46 



owing to physical changes in the delta of the Tambra- 

 parni, I found an excellently preserved sawn shoulder- 

 piece, with marks of the apex having been hammered in 

 after the present-day habit in Dacca workshops. This 

 was found on the surface in an open space within the 

 present village. Time did not allow me to prosecute a 

 detailed search, but in my own mind the single fragment 

 found is conclusive evidence of the industry having once 

 been located here. No shell cutting ot any description 

 is carried on anywhere in this neighbourhood. 



Again, at Tuticorin, I have found a sawn and ham- 

 mered shoulder-piece of typical form, hence as the three 

 discoveries were all made at places which in turn have 

 been the head-quarters of the chank-fishery, I am fully 

 convinced that at all three, chank-bangle workshops 

 formerly existed, to treat on the spot this product of the 

 neighbouring sea. Why the seat of the bangle cutting 

 trade became transferred or limited to Bengal is 

 obscure and may never be satisfactorily elucidated ; I am, 

 however, inclined to suggest the hypothesis that the 

 decay of the industry in Tinnevelly may have been 

 consequent upon the Muhammadan invasion. The date 

 of the passing away of the chank-cutting industry I am 

 inclined to put tentatively at about the fourteenth 

 century, a time which marks the close of unchallenged 

 Hindu supremacy in the south, the spoliation of the 

 vast riches of the Pandyan cities by the Moslem and the 

 heyday of Arab sea-power on this part of the Indian 

 coast. With the depression and decay entailed by the 

 loot and ruin of their enormously wealthy temples and 

 long prosperous cities by the invaders under Malik 

 Kafur and his lieutenants it is far from improbable that 

 the particular trade here referred to became disorganized 

 within the Pandyan realm and forced into a different 

 channel, the whole of the shells being exported to 

 Bengal to be cut there instead of being treated locally at 

 the seat of the fishery. 



It is also noteworthy that the huge funeral urns found 

 in tumuli of the Tambraparni valley (at Adichanallur) 

 have yielded a few fragments of working sections cut 

 from chank shells, associated in the urns with beautifully 

 formed bronze utensils, iron weapons and implements 

 and gold fillets. So old are these tumuli that they are 



