Keeladi findings: Stalin urges culture min to set up world class museum at The site

Chennai: DMK president M. K. Stalin on Monday urged the Union minister of state for culture and tourism Prahlad Singh Patel to take steps to establish a world class permanent museum at Keeladi, the site of a major archeological find in Sivagangai district in Tamil Nadu, to display all the findings and artefacts unearthed from the excavations at that site.

Stalin wrote a letter to Patel to this effect, which was handed over to the minister in New Delhi by DMK MP K. Kanimozhi. Congress party MP from Sivagangai Karti P. Chidambaram and CPI(M) MP representing Madurai Su. Venkatesan, accompanied Kanimozhi to personally hand over the letter.

Referring to the recently published report by the Tamil Nadu archaeology department titled, 'Keeladi- An Urban Settlement of Sangam Age on the Banks of River Vaigai', Stalin said the findings from the excavations have revealed that the classical Sangam Age of the Tamils is dated around 2,600 years old. “There is no doubt that this is the most significant breakthrough in cultural historiography in recent times.”

The report also provided “compelling evidence” for the date of the Tamil-Brahmi script to the 6th century BCE. It shows Tamils had attained literacy and mastered the art of writing at least 2,600 years ago, adding “further strength to arguments that the ancient Tamil civilization is one of the oldest in the world and the history of India will now have to be seen from the perspective of the history of Tamils.”

In this backdrop, Stalin said, as also expressed by Kanimozhi in Parliament, a world class museum should be set up in Keeladi, on the lines that is planned at Vadnagar in Gujarat to showcase the archaeological findings.

Stalin also put forth two other demands in his letter to Patel. They included establishing an office of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in Madurai for South Tamil Nadu, in addition to the existing Chennai circle office, and the government of

India immediately declaring Keeladi as a “protected site” as was announced for Sanauli in Uttar Pradesh.