • Beads of carnelian, chalcedony and crystal

    About two hundred beads, some of semi-precious stone that the excavator suggests was brought in from elsewhere.

    [Patnaik, 2014b, p. 94]
    1. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Kankia-Radhanagar: An Early Historical Buddhist Settlement*. in Odisha Review. 2014b , p. 94
Scholar notes

The formal excavation report (published 2015) was not read; this rests on the excavator's own summary in Odisha Review. Patnaik notes the rouletted sherds have not yet been analysed - 'Once the mineral contain of these potsherds will be confirmed then we can safely put it either indigenous or imported' (p. 93) - so they should not be described as imports. The claim that Radhanagar was a Mauryan capital of Kalinga circulates in later writing but is not made in the sources cited here.

  1. Sunil Kumar Patnaik. *Kankia-Radhanagar: An Early Historical Buddhist Settlement*. in Odisha Review. 2014b , pp. 88-94 (p. 88: 'Kankia (Lat: 20 deg 41' Long: 86 deg 11') locally known as Radhanagar', on the right bank of the Kelua, 30 km from the present shore; excavated 2010-13; occupied 4th-3rd c. BCE to 4th-5th c. CE, then sporadically 7th-8th to 13th-14th c. CE. p. 89: c. 902,500 sq m inside a mud fortification.)
  2. Sushanta Kumar Patra, Benudhar Patra. *Archaeology and the Maritime History of Ancient Orissa*. in Orissa Historical Research Journal XLVII. n.d. , p. 110 (Radhanagara is named with Sisupalagarh and Manikpatna as the Orissan find-spots of rouletted ware, alongside Chandraketugarh and Tamluk in Bengal, Salihundam and Dharanikota in Andhra, Kaveripatnam, Uraiyur and Arikamedu in Tamil Nadu, and sites in Java, Bali, Vietnam and Sri Lanka.)