Sivaganga: Retired history teacher V Balasubramaniam (75) appealed to the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to urge the Tamil Nadu Government to allocate two acres of land for setting up of the site museum at Keezhadi village.
The first person to identify the artefacts at the present site in 1974, Balasubramaniam, told Deccan Chronicle that this archaeological mound spread across 100 acres is a rare phenomenon in the early history or Sangam period of Tamil Nadu. “So far the excavation is done in nearly in two acres,” he said.
Setting up the museum here would help to enrich historical value and heritage awareness of the people in Tamil Nadu, he said. Balasubramaniam was teaching in Keezhadi government school when he first found a terracotta artefact at the present site. “I had informed the students to alert me if they come across any artefacts in the village,” he recalls.
The students really took interest in it and searched for antiquities in the village. When they found some artefacts lying in graves dug out from a well, they took him to the place. “I collected around six antiquities, but I found it difficult to store them. We did not have sufficient space in the school,” he said.
House owners were also refusing to allow them to be kept at home since they feared ghosts, which is why he managed to store them in the school.
Balasubramaniam was able to understand the historical value of the artefacts only when he attended a short course organised by State Archaeology department in Madurai.
He befriended renowned archaeologist Vedachalam, who was working with the state archaeology department then. The duo travelled together in search of antiques to various places in Sivaganga and Ramanathapuram districts.
“Keezhadi and Kondagai villagers were called as Kundidevi Chadurvedi Mangalam in late Pandya period. And Thiruvilayadalpuranam also mentioned that Pandiyas lived in this area,” said Vedachalam.
The duo collected various artefacts in this area. Balasubramaniam had been writing to ASI to excavate this site for many years. Only in 2014 did K Amarnath Ramakrishna, the superintending archaeologist, approach him. “When I took him to Keezhadi, he said it was the right place to start the excavation,” the teacher said.
