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75-582: Muchiri ( Malayalam: [mujiri] , Tamil: [musiri] ), commonly anglicized as Muziris ( Ancient Greek : Μουζιρίς , Old Malayalam : Muciri or Muciripattanam possibly identical with the medieval Muyirikode ) was an ancient harbour and an urban centre on the Malabar Coast . Muziris found mention in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea , the bardic Tamil poems and

150-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

225-586: A debate among historians of South India. The derivation of the name "Muziris" is said to be from the native name of the port, "Muciri" (Malayalam: മുചിറി). In the region, the Periyar river perhaps branched into two like a cleft lip, thus speculatively leading to the name "Muciri". It is frequently referred to as Muciri in Sangam poems, Muracippattanam in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana , and as Muyirikkottu in

300-525: A fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in the Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as

375-549: A financier that concerns cargoes, especially of pepper and spices from Muziris. The fragmentary papyrus records details about a cargo consignment (valued at around nine million sesterces ) brought back from Muziris on board a Roman merchant ship called the Hermapollon . The discovery opened a strong base to ancient international and trade laws in particular and has been studied at length by economists, lawyers, and historians. The great Tamil epic Cilappatikaram ( The Story of

450-641: A large lake indicated behind Muziris, and besides which is an icon marked Templ(um) Augusti, widely taken to mean a “Temple of Augustus ". A large number of Roman subjects must have spent months in this region awaiting favourable conditions for return sailings to the Empire. This could explain why the Map records the existence of an Augustan temple. It is also possible that there was a Roman colony in Muziris. Muziris disappeared from every known map of antiquity, and without

525-567: A long wooden boat and associated bollards made of teak and a wharf made of fired brick. The most remarkable find at Pattanam excavations in 2007 was a brick structural wharf complex, with nine bollards to harbour boats and in the midst of this, a highly decayed canoe, all perfectly mummified in mud. The canoe (6 meters long) was made of Artocarpus hirsutus , a tree common on the Malabar Coast , out of which boats are made. The bollards, some of which are still in satisfactory condition, were made of teak. Three Tamil-Brahmi scripts were also found in

600-510: A number of classical sources. It was the major ancient port city of Cheras . The exact location of Muziris has been a matter of dispute among historians and archaeologists. However, excavations since 2004 at Pattanam in Ernakulam district of Kerala have led some experts to suggesting the hypothesis that the city was located just there. It was an important trading port for Christian and Muslim merchants arriving from other countries. Muziris

675-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

750-542: A strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to a lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either

825-619: A trace, presumably because of a cataclysmic event in 1341, a "cyclone and floods" in the Periyar that altered the geography of the region. The historians Rajan Gurukkal and Dick Whittakker say in a study titled "In Search of Muziris" that the event, which opened up the present harbour at Kochi and the Vembanad backwater system to the sea and formed a new deposit of land now known as the Vypin Island near Kochi, "doubtless changed access to

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900-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

975-407: Is a divisive subject among some historians of South India. When KCHR announced the possible finding of Muziris based on Pattanam finds, it invited criticism from historians and archaeologists. Historians such as R Nagaswamy , KN Panikkar and MGS Narayanan disagreed with the identification and called for further analysis. "Whether Pattanam was Muziris is not of immediate concern to us", the chief of

1050-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

1125-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

1200-511: Is exported pepper, which is produced in only one region near these markets, a district called Cottonara. The Periplus reveals how Muziris became the main trade port for the Chera chiefdom. The author explains that this large settlement owed its prosperity to foreign commerce, including shipping arriving from northern India and the Roman empire. Black pepper from the hills was brought to the port by

1275-427: Is now free From all agonies of the summer heat And the forest looks exceedingly sweet; Behold there O friend of choicest bangles! Our hero of the hilly track will be coming eftsoon, Driving fast his ornate chariot drawn by the steeds With waving plumes and trimmed manes When the stiffly tugged reins Will sound like the strumming of Yal. As he drives, he has the chariot bells tied up So as not to disturb

1350-407: Is number 8, 12, 18, 22, 28, etc.) belong to the kuṟiñci (mountainous landscape); poems bearing number 4 and then in increments of 10 (14, 24, 34, 44, etc.) are mullai (pastoral forests); poems with number 6 and then in increments of 10 (16, 26, 36, etc.) are marutam (riverine farmlands). The anthology was compiled by Uruttiracanman, the son of Maturai Uppurikuti Kilan under the patronage of

1425-522: 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

1500-688: The Akanaṉūṟu after the Narrinai and Kuṟuntokai anthologies. According to Kamil Zvelebil, except for a few Akananuru poems such as 10, 35, 140 which were probably completed between 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE, while few poems are believed to be composed around the late 2nd century BCE based on the mentions of the Maurya and the Nanda empire. Most of the Akananuru was likely composed sometime between

1575-498: The Akanaṉūṟu has the earliest known mentions of some stories such as "Krishna stealing sarees of Gopis" which is found later in north Indian literature, making it probable that some of the ideas from Tamil Hindu scholars inspired the Sanskrit scholars in the north and the Bhagavata Purana , or vice versa. However the text Harivamsa which is complex, containing layers that go back to the 1st or 2nd centuries BCE, Consists

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1650-679: The Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been a standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about

1725-606: The Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as a separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek

1800-698: The Jewish copper plate of an 11th-century Chera ruler. A tantalizing description of Muziris is in Akanaṉūṟu , an anthology of early Tamil bardic poems (poem number 149.7-11) in Eṭṭuttokai the city where the beautiful vessels, the masterpieces of the Yavanas [Ionians], stir white foam on the Culli [Periyar], a river of the Chera, arriving with gold and departing with pepper-when that Muciri, brimming with prosperity,

1875-580: The Kerala State Department of Archaeology ) in 2006-07 and it was announced that the lost "port" of Muziris was found and started the new hypothesis. This identification of Pattanam as the ancient Muziris also sparked controversy among historians. As per texts, Kerala is known to have traded spices since the Sangam era ; it is based on this trade that some historians have implied that only foreign countries needed spices (pepper). Some historians and archaeologists criticized this view starting

1950-575: The Mahabharatham into Tamil, is one of the authors. Rudrasarman compiled this anthology at the behest of the Pandya king Ukkiraperuvazhuthi. The Akanāṉūṟu has a reference to the Ramayana in poem 70. The poem places a triumphant Rama at Dhanushkodi , sitting under a Banyan tree , involved in some secret discussions, when the birds are chirping away. This seems to indicate that the story of

2025-768: The Palghat Gap and along the Kaveri Valley to the east coast of India. Though the Roman trade declined from the 5th century AD, the former Muziris attracted the attention of other nationalities, particularly the Persians, the Chinese and the Arabs, presumably until the devastating floods of Periyar in 1341. Earlier Muziris was identified with the region around Mangalore in southwestern Karnataka . Later hypothesis

2100-501: The Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

2175-603: The epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of a lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between

2250-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

2325-519: The 13th and 16th century were recovered. In 1983, a large hoard of Roman coins was found at a site around six miles from Pattanam . A series of pioneering excavations from 2007 carried out by the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR, an autonomous institution) at Pattanam uncovered a large number of artifacts. So far, seven seasons of excavations (2007–14) have been completed by KCHR at Pattanam. The identification of Pattanam as Muziris

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2400-506: The 2nd and 5th century CE. Aganaṉūṟu book comes under the Agam category in its subject matter. The poems of this anthology are of the Akaval meter . Akananuru contains 401 stanzas and is divided into three sections Bharathidasan University has published a full translation of all the 400 songs by A. Dakshinamurthy in 3 volumes in 1999: (The heroine's companion consoles her friend at

2475-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

2550-484: The Anklet ) written by Ilango Adigal , a Jain poet-prince from Kodungallur (Muziris) during the 2nd century A.D., described Muziris as a place where Greek traders would arrive in their ships to barter their gold to buy pepper, and since barter trade is time-consuming, they lived in homes living a lifestyle that he termed as "exotic" and a source of "local wonder". Concerning Muziris and the Roman spice trade with Malabar,

2625-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

2700-592: The Cilappatikaram describes the prevailing situation 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. Peutinger Map , is an odd-sized medieval copy of an ancient Roman road map, "with information which could date back to 2nd century AD", in which both Muziris and Tondis are well marked, "with

2775-820: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs,   Akana%E1%B9%89%C5%AB%E1%B9%9Fu The Akananuru anthology is notable for its mathematical arrangement: the odd number poems are dedicated to palai (arid landscape); poem number ten and its multiples (10, 20, 30, etc., up to 400) are neytal (coastal landscape); poems bearing number 2 and then in increments of 6 followed by 4 (that

2850-545: The Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from the center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for

2925-622: The Hindu puranic legends about Parasurama, Rama, Krishna and others. According to Kamil Zvelebil – a scholar of Tamil literature and history, a few poems in the Akananuru were probably composed sometime between 1st century BCE and 2nd century CE, the middle layer between 2nd and 4th century CE, while the last layers were completed sometime between 3rd and 5th century CE. Other names for Akananuru include Ahappattu , Ahananuru , and Agananuru . As many as 145 poets are said to have contributed to Akananuru collection. Perunthevanaar, who translated

3000-403: The Kerala Council for Historical Research recently stated to the media. Yet, even the last field report on the excavations (2013) explicitly marks Pattanam as Muziris. While historian and academic Rajan Gurukkal has spoken in favour of the 'salvage of historic relics at Pattanam' by KCHR given the site's disturbance due to continual human habitation and activity, he thinks it [ancient Muziris]

3075-486: The Muziris Heritage Project. Ancient Greek language Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ),

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3150-565: 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 author of the Greek travel book Periplus of the Erythraean Sea (1st century AD) gives an elaborate description of the Chera Kingdom . ...then come Naura and Tyndis,

3225-587: The Pandyan king Ukkiraperuvaluti. The Akananuru poems offer many valuable cultural insights as well as historically significant evidence and allusions. For example, poem 69, 281 and 375 mention the Maurya Empire , poems 251 and 265 allude to the Nandas , the poem 148 mentions Greek-Romans (Yavanas) as trading gold for pepper through Muziris – an ancient Kerala port near Kochi , and a number of poems echo

3300-680: The Pattanam excavations. The last Tamil-Brahmi script (dated to c. 2nd century AD, probably reading "a-ma-na", meaning "a Jaina" in Malayalam) was found on a pot-rim at Pattanam. If the rendering and the meaning is not mistaken, it establishes that Jainism was prevalent on the Malabar Coast at least from the 2nd century. This is the first time that excavators have found evidence relating to a religious system in ancient Kerala. DNA-analyses of skeleton samples discovered from Pattanam confirmed

3375-480: The Periyar river, but geologically it was only the most spectacular of the physical changes and land formation that have been going on [there] from time immemorial". According to them, for example, a geophysical survey of the region has shown that 200–300 years ago the shoreline lay about three kilometres east of the present coast and that some 2,000 years earlier it lay even further east, about 6.5 km inland. "If Muziris had been situated somewhere here in Roman times,

3450-574: The Ramayana was familiar in the Tamil lands before the Kamba Ramayanam of the 12th century. ( Sri Rama's Victory) Now, the dinsome village is wrapped up in silence Like unto the banyan tree of many a stilt root From the branches of which birds chirped ceaselessly And which the triumphant Rama stilled With a show of his hand, That he might discuss in peace secret matters. At

3525-462: The advent of the rainy season) The rumbling clouds winged with lightning Poured amain big drops of rain and augured the rainy season; Buds with pointed tips have sprouted in the jasmine vines; The buds of Illam and the green trunk Kondrai have unfolded soft; The stags, their black and big horns like twisted iron Rushed up toward the pebbled pits filled with water And leap out jubilantly having slaked their thirst; The wide expansive Earth

3600-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

3675-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

3750-525: The coast at that time would have run some 4-5 km east of its present line. The regular silting up of the river mouth finally forced it to cease activity as a port." A series of excavations conducted at Kodungallur starting from 1945, yielded nothing that went back to before the 13th century. Another excavation was carried out in 1969 by the Archaeological Survey of India at Cheraman Parambu, 2 km north of Kodungallur. Only antiquities of

3825-615: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

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3900-530: The dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under

3975-510: The divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and the historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at

4050-533: 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

4125-401: The historical and cultural significance of Muziris. The idea of the project came after the extensive excavations and discoveries at Pattanam by the Kerala Council for Historical Research. The project also covers various other historically significant sites and monuments in central Kerala. The nearby site of Kottappuram , a 16th-century fort, was also excavated (from May 2010 onwards) as part of

4200-674: The hoary Tanushkoti upon the shore — The town of the great Pandyas, The wielders of victorious spears –, A town where women would collect blooms of neytal With rounded stems Which would blossom amidst green foliage In the watery fields, hard by the shore, Where the fresh and golden blossoms of Nalal And punnai trees shed their pollen And make picturesque the sand —-, To adorn themselves on festival days. — Akananuru: Palai 70 , Translated by A. Dakshinamurthy The Akananuru mentions Various Vishnu avatharams such as Parasurama , Rama , Krishna and others. According to Alf Hiltebeitel – an Indian Religions and Sanskrit Epics scholar,

4275-569: The local diet of rice. Pliny the Elder gives a description of voyages to India in the 1st century AD. He refers to many Indian ports in his The Natural History . However, by the time of Pliny, Muziris was no longer a favoured location in Roman trade dealing with South India . To those who are bound for India, Ocelis (on the Red Sea ) is the best place for embarkation. If the wind, called Hippalus (south-west Monsoon), happens to be blowing it

4350-517: The 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 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

4425-539: The moment that I am writing these pages, the name of the King of this place is Celebothras . Ptolemy placed the Muziris emporium north of the mouth of the Pseudostomus river in his Geographia . Pseudostomus (literally, "false mouth", in Greek ) is generally identified with the modern-day Periyar River . This Greek papyrus of the 2nd century AD documents a contract involving an Alexandrian merchant importer and

4500-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

4575-549: The parts of Krishna Playing with Gopis and stealing sarees. The Akananuru poems were likely composed later in the Sangam period than other akam poetry based on the linguistic evidence, the introduction of mathematical arrangement, and given the mention of overseas trade and north Indian dynasties. According to Takanobu Takahashi , the Akananuru poems were composed over several centuries, likely from 1st to 3rd century CE. Other scholars such as Vaiyapuri Pillai chronologically place

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4650-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

4725-533: The presence of people with West Eurasian genetic imprints in Muziris in the past. This is considered to be an indication of the huge international importance the ancient port-city once held in the past. However, the ASI was more sceptical, suggesting that more research is required to confirm the Eurasian presence in the site. The Muziris Heritage Project is a tourism venture by Tourism Department of Kerala to reinstate

4800-401: The rumbling ocean roars, is given to me like a marvel, a treasure. . Akananuru describes Pandya attacks on the Chera port of Muciri. This episode is impossible to date, but the attack seems to have succeeded in diverting Roman trade from Muziris. 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

4875-441: 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 (Chera chief), 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, were

4950-507: The site with the Mediterranean, Red Sea and Indian Ocean rims. Major finds include ceramics, lapidary-related objects, metal objects, coins, architectural ruins, geological, zoological and botanical remains. The major discoveries from Pattanam include thousands of beads (made of semi-precious stone), shards of Roman amphora, Chera-era coins made of copper alloys and lead, fragments of Roman glass pillar bowls, terra sigillata, remains of

5025-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

5100-467: The time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to the historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with

5175-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

5250-416: Was Muziris. Had it been elsewhere, Pattanam wharf and colony would’ve found a mention in available records," he says. Archaeological research has shown that Pattanam was a port frequented by Romans and it has a long history of habitation dating back to 10th century BC. Its trade links with Rome peaked between 1st century BC and 4th century AD. A large quantity of artifacts represents the maritime contacts of

5325-452: Was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in

5400-845: Was a key to the interactions between South India and Persia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the (Greek and Roman) Mediterranean region. Pliny the Elder , in his Natural History , hailed Muziris as "the first emporium of India". The important known commodities exported from Muziris were spices (such as black pepper and malabathron ), semi-precious stones (such as beryl ), pearls, diamonds, sapphires , ivory, Chinese silk , Gangetic spikenard and tortoise shells. The Roman navigators brought gold coins, peridots , thin clothing, figured linens, multicoloured textiles, sulfide of antimony , copper, tin, lead, coral, raw glass, wine, realgar and orpiment . The locations of unearthed coin-hoards from Pattanam suggest an inland trade link from Muziris via

5475-416: Was besieged by the din of war. The Purananuru described 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

5550-490: Was no more than a colony of merchants from the Mediterranean. "The abundance of material from the Mediterranean suggests that traders arrived here using favorable monsoon winds and returned using the next after short sojourns," he says. Feeder vessels transported them between their ships and the wharf, but it would be incorrect to say that it was a sophisticated port in an urban setting. The place did not have any evolved administration nor any sophistication. "I believe it [Pattanam]

5625-562: Was that it was situated around present day Kodungallur , a town and Taluk in Thrissur district. Kodungallur in central Kerala figures prominently in the ancient history of southern India from the second Chola period as a hub of the Chera rulers . But later, a series of excavations were conducted at the village of Pattanam in between North Paravoor and Kodungallur by Kerala Council for Historical Research (an autonomous institution outsourced by

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