About Keeladi Excavation:
- Keeladi excavation site is a Sangam period settlement that is being excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India and the Tamil Nadu Archaeology Department.
- The settlement lies on the bank of the Vaigai River. This is a large-scale excavation carried out in Tamil Nadu after the Adichanallur archaeological site.
- This site is estimated to be from the period between the 5th century BCE and the 3rd century CE.
Key facts about the Sangam period
- The word ‘Sangam’ is the Tamil form of the Sanskrit word Sangha which means a group of persons or an association.
- This sangama was an academy of poets who flourished in three different periods and different places under the patronage of the Pandyan kings.
- The Sangam literature, which was largely consolidated from the third Sangam, sheds light on people's living conditions at the start of the Christian era.
- It gives information about the secular matter relating to public and social activities like government, war charity, trade, worship, agriculture, etc.
- Sangam literature consists of the earliest Tamil works (Tolkappiyam), the ten poems (Pattupattu), the eight anthologies (Ettutogai) and the eighteen minor works (Padinenkilkanakku), and the three epics.
