On the east coast, south of Madras, Poompuhar is believed to be a flourishing port in the beginning of the Christian etc. The Manimekhalai, a well known Tamil epic, mentions that the Chola King had lost his son and in his great grief he forgot to celebrate the annual Indra festival. This enraged the goddess Manimekhalai who caused the city to be swallowed by the sea. Though the reference is only to a supernatural incident, it may be taken as an echo of some actual furry of high tidal waves that lashed upon the city and passed down the generation by way of folklore.
Marine archaeological explorations are being carried out since 1991 in Poompuhar waters in collaboration with the Department of Archaeology, Government of Tamil Nadu in pursuit of the truth, an evidence that can throw some light to confirm the legend.
The main objective of this survey is to delineate the submerged extension of the ancient town of Kaveripoompattinam, north of the present river Kaveri and to explore the deep water. Extensive diving and airlifting operations were undertaken north of the river Kaveri at a water depth of 5-7 m.
Offshore exploration was carried out in shallow waters, north of river Kaveri and south of the present Poompuhar village. A few dressed stone blocks were found in various water depths. One of them was semicircular with an L-shaped cut. Airlift operations yielded building blocks of stone and a number of potsherds of the early historical period (300 B.C. to 300 A.D.). Geophysical explorations carried out with the sub-bottom profiler revealed a submerged palaeochannel of the river Kaveri in the north of Poompuhar. The width of the channel varies from 300 m to 500 m and it is buried 20 m below the sea bottom.
Explorations carried out in deeper waters (23 m depth) revealed presence of anU-shaped stone structure which was located about 5 km seaward of Kadaikaddu. The structure lies in north-south direction. Maximum height of structure on the outer side is about 3 m, while on the inner side it is less than 1 m and maximum length of which is 40 m and its width is 20 m.
