45 



performed by some of the better class Para was, but the 

 great majority, including naturally the whole of the 

 poorer and the more ignorant sections of the community, 

 continue to adhere strongly to the custom. The bangles 

 are roughly fashioned and with the crudest of ornamen- 

 tation ; they are made by Muhammadans at Kilakarai, 

 their chief settlement on the coast of the Gulf of 

 Mannar. 



The evidence furnished by the Tamil classics of the 

 existence of an extensive chank-bangle industry in the 

 extreme south of India during the height of ancient 

 Tamil civilization 1,200 to 2,000 years ago, has received 

 unexpectedly conclusive corroboration within the present 

 year (191 2) through discoveries which I have made on 

 the sites of the once famous Tamil cities of Korkai and 

 Kayal (now Palayakayal). These cities are now repre- 

 sented by mounds of rubbish adjacent to villages 

 still bearing the appellation of their celebrated prede- 

 cessors. The greatest find was at Korkai, which as 

 already noted flourished from a date well antecedent to 

 the Christian era down to some indeterminate date 

 prior to 1000 A.D. when the accretion of silt at the 

 mouth of the Tambraparni drove the inhabitants to 

 build another city (Kayal) at the new mouth of the river. 

 Here, on the landward outskirts of the village, I 

 unearthed a fine series of chank workshop waste — seven- 

 teen fragments in all. The whole number were found 

 lying on the surface of the ground in a place where old 

 Pandyan coins have from time to time been dis- 

 covered according to information gathered in the 

 village. The fragments unearthed all bear distinct 

 evidence of having been sawn by the same form of 

 instrument, a thin-bladed iron saw, and in the same 

 manner as that employed in Bengal at the present day. 

 Eight fragments represent the obliquely cut " shoulder- 

 piece," six consists of the columella and part of the oral 

 extremity of the shell and the remaining three are frag- 

 ments of the lips— all show a sawn surface, the positive 

 sign of treatment by skilled artisans. 



At Kayal or Palayakayal (i.e. old Kayal) as it is now 

 termed, the daughter city of Korkai, which flourished in 

 the days of Marco Polo and appears to have grown 

 rich as Korkai gradually passed away as a sea-port 



