Early Tamil Epigraphy: From the Earliest Times to the Sixth Century A.D. c21.s16.t1.11

c21.s16.t1.11

At the other end of the timescale, some pottery inscriptions from Arikamedu have to be assigned to ca. 3rd century A.D. on the basis of palaeographic evolution.¹ There is also evidence that the site was occupied even in the medieval period. Furthermore, Arikamedu inscriptions are no longer confined to a single orthographic type (TB-II) as assumed by me earlier on the basis of the evidence available at that time. It is now known that all the three orthographic types (TB-I to III) are present at Arikamedu as in the cave inscriptions, though not in the same proportion.² For these reasons, Arikamedu can no longer be considered to be the "sheet anchor" for the chronology of Tamil-Brāhmī inscriptions as I described it earlier (1971).³