
Tamil Bell - Thevet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_bell
======
msound
The Tamils originally wrote on dried palm leaves with a sharp scribe. So, if
you didn't want to tear the leaf, you had to avoid straight lines and dots.
That's why there are so many curves in the script.

Also, one of the meanings of my first name "Mani" is literally "Bell".

Source:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_script](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_script)
Also: I'm Tamil.

~~~
shripadk
Interesting! I always thought "Mani" mean't "Gems". At least in Sanskrit Mani
is a Bead/Gem.

~~~
sharmi
It means both :) . It can take on either meaning based on the context.

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elvinyung
Out-of-place artifacts[1] are cool. A really interesting one is the Tecaxic-
Calixtlahuaca head[2], a part of a terracotta figurine that was found in a
pre-Columbian site in Mexico that is speculated to have Roman origin.

Learning more about this is actually kind of hard. Unfortunately, there seems
to be a lot of pseudoarchaeology concerning pre-Columbian transoceanic
contact.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-
place_artifact](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact)

[2]
[http://www.unm.edu/~rhristov/calixtlahuaca.html](http://www.unm.edu/~rhristov/calixtlahuaca.html)

~~~
lb1lf
One of my favourites (being Norwegian an'all) is the Maine Penny [1].

IMHO the most likely explanation is that it is either a modern-day hoax (that
is, planted at the dig site) or a result of native American trading (After
all, the fact that there were Norse settlements in Newfoundland is not in
doubt - so conceivably, someone got the coin there and carried it south, that
someone not being Norse)

It would be fun if a Norse settlement in the US could be proven, though. We'd
be happy to incorporate you as a county of good ol' Norway.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_penny](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maine_penny)

~~~
ocschwar
The first Puritan settlers of Massachusetts were from Lincolnshire, and the
people of that region were still called Jutes in the 1600s.

So we already are an extension of Jutland, complete with morose temperaments
and bad cooking.

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skrebbel
> Translated, it says "Muhayideen Baksh’s ship’s bell".

I like language, and this inscription makes me wonder. Why write on a bell
that it's a bell? I'd be less surprised if the bell had said "Muhayideen
Baksh’s ship".

I mean, I get that school buildings say "School" because otherwise it's really
just a building. But a bell? Isn't that a bit like writing "Headmaster's
Office Door" on the headmaster's office door?

I wonder whether maybe it was just an artsy kind of joke. A bit like how in
import stores you can buys forks that say "FORK" on the handle.

I now imagine the crew on that ship looking up to the bell every once in a
while, grinning, thinking "that Baksh fella is a tough one but at least he has
some sense of humor".

~~~
ganduG
Anecdotal reason: I'm Indian, and we have some high quality (and possibly
expensive) utensils that have been passed down for a couple of generations.
They have all have my grandad's name etched on them somewhere, as a means of
identification.

~~~
Arizhel
That's not the issue. They're asking why the word "bell" is on there, not the
person's name. The person's name makes perfect sense, at least to us English
speakers. The "bell" part doesn't; it would be look your expensive utensils
each having inscribed on them, "Ravi's fork" or "Ravi's spoon". You can look
at it and tell it's a fork or spoon, so why would you write that piece of
obvious information on there?

------
mataug
Theres ambiguous separation between the words on the picture.

It reads phonetically as "MugayatheenPak Udaya Kappal Mani". The translation
is spot on.

Source: I'm a native speaker from Tamil Nadu.

~~~
scriptdevil
So am I. I was surprised when it said some of the characters were in
Old/Archaic Tamil but I could read the characters fairly clearly.

~~~
palerdot
Also, I noticed the actual inscription on top is pronouncing something else
that i cannot understand. Only the bottom inscription (translation) is
comprehensible for me. I think the bell has only the top section sentence
inscribed in it. Can you comprehend the top one?

~~~
aangjie
I thought the top one simply has a slightly different writing style.(For ex:
the thi in muhaiyatheen).. Apart from that there does seem some grammar/or
other rule/mistake.. I can see 'udaiya' (or something lke it) twice. once
joined with 'buks' and once before bell... Which is unusual, and makes me
wonder if it was written by someone not familiar with the language..

~~~
aangjie
Check that.. .After going through that grantha
script([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grantha_alphabet#/media/File:G...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grantha_alphabet#/media/File:Grantha_Vowels.svg))
someone posted here.. I think the 'thi' difference can be from grantha script
influence... But that 'udaiya' repeated for both name and ship is very
interesting...almost like trying to be very explicit...

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puranjay
You might find this interesting:

"Australia experienced a wave of migration from India about 4,000 years ago, a
genetic study suggests."

[http://www.bbc.com/news/science-
environment-21016700](http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-21016700)

------
cyberferret
Interesting. There has to be more evidence of other nations discovering
Australia and New Zealand before the ones mentioned in our history books.

Nearer to me, the Tiwi islands just off the coast of North Australia have
unearthed jade figurines and artifacts that seem to originate from China or
another Asian country, which date back to before the time of Captain Cook.

Update: Article on early Chinese explorers reaching Australia a long time
before Dutch or English explorers -
[http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.h...](http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/11/24/1037697982893.html)

~~~
thewhitetulip
Edited.

Was Australia a part of Indian subcontinent back then?

~~~
dguest
Actually continental drift explains a variety of phenomena that have been
falsely attributed to human exploration: English is spoken in New York, for
example, because the british isles used to be connected to New England. Even
the names reflect this: when the landmasses separated Queen Victoria proudly
viewed them as a geological projection of the British sphere of influence and
christened her new islands "New England" "New York", "New Hampshire" etc.

~~~
cynicaldevil
Dunno if trolling or actually serious...

------
danans
The name of the ship's owner (mohayideen) is Arabic, transliterated into Tamil
script. There is a well known history of the Arab trade network throughout
Southeast Asia but it's fascinating that this artifact represents a fusion of
Arab and Tamil culture.

It makes me ponder whether the owner of the ship was himself cross cultural.

The Arab presence in Southern India actually predates the advent of Islam, so
even it's possible (though not likely) that this artifact hails from before
that time.

EDIT: TFA notes that the script is datable to 500 years old so it is probably
not pre-Islamic.

~~~
gumby
Very good point. There was also significant foreign trade between Egypt,
Arabia, and India/Pakistan going back at least 4000 years, so your conjecture
makes a lot of sense.

Edit: I followed the footnote to vol 1 of the NZ Journal of Science where the
suggest a Portuguese origin, presumably because of Portuguese saying prowess.
In fact of course Tamil Nadu was an initial colonization point of many
European invaders, all of whom by definition were sailing nations.

In fact who's to say that the bell didn't arrive within the century preceding
Colenso's seeing it?

~~~
danans
I would just add that Tamils were a sailing nation with trade links in
Southeast Asia well before European colonization - as is clearly evident in
their cultural influence on and from Southeast Asia [1]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_inscriptions_in_the_Mala...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_inscriptions_in_the_Malay_world)

------
manojlds
As a Tamil, I am surprised by so many such things that I come across about our
ancestors. No wonder we take a lot of pride in our culture, sometimes to the
extreme.

~~~
RajuVarghese
You may be interested to know that the word 'Coromandel' is a anglicized
corruption of the 'Chola mandalam'. The Cholas had a sea empire that stretched
all the way up to Vietnam. You probably know that there are Hindu temples in
Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia. Wherever the Cholas landed they set up a
temple with a local caretaker who later grew in power.

~~~
vram22
>You may be interested to know that the word 'Coromandel' is a anglicized
corruption of the 'Chola mandalam'.

Interesting. I've heard a different version when I studied in South India,
that Coromandel [1] is the anglicized version of karu manal (mannal?) meaning
black sand - because there are beaches in the Coromandel Coast that have black
(and also red and other color) sand. E.g. At Kanyakumari a.k.a Cape Comorin,
the southernmost tip of India, you could buy small plastic bags with multi-
colored sand as a souvenir. I remember at least black, normal light brown, red
and purple colors.

[[1] Update: The Wikipedia article says what you say about the name
Coromandel:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coromandel_Coast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coromandel_Coast)
]

Similarly, catamaran, I've heard, is from kattu maram - tied tree (trunks).
Very stable boats, and that principle is now adopted in modern high-tech
catamarans too. [2]

Once when on a school picnic on that coast, I asked for and got a ride on a
catamaran of the local fishermen. We went out quite a way to sea, for maybe
half an hour or more. I was sitting on one of the logs in the front, with my
legs nearly up to the waist, in the sea. Could feel the water rushing past my
legs. Good fun.

[2]:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catamaran#History](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catamaran#History)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catamaran](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catamaran)

------
giis
Here's the picture: [http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/1135/the-tamil-
bell](http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/1135/the-tamil-bell)

------
palerdot
Fascinating. I'm from Tamilnadu (where Tamil is spoken in southern most part
of India) and so far we have only heard of early day explorations so far as
current singapore, malaysia, cambodia etc. This news is really interesting.

~~~
searchfaster
Same here.. and even the script is easily readable too.. compared to some of
the old works of Tamil, found in old temples.

Tamil is over 2000 years old and it is fascinating to see how the script has
changed from back then to now.

------
mclightning
A lot of people express their surprise about "other nations discovering AU,
NZ, US" etc.

You do understand homo sapiens did not evolve separately on these different
continents/lands right?

The actual discovery was when the first homo sapien settled in US, AU, NZ
etc.... Of course some cultures managed to travel to these lands long before
our history records tells us. Native Americans are not a separate species of
homo sapiens, they did not evolve there separately.

~~~
netzone
Yes, but we're not talking about that here. We're talking about the
interconnectivity of the ancient world. That's something completely different.

------
ripdog
Here is the bell in the Te Papa Tongarewa collection:
[http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/Object/213397](http://collections.tepapa.govt.nz/Object/213397)

------
shas3
This is not implausible. Maritime Southeast Asia had trading relationships [1]
with aboriginal Australians in the northern coast of Australia. It is not too
surprising (still very interesting) if a ship every now and then made it to
New Zealand or further. The main difference between them and the European
Colonial Age is that most ships did not return. Note that there was a long
Indian 'colonial age' in Southeast Asia, though it was more cultural and trade
exchange with naval influence rather than remote hegemony. Likewise the
Western Coast of India had maritime activity with the civilizations of Middle
East, Europe, and Africa, from as long ago as the Indus Civilization. The
point is that coastal Indians were reasonably adept sailors and maritime trade
played a major role in South Indian and Western Indian civilization(s) and
culture(s). Over several thousand years, it is not too unlikely that a few
ships made their way to Australia, etc.

[1] [http://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2012/05/australian-
aborigines...](http://blogs.bl.uk/untoldlives/2012/05/australian-aborigines-
and-makassan-trepangers.html)

------
_yvjs
here's some interesting speculation on this topic:
[https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/a-three-hour-
tour/](https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2013/01/15/a-three-hour-tour/)

Basically there's genetic (Y chromosome) and linguistic evidence suggesting an
infusion of Indian immigration (~5000 years ago so maybe a distinct event from
this). One plausible explanation is that some Dravidian seafarers crash-landed
in Australia and got absorbed by the local population. From their perspective
it probably would have felt like sinking into savagery.

~~~
linuxkerneldev
> From their perspective it probably would have felt like sinking into
> savagery.

This sentence is incongruous with the rest of your post. Why would you think
such a thing?

~~~
_yvjs
The sentiment is lifted directly from the linked post.

It's hard to argue with given the subcontinent had agricultural, seafaring
populations while Australian populations never made it past Paleolithic
hunter-gathering.

------
neduma
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_language)

------
mmjaa
I think this discussion is sadly lacking a fair bit of Szukalski.

If you don't know him, he's a total weirdo. But, like so many totalitarian
weirdoes, he was also a bit of a genius.

Of the mad variety. Mad, but nevertheless interesting.

So, one of his mad genius ideas is that the world has endured a number of
cyclic catastrophic events, every 65k years or so, which completely
obliterates civilisation and culture and replaces it with naught but refugees
and a relatively clean slate. On account of The Deluge.

If you imagine that the Earth, 65k years (or so) ago might've had an Advanced
Civilisation, Szukalski is gonna be right alongside, albeit way ahead of you.

One of the things he proposes is that the survivors of The Deluge have inter-
mixed, around the globe, and you can see it in ancient art - common themes,
originally expressed from a root culture (the 'mother tongue' of the prior
civilisation), which eventually degrades over time as entropy - and the
shifting oceans of The Deluge - separate us all.

Anyway, Szukalski had some things to say about sea-faring survivors whose
language echoes through the ages. If you want a bit of a "Weird Art" kick,
because the Tamil Bell is indeed weird art, then take a look at Szukalski. The
Protong Lives!

------
gumby
What I would like to know is _how_ Colenso got the bell. Did he purchase it,
simply take it, or offer a better replacement?

Neither the Wikipedia nor a broader web search addresses this. And Colenso's
own wikipedia page doesn't even mention the bell!

------
LAMike
Trincomalee would be a good base, second biggest harbor in the world. Cool to
see something Sri Lanka related on HN

------
jv22222
While we're on the topic of interesting artifacts on Wikipedia, this is pretty
cool:

Voynich manuscript – Undeciphered book from the 15th century

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript)

------
pvg
_with a sharp scribe_

That sounds incredibly unwieldy.

~~~
palerdot
More details on this context - the sharp scribe is wielded deftly so that they
can write freely in the dried palm leaves. The sharp scribe is called
"ezhuthaani" (where zhu is a special L sound) which literally means writing
nail. The dried palm leaves are commonly referred as "olai suvadi" which
literally means dry leaf book.

PS: The word Tamil itself should be pronounced "Tamizh" where zh is a special
"La" sound, unique to Tamil language.

~~~
pvg
I think you mean something like 'stylus'. A scribe is a person.

~~~
devnonymous
A word can have more than one meanings. From
[https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Ascribe&oq=define%3A...](https://www.google.com/search?q=define%3Ascribe&oq=define%3Ascribe)

3\. a pointed instrument used for making marks on wood, bricks, etc., to guide
a saw or in signwriting.

~~~
pvg
_A word can have more than one meanings_

Lies spread by Satanist band.

 _3\. a pointed instrument used for making [...]_

Communist dictionary.

~~~
devnonymous
\- You make a snide comment

\- Someone misinterprets it as an honest mistake and tries to explain things

\- You take on a condescending tone attempting to ^educate^ this obviously
clueless person who doesn't know what word they ought to be using

\- Someone patiently points out that it is you who is wrong

\- You now use humour and pretend to be dismissive (instead of either not
saying anything or acknowledging that yes, you did learn something new).

Bravo! Now everyone knows just how witty and smart you can be!

~~~
pvg
Nah. Everyone already knew.

------
sriram_iyengar
Proud moment for a Tamizhan on HN !

~~~
shanth
_/\\_

------
sathishmanohar
Am I missing some context here? How is this related to HN?

~~~
cyberferret
Science. Exploration. Discovery. Stretching the limits. Challenging common
belief patterns... - all things that intelligent people, and those with a
creative bent enjoy discussing among like minded colleagues.

