Ernakulam ; Two artefacts got unearthed in recent excavations in Pattanam. An 111-acre archaeological site north of Ernakulam, indicate connection with the early historic period between the Indian subcontinent and the Greco-Roman world.The sphinx was found in close proximity to two other lithographs found during earlier excavations, which could point to the existence of a jeweler workshop in the area.
A seal ring made of banded fond, a semi-precious stone, and engraved with a “sphinx,” a winged mythical creature that is part-woman and part-lion in Greek legends, was found from one of the five trenches dug this season. A miniature statuette of a male head with hair resembling the Roman coiffure was also found.
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In the period of excavation conducted by the Kerala Council for Historical Research, a pile of material, including sherds of local pottery, relics of brick structures and a wharf, were retrieved from the trenches at Pattanam. After a five-year interlude, digs resumed in March this year, carried out by the PAMA Institute for the Advancement of Transdisciplinary Archaeological Sciences, a non-profit educational trust.
The statuette is the first human form found from the site. With the power that the sphinx embodies, the first Roman emperor Augustus Caesar had chosen the symbol as his seal ring.According to Guilia Rocco, specialist on ancient Roman art at the University of Rome, the sphinx found in Pattanam is similar to the one worn by Augustus Caesar, as Octavius. The artefacts exhumed from the 66 trenches dug includes a ring and statuette, are from the early historic period or the Sangam age layer at the site between 300 BCE and 500 CE.
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