DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - Tamil Brahmi inscriptions and other archaeological finds

**doctorzlo** · 11-25-2005, 03:24 PM

Originally Posted by jaiganes Thanks aravindhan for posting the link. I was trying to get the link for a different thread. There seems to be very slow progress on this. Also Indian government's archaic archaeological survey is so guarded that it doesn't invite foreign scholars and teams which have better expertise in tools like carbon dating and bone fragment analysis in this venture. Adichanallur find IMHO is a National Geographic special.

A National Geographic special is more than merited, but for now I'd even settle for a few blurred black and white paparazzi photos of what they have found, particularly any inscriptions!

And yes, it would be really good to have the world's leading experts involved. But that's the way the ASI works - they found urns from around 500 BC with Tamil Brahmi inscriptions in Adichannulur a few weeks ago, and they didn't think of involving Iravatham Mahadevan who's right there in Chennai! Like all bureaucracies, the ASI has its own process to follow with their own set of experts. In due time, they will publish their findings so other also can do their value addition. The ASI works more like stringers and reporters reporting what they see with soem editorial work. While Iravatham Mahadevan is more like a columnist or editorial/op-ed writer. Imagine if we expect every stringer/reporter to involve an editor every time they churn out a story; the process becomes unsustainable.

Also, there is a difference between archaelogical work and archaelogical interpretation. Mr. Mahadevan is in the latter category as are numerous other researchers.

Rgds, Aravind Sitaraman

11-25-2005, 03:24 PM	#2
doctorzlo Join Date Jun 2006 Posts 4,488 Senior Member	Originally Posted by jaiganes Thanks aravindhan for posting the link. I was trying to get the link for a different thread. There seems to be very slow progress on this. Also Indian government's archaic archaeological survey is so guarded that it doesn't invite foreign scholars and teams which have better expertise in tools like carbon dating and bone fragment analysis in this venture. Adichanallur find IMHO is a National Geographic special. A National Geographic special is more than merited, but for now I'd even settle for a few blurred black and white paparazzi photos of what they have found, particularly any inscriptions! And yes, it would be really good to have the world's leading experts involved. But that's the way the ASI works - they found urns from around 500 BC with Tamil Brahmi inscriptions in Adichannulur a few weeks ago, and they didn't think of involving Iravatham Mahadevan who's right there in Chennai! Like all bureaucracies, the ASI has its own process to follow with their own set of experts. In due time, they will publish their findings so other also can do their value addition. The ASI works more like stringers and reporters reporting what they see with soem editorial work. While Iravatham Mahadevan is more like a columnist or editorial/op-ed writer. Imagine if we expect every stringer/reporter to involve an editor every time they churn out a story; the process becomes unsustainable. Also, there is a difference between archaelogical work and archaelogical interpretation. Mr. Mahadevan is in the latter category as are numerous other researchers. Rgds, Aravind Sitaraman
	Quote