We used to imagine the kitchens of Muciri Pattinam from 300 BCE to 300 CE, the peak phase of the site, where material evidence from approximately 40 cultures spanning from Gibraltar to South China has been unearthed. While not all people from those cultures may have visited, sailors, traders, and adventurers from at least 16 port sites of the transoceanic network likely did.
How did they exchange culinary experiences? Some brought their habitual food items that could survive forty to fifty days of sea voyages. Material remains and textual sources indicate they exchanged arrack, toddy, wine, olive oil, and fish sauce among numerous other items from 12 locations across Afro-Eurasia around the Mediterranean. We have pottery fragments (sherds) with soot marks, indicating different shapes, sizes, and functions. Out of 67 trenches dug so far, the pot sherds unearthed are a staggering 4.5 million.
Cooking was certainly one significant aspect, while others served multiple needs of a busy port of the Indian Ocean. Informed speculation suggests they could have made medicinal products from the ancient Ayurvedic traditions prevalent in the rainforests of the four thinais (except the arid Palai Thinai), blessed with 44 river systems and numerous other water bodies. Others were mostly big storage jars necessary for storing spices and other exotic items for transportation. Bowls were a common pottery at the site during the 600 years of its existence as a major port site.
The food of the Sangam Age, as indicated in the Sangam texts, may have constituted a balanced diet, including toddy, arrack, and wine, consumed as part of a healthy lifestyle.
Exposure to nearly forty culinary habits of numerous cultures might have created numerous hybrid kitchens of a cosmopolitan sort. A culture predominantly blessed with Anbu (humility), Unmai (inner truth), Patru (affection), and Pakutharivu (critical thinking), they seemed to have practiced modesty and fairness as overriding attributes of life. It’s important to remember that the caste system or slavery in ancient Tamilakam were either completely absent or marginally present.
Dr. PJ Cherian is associated with PAMA, a transdisciplinary educational trust committed to studying, caring for, and illuminating the Pattanam site. He led the Muziris excavations since 2006-07. The Pattanam excavations were the first-ever multi-disciplinary excavations undertaken in Kerala State. In an interview, he explains that Pattanam is a small village in Ernakulam district. In the 1990s they found objects like beads, pottery, and bricks on the surface. Soon, followed by a trial excavation, and full-scale excavations began; a lot of archaeological evidence was unearthed during the excavations till date. They point to the transformation of an Iron Age settlement into a trans-oceanic commercial port in the Sangam Age. The site, now understood as an archaeological mound, has five cultural layers—representing the Iron Age, Transition phase, Early Historic, Medieval, and Modern periods—which span about 3000 years. To learn about transdisciplinary internship opportunities at PAMA, visit www.pama.org.in.