earth, gravel and stones, a variety of objects of great interest to the antiquarian, the ethnologist, and to science generally. "Upwards of fifty kinds of baked earthenware utensils of all sizes and shapes, a considerable number of iron weapons and implements, chiefly knives or short sword-blades and hatchets, and a great quantity of bones and skulls were discovered. In one very interesting case, two small pots were found within a large one, together with the bones as in most cases of a nearly complete skeleton, containing what it was impossible to mistake for anything else but the outer coats of grains of rice and of the dry grain known in Tinnevelly as samei. The grain itself had disappeared, but the outer coating- probably of silica-had remained. "Several places at considerable distances, one at least 300 or 400 yards from our principal excavation, were found to contain similar sepulchral urns, and the surface of the quartz hill above was strewn over with broken pieces of pottery of a similar character. Our excavation in all probability only touched one point of an extensive ancient cemetery or catacomb in which the dead of an age, the habits of which are probably quite unknown in India at the present day, are disposed of in this singular manner, that is to say, by placing the skeleton or the body inside a large earthenware vase or pot together with two, three or four small pots apparently containing food for the dead and weapons and implements of iron ready for use when he reached another world." All these articles were taken away by Dr. Jagor for the Berlin Museum, and none of them reached the Madras Museum.3 At that time, the ground was used for the excavation of gravel, and as the workmen had a superstitious dread of disturbing the urns, which they have since got over, the exhumed urns, found in the course of the digging, were left standing or exposed. Thus a good collection of objects was found ready for removal without much trouble or expense. A proposal was afterwards made to continue the excavations, by removing the whole of the soil from certain areas, leaving the urns standing exposed, which would have been rather a stupendous undertaking. But fortunately the proposal was dropped. Orders were given by Government to leave the site undisturbed, but these appear to have been unattended to, for quarrying has been going on continuously ever since, with the result that vast quantities of these interesing relics must have been destroyed. I first visited the site in the official year 1899-1900, when some ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3 I have ascertained that certain objects collected by Dr. Jagor at Ādi-chanallūr are preserved in the Berlin Museum für VÖlkerkunde.. |