Roman gold coins excavated in Pudukottai of Tamil Nadu
The economy of the ancient Tamil country (Sangam era: 600 BCE – 300 CE) describes the ancient economy of a region in southern India that mostly covers the present-day states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The main economic activities were agriculture, weaving, pearl fishery, manufacturing and construction. Paddy was the most important crop; it was the staple cereal and served as a medium of exchange for inland trade. Pepper, millets, grams and sugarcane were other commonly grown crops. Madurai and Urayur were important centers for the textile industry; Korkai was the center of the pearl trade. Industrial activity flourished.
Inland trading was conducted primarily through barter in busy market places by merchant associations and commercial lending institutions. Merchants formed associations that operated autonomously, without interference from the state. The people of ancient Tamil country engaged in brisk overseas trade with Rome; the trade reached a peak after the discovery of a direct route for merchant ships between Tamilakam and Egypt, taking advantage of the monsoon winds. Pepper, pearls, ivory, textiles and gold ornaments were exported from Tamilakam, and the main imports were luxury goods such as glass, coral, wine and topaz. Foreign trade brought in a large amount of internationally convertible Roman currency.
The state played an important role in building and maintaining infrastructure such as roads and ports—funded through taxation—to meet the needs of economic and social activity. Wealth was unequally divided among the people, giving rise to distinct economic classes.
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Tamil Nadu has the second largest state economy in India. The state also hosts the highest number of factories in the country. The state is 48.40% urbanised...
Tamilakam (Tamil: தமிழகம், romanized: Tamiḻakam) was the geographical region inhabited by the ancientTamil people, covering the southernmost region of the Indian...
There are literary, archaeological, epigraphic and numismatic sources ofancientTamil history. The foremost among these sources is the Sangam literature...
considered important in AncientTamil as they considered the mind of the uneducated to be an "abode of darkness". The sangam period of acquiring knowledge...
pottery dating back to first century BC with ancientTamil Brahmi inscriptions. There are a number of apparent Tamil loanwords in Biblical Hebrew dating to...
with various external cultures. The three ancientTamil dynasties namely Chera, Chola, and Pandya were ofancient origins. Together they ruled over this...
velir from ancientTamilcountry. There is epigraphic evidence of people identifying themselves as Damelas or Damedas (the Prakrit word for Tamil people)...
the epics accompanied by dance and music. The ancientTamilcountry had its own system of music called Tamil Pannisai described by Sangam literature such...
the early Christian era with few poems dated to the 1st century BCE. AncientTamil grammatical works such as the Tholkappiyam and poetic works like the...
(Tamil: [paːɳɖijɐr]) also referred to as the Pandyas of Madurai, was an ancientTamil dynasty of South India, and among the four great kingdoms of Tamilakam...
Pandya who dominated the politics of the ancientTamilcountry, Tamilakam, from their three Nadu (countries) of Chola Nadu, Pandya Nadu (present day Madurai...
of the country. 70% of Sri Lankan Tamils in Sri Lanka live in the Northern and Eastern provinces. Modern Sri Lankan Tamils descend from residents of the...
identifies ten categories of names. An̲n̲i Mirutalakumāri Tāmacu claims to have completely revealed the basis on which the Tamils adopted their names. Eva...
numbers of the AncientTamilCountry, Tamiḻakam.[clarification needed] Proposals to encode Tamil fractions and symbols to Unicode were submitted. As of version...
ancient period, which included the inland city of Madurai and the southern port of Korkai. The Pandyas are celebrated in the earliest available Tamil...
the Nagapattinam district ofTamil Nadu. Kaveripattnam was a thriving ancient capital port city of the Early Chola Empire. Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions in caves...
Inscription dating from 1088 about Five Hundred Lords of Ayyanuruwar, a Tamil merchant guild in Barus, an ancient port town currently located in Central Tapanuli...
proximity to the Indian Ocean throughout ancient and medieval times. Many of the Tamil emigrants who left the shores ofTamil Nadu before the 18th century mixed...
as the Dominion of Ceylon in 1948. The country is now known in Sinhala as Śrī Laṅkā (Sinhala: ශ්රී ලංකා) and in Tamil as Ilaṅkai (Tamil: இலங்கை, IPA: [iˈlaŋɡaɪ])...
station in Salem District in Tamil Nadu, India. Located in the Shevaroy hills in the Eastern Ghats, it is situated at an altitude of 1,515 m (4,970 ft). Stone-age...
traditional homelands of Eelam Tamils, does not have official status or recognition by world states. The name is derived from the ancientTamil name for Sri Lanka...
There is a small community ofTamils in Pakistan. Some Tamils migrated from the South Indian state ofTamil Nadu, and settled in Karachi after the independence...
between Tamils and, what is now, Malaysia have existed for more than 2000 years. The ancientTamil poetic work Paṭṭiṉappālai refers to the territory of modern...
Singapore Tamils[failed verification] who majorly came from the South Indian state ofTamil Nadu and the union territory Puducherry and some people are...
Tamil Muslims are Tamils who practise Islam. The community is 6 million in India, primarily in the state ofTamil Nadu where 90% of the Muslim community...
dynasty (or Cēra, IPA: [t͡ʃeːɾɐr]), was a Sangam age Tamil dynasty who unified various regions of the western coast and western ghats in southern India...
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