Muciṟi (, Old Tamil: Muciṟi; ), also Muchiri, Classical Graeco-Roman toponym Muziris/Mouziris (), was an ancient port and urban centre on the Malabar Coast, southern India. It was located near the mouth of the Periyar River in the Chera country of Tamilakam.
Muziris is celebrated in several ancient Tamil sources (the Sangam Literature or the early Tamil poems) and Graeco-Roman Classical texts, such as the Periplus and the writings of Pliny the Elder, especially for its importance in the Indian Ocean spice trade with the Middle East and the Mediterranean world. A 2nd-century papyrus notably describes a cargo loan arrangement between merchants of Alexandria (Egypt) and Muziris, detailing goods loaded onto a ship at Muziris for trade. For many centuries Muziris remained an important port in southern India, presumably until the devastating "floods" of the Periyar River in 1341 CE. It has also been speculated that Muziris may be identical with the medieval "Muyirikode" (Kodungallur) near the Periyar estuary.
The exact location of the ancient port has long been a matter of dispute among historians and archaeologists. Earlier, it was believed to have been located in the region around Kodungallur (Thrissur) in the state of Kerala. Excavations conducted since 2007 at Pattanam, near North Paravur (Ernakulam) in Kerala, have led some experts to favour that location.
Etymology The derivation of the name Muziris is said to be from the native name of the port, Mucciṟi, the Old Tamil word for cleft lip, and indeed the Periyar does branch into two like a cleft lip. Muziris is frequently referred to as Muciṟi in Sangam poems such as Akananuru (Song 149, composed by Erukkattur Tayankannanar) , Purananuru (Song 343, composed by Paranar), Pathitrupathu etc. Muracippaṭṭaṇam in the Sanskrit epic Ramayana, and Muyiṟikkōṭŭ in the Jewish copper plate of an 11th-century Chera ruler.
Location Earlier, Muziris was identified with the region around Mangalore in the southwest of the state of Karnataka. A later hypothesis was that Muziris was situated around present-day Kodungallur, a town and taluk (subdivision) in the Thrissur district of the state of Kerala;Romila Thapar. There is no mention of trade via sea-routes or of any ports during the Sangam Era. It was the Vikings who created the first ships that could cross a sea, let alone an ocean. The Scandinavians used their ships to cross the sea and reach nearby countries in Europe in the early 12th century. The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. p. 46, Penguin Books India, 2003 and indeed Kodungallur figures prominently in South Indian history as a hub of the Chera rulers from the second Chola period .Krishnakumar, P. "Muziris, at last?". www.frontline.in Frontline, 10–23 April 2010. Web.
However, when excavations were conducted in 2006–2007 in the village of Pattanam between Kodungallur and North Paravoor (see below) by the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR), an autonomous institution outsourced by the Kerala State Department of Archaeology, it was announced that the lost port of Muziris had been found, thus starting a new hypothesis. This identification of Pattanam as Muziris also sparked controversy among historians.
Trade Muziris was a key to trade interactions between South India and Persia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Graeco-Roman Mediterranean region.Balfour, Edward, ed. (1871) "Hippalus". Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia. Vol. II (2nd ed.). Madras: The Asylum, the Scottish and Foster Presses, pp. 548-85. Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, hailed Muziris as "the first emporium of India". Although trade between India and Rome declined from the 5th century AD, Muziris attracted the attention of others—particularly the Persians, Chinese and Arabs.
The important known exports from Muziris were spices (such as black pepper and malabathron); semi-precious stones (such as beryl); pearls, diamonds, and sapphires; ivory; Chinese silk; Gangetic spikenard and tortoise shells. Roman navigators brought gold coins; peridots; thin clothing; figured linens and multicoloured textiles; sulfide of antimony, copper, tin, lead and coral; raw glass; wine; and realgar and orpiment.Steven E. Sidebotham. Berenike and the Ancient Maritime Spice Route, pp 191. University of California Press 2011
Early descriptions
Sangam literature Muziris is mentioned in the classical Sangam literature in Tamil, spanning a period primarily from 100 BC to 250 AD though perhaps a little earlier as well as later. For instance, in the Akaṉaṉūṟu—one of the anthologies of early Tamil bardic poems in the Eṭṭuttokai—the following is found in poem number 149.7-11:Kulke, Hermann; Dietmar Rothermund (2004). A History of India. Routledge. .
... 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, was besieged by the din of war.
Another classical Tamil work, the Purananuru, describes Muziris as a bustling port city where interior goods were exchanged for imported gold.Peter Francis. Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present, p. 120 University of Hawaii Press, 1 January 2002Menachery, George; Azhikode-Kodungallur (1987). Kodungallur City of St. Thomas. It seems that the Chera chiefs regarded their contacts with the Roman traders as a form of gift exchange rather than straightforward commercial dealings:Raoul McLaughlin. Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India and China. pp 48-50, Continuum (2010)
With its streets, its houses, its covered fishing boats, where they sell fish, where they pile up rice—with 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, where the rumbling ocean roars, is given to me like a marvel, a treasure.
However, according to the Akanaṉūru, Roman trade seems to have been diverted from Muciri by Pandya attacks on the port, although it is difficult to date this episode:
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 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 Periplus of the Erythraean Sea The unknown author of the 1st-century AD Greek travel book Periplus of the Erythraean Sea—which means Navigation of the Red Sea or Voyaging the Red Sea—gives an elaborate description of the Chera Kingdom in which the importance of Muziris is described:
... then come Naura and Tyndis, 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 is exported pepper, which is produced in only one region near these markets, a district called Cottonara.
The Periplus reveals how the large settlement of Muziris became the prosperous main trade port for the Chera chiefdom through foreign commerce. Black pepper from the hills nearby was brought to Muziris by 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 also 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 the local diet of rice.
Pliny the Elder's Natural History Pliny the Elder gives a description of voyages to India in the 1st century AD. He refers to many Indian ports in his Natural History. By his time, however, Muziris was no longer a favoured location in Roman trade with South India.Pliny the Elder, Natural History, vi.(26).104.
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 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 the moment that I am writing these pages, the name of the King of this place is Celebothras.
Ptolemy's Geographia Ptolemy placed the Muziris north of the mouth of the Pseudostomus River in his Geographia.Peter Francis. Asia's Maritime Bead Trade: 300 B.C. to the Present, p. 119 University of Hawaii Press, 2002 Pseudostomus (literally, "false mouth" in Greek) is generally identified with the modern-day Periyar River.
The Muziris papyrus This Greek papyrus of the 2nd century AD documents a contract involving an Alexandrian merchant importer and a financier concerning ship cargoes, especially of pepper and spices, from Muziris.Romila Thapar. The Penguin History of Early India: From the Origins to AD 1300. Penguin Books India, 2003 The fragmentary record provides details about a cargo consignment valued at around 9 million sesterces brought back from Muziris on board a Roman merchant ship called the Hermapollon. The discovery opened a strong base for ancient international and trade laws in particular and has been studied at length by economists, lawyers, and historians.Raoul McLaughlin. Rome and the Distant East: Trade Routes to the Ancient Lands of Arabia, India and China. p. 40, Continuum (2010)For the full text in Greek and its translation, see http://www.uni-koeln.de/phil-fak/ifa/zpe/downloads/1990/084pdf/084195.pdf
The Cilappatikaram The Tamil epic Cilappatikaram (The Story of the Anklet), written by Ilango Adigal, a Jain poet-prince from Kodungallur during the 2nd century AD, describes Muziris as a place where Greek traders would arrive in ships to barter gold to buy pepper. It also mentions that because barter trade was time-consuming, the traders lived in an "exotic" lifestyle that was a source of "local wonder".
The Cilappatikaram describes the Greek traders' return to their home country 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.
The Tabula Peutingeriana