Visakhapatnam: Researchers of National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) has found evidence that a little known small town in coastal Andhra, Kottapatnam in Nellore district with a small port also had trade links with some South East Asian countries.
A team led by NIO’s Sila Tripati who has expertise in maritime found a single hole stone anchor dating back to 3rd century BC to 15 AD at Kottapatnam which establishes that there was a small port in that region. Incidentally it was the only stone anchor recovered from the entire Andhra Pradesh coast. More importantly the researchers have found that Kottapatnam port was mentioned by Greco-Egyptian geographer Ptolemy (150 AD) as Kottis in one of the works of historian McCrindle, in 1885. Ptolemy stated further that (Manaliarpha), now called Manara, lay at the mouth of a river and Kottis was north of it.
“Kottapatnam is a lesser-known port lying on the west bank of a lagoon which was once part of the estuary of the river Swarnamukhi, Nellore district, Andhra Pradesh, on the east coast of India. Kottapatnam is now a small fishing village but during the early historical period ships plied the lagoon, and an artificial navigational channel was dug on the west of the ancient site for berthing them. There are traces of artificial channel showing the connection with the lagoon, but now it is covered with sand. Kottapatnam port was mentioned by Ptolemy (150 AD) as Kottis (McCrindle, 1885),” said the paper - A Single-hole Stone Anchor from Kottapatnam: Early historic port site of Andhra Pradesh, India authored by Mr Tripati.
The site was also surveyed by K.P. Rao of Department of History, University of Hyderabad during 1999-2001. He found a variety of pottery including rouletted ware, stamped ware, kaolin pottery, Chinese porcelain, celadon ceramics, glazed ware and glass pieces (Roman) scattered in an area 1.5 x 0.5 km lying north-south in the sand dunes beside the lagoon. The presence of Chinese pottery and a coin of Emperor Taizong (1403-1424 AD) of the Ming dynasty with Chinese script and a square hole signify that Kottapatnam had contacts with China from the 3rd century BC until the 15th century AD. Afterwards Kottapatnam started losing its importance.
“Kottapatnam has been shown to have had contacts with Southeast Asian countries and China from the 3rd century BC until the 15th century AD. Stamped ware has only been reported elsewhere from a very few coastal sites such as Jaugada in Odisha and Alagankulam and Arikamedu in Tamil Nadu and not from the interior regions, which confirms this pottery type was transported by sea,” said the researchers K.P. Rao, S. Kumari, O. Imsong and V. Vanlalhruaitluangi of University of Hyderabad.
