The Hindu : National : Expert prefers to wait for carbon dating of Adichanallur script

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, May 28, 2004

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National

Expert prefers to wait for carbon dating of Adichanallur script

By T.S. Subramanian

CHENNAI, MAY 27. "I would like to wait for confirmation from carbon-14 dating [for the date of the script]," Iravatham Mahadevan, an epigraphist of international repute, said today. He was asked by The Hindu to comment on the discovery of human skeletons reported to be 2,800 years old in a dozen urns and of three urns with writing resembling early Tamil Brahmi script at a mass burial site at Adichanallur near Tirunelveli town in Tamil Nadu.

Mr. Mahadevan's magnum opus, Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D., was published jointly in 2003 by Cre-A, Chennai, and Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The news item that appeared in The Hindu on May 26 was titled, "Skeletons, script found at ancient burial site in Tamil Nadu."

Mr. Mahadevan said it was "important" to wait for confirmation of the date of the script from carbon-14 dating. He added that he would "have a look at the script and its photograph before venturing any comment. If such an early date were to be confirmed, it would be revolutionary, especially in the context of similar claims from Sri Lanka. I will wait for the results."

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