Muziris
Muciṟi,,, commonly anglicized as Muziris, was an ancient harbour and urban centre on India's Malabar Coast. It was the major ancient port city of the Chera dynasty of Ancient Tamilakam.
The exact location of the ancient city has been a matter of dispute among historians and archaeologists. Earlier it was believed to be in the region around Mangalore in the state of Karnataka; then later in Kodungallur in the state of Kerala. Excavations since 2004 at Pattanam, near Kodungallur in Kerala, have led some experts to favour that location.
Muziris is mentioned in a number of Tamil, Greek, and other classical sources, especially for its importance in trade in the ancient world. For many years it remained an important trading post, presumably until the devastating floods on the Periyar River in 1341—which are sometimes also referred to as the 1341 Kerala floods.
Etymology
The derivation of the name Muziris is said to be from the native name of the port, Mucciṟi, the Old Tamil word for cleft lip, and indeed the Periyar does branch into two like a cleft lip. Muziris is frequently referred to as Muciṟi in Sangam poems, Muracippaṭṭaṇam in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, and Muyiṟikkōṭŭ in the Jewish copper plate of an 11th-century Chera ruler.Location
Earlier, Muziris was identified with the region around Mangalore in the southwest of the state of Karnataka. A later hypothesis was that Muziris was situated around present-day Kodungallur, a town and taluk in the Thrissur district of the state of Kerala; and indeed Kodungallur figures prominently in South Indian history as a hub of the Chera rulers from the second Chola period.However, when excavations were conducted in 2006–2007 in the village of Pattanam between Kodungallur and North Paravoor by the Kerala Council for Historical Research, an autonomous institution outsourced by the Kerala State Department of Archaeology, it was announced that the lost port of Muziris had been found, thus starting a new hypothesis. This identification of Pattanam as Muziris also sparked controversy among historians.
Trade
Muziris was a key to trade interactions between South India and Persia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean region. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, hailed Muziris as "the first emporium of India". Although trade between India and Rome declined from the 5th century AD, Muziris attracted the attention of others—particularly the Persians, Chinese and Arabs.The important known exports from Muziris were spices ; semi-precious stones ; pearls, diamonds, and sapphires; ivory; Chinese silk; Gangetic spikenard and tortoise shells. Roman navigators brought gold coins; peridots; thin clothing; figured linens and multicoloured textiles; sulfide of antimony, copper, tin, lead and coral; raw glass; wine; and realgar and orpiment.
Early descriptions
Sangam literature
Muziris is mentioned in the classical Sangam literature in Tamil, spanning a period primarily from 100 BC to 250 AD though perhaps a little earlier as well as later. For instance, in the Akaṉaṉūṟu—one of the anthologies of early Tamil bardic poems in the Eṭṭuttokai—the following is found in poem number 149.7-11:... the city where the beautiful vessels, the masterpieces of the Yavanas , stir white foam on the Culli , a river of the Chera, arriving with gold and departing with pepper—when that Muciri, brimming with prosperity, was besieged by the din of war.
Another classical Tamil work, the Purananuru, describes Muziris as a bustling port city where interior goods were exchanged for imported gold. It seems that the Chera chiefs regarded their contacts with the Roman traders as a form of gift exchange rather than straightforward commercial dealings:
With its streets, its houses, its covered fishing boats, where they sell fish, where they pile up rice—with the shifting and mingling crowd of a boisterous river-bank, where the sacks of pepper are heaped up—with its gold deliveries, carried by the ocean-going ships and brought to the river bank by local boats, the city of the gold-collared Kuttuvan, the city that bestows wealth to its visitors indiscriminately, and the merchants of the mountains, and the merchants of the sea, the city where liquor abounds, yes, this Muciri, where the rumbling ocean roars, is given to me like a marvel, a treasure.
However, according to the Akanaṉūru, Roman trade seems to have been diverted from Muciri by Pandya attacks on the port, although it is difficult to date this episode:
It is suffering like that experienced by the warriors who were mortally wounded and slain by the war elephants. The suffering that was seen when the Pandya prince came to besiege the port of Muciri on his flag-bearing chariot with decorated horses. Riding on his great and superior war elephant the Pandya prince has conquered in battle. He has seized the sacred images after winning the battle for rich Muciri.
The ''Periplus of the Erythraean Sea''
The unknown author of the 1st-century AD Greek travel book Periplus of the Erythraean Sea—which means Navigation of the Red Sea or Voyaging the Red Sea—gives an elaborate description of the Chera Kingdom in which the importance of Muziris is described:... then come Naura and Tyndis, the first markets of Lymrike, and then Muziris and Nelkynda, which are now of leading importance. Tyndis is of the Kingdom of Cerobothra; it is a village in plain sight by the sea. Muziris, in the same Kingdom, abounds in ships sent there with cargoes from Arabia, and by the Greeks; it is located on a river, distant from Tyndis by the river and sea 500 stadia, and up the river from the shore 20 stadia....There is exported pepper, which is produced in only one region near these markets, a district called Cottonara.
The Periplus reveals how the large settlement of Muziris became the prosperous main trade port for the Chera chiefdom through foreign commerce. Black pepper from the hills nearby was brought to Muziris by local producers and stacked high in warehouses to await the arrival of Roman merchants. As the shallows at Muziris prevented deep-hulled vessels from sailing upriver to the port, Roman freighters were forced to shelter at the edge of the lagoon while their cargoes were transferred upstream on smaller craft.
The Periplus also records that special consignments of grain were sent to places like Muziris, and scholars suggest that these deliveries were intended for resident Romans who needed something to supplement the local diet of rice.
Pliny the Elder's ''Natural History''
gives a description of voyages to India in the 1st century AD. He refers to many Indian ports in his Natural History. By his time, however, Muziris was no longer a favoured location in Roman trade with South India.To those who are bound for India, Ocelis is the best place for embarkation. If the wind, called Hippalus, happens to be blowing it is possible to arrive in forty days at the nearest market in India, Muziris by name. This, however, is not a very desirable place for disembarkation, on account of the pirates which frequent its vicinity, where they occupy a place called Nutrias; nor, in fact, is it very rich in articles of merchandise. Besides, the road stead for shipping is a considerable distance from the shore, and the cargoes have to be conveyed in boats, either for loading or discharging. At the moment that I am writing these pages, the name of the King of this place is Celebothras.
Ptolemy's ''Geographia''
placed the Muziris emporium north of the mouth of the Pseudostomus River in his Geographia. Pseudostomus is generally identified with the modern-day Periyar River.The Muziris papyrus
This Greek papyrus of the 2nd century AD documents a contract involving an Alexandrian merchant importer and a financier concerning ship cargoes, especially of pepper and spices, from Muziris. The fragmentary record provides details about a cargo consignment valued at around 9 million sesterces brought back from Muziris on board a Roman merchant ship called the Hermapollon. The discovery opened a strong base for ancient international and trade laws in particular and has been studied at length by economists, lawyers, and historians.The ''Cilappatikaram''
The Tamil epic Cilappatikaram, written by Ilango Adigal, a Jain poet-prince from Kodungallur during the 2nd century AD, describes Muziris as a place where Greek traders would arrive in ships to barter gold to buy pepper. It also mentions that because barter trade was time-consuming, the traders lived in an "exotic" lifestyle that was a source of "local wonder".The Cilappatikaram describes the Greek traders' return to their home country as follows:
When the broadrayed sun ascends from the south and white clouds start to form in the early cool season, it is time to cross the dark, billowing ocean. The rulers of Tyndis dispatch vessels loaded with eaglewood, silk, sandalwood, spices and all sorts of camphor.