A path-breaking finding has shed new light on trade links between ancient Tamilagam, other parts of India and the Roman Empire. Two researchers have identified close to 30 inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi, Prakrit and Sanskrit at tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. These inscriptions are said to belong to the period between the 1st and 3rd Centuries C.E.
These inscriptions were identified during a study carried out in 2024 and 2025 by Charlotte Schmid, Professor at the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO) in Paris and Ingo Strauch, Professor at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. The team documented them across six tombs in the Theban Necropolis. They followed the footsteps of French scholar Jules Baillet, who surveyed the Valley of the Kings in 1926 and published more than 2,000 Greek graffiti marks.
Presenting their findings in a paper titled ‘From the Valley of the Kings to India: Indian Inscriptions in Egypt’ at the ongoing International Conference on Tamil Epigraphy, the scholars said the individuals who made these inscriptions came from the north-western, western and southern regions of the Indian subcontinent, with those from the latter forming the majority.
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