page_title: Muziris
section_title: Early descriptions
hierarchical_section_title: Muziris / Early descriptions
caption_attribution_description: Extent of Silk Route/Silk Road. Red is land route and the blue is the sea/water route. Satellite composition of the whole Earth's surface.
context_page_description: Muziris was an ancient harbour and urban centre on the Malabar Coast that dates from at least the 1st century BC. The exact location of Muziris is unknown to historians and archaeologists. Muziris found mention in the bardic Tamil poems and a number of classical sources.
  Muziris was a key to the interactions between South India and Persia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the Mediterranean region. The important known commodities "exported" from Muziris were spices, semi-precious stones, pearls, diamonds, sapphires, ivory, Chinese silk, Gangetic spikenard and tortoise shells. The Roman navigators brought gold coins, peridots, thin clothing, figured linens, multicoloured textiles, sulfide of antimony, copper, tin, lead, coral, raw glass, wine, realgar and orpiment. The locations of unearthed coin-hoards suggest an inland trade link from Muziris via the Palghat Gap and along the Kaveri Valley to the east coast of India. Though the Roman trade declined from the 5th century AD, the former Muziris attracted the attention of other nationalities, particularly the Persians, the Chinese and the Arabs, presumably until the devastating floods of Periyar in the 14th century.
caption: The Silk Road, a group of ancient trade routes that, linking east and west, carried goods and ideas between the two great civilizations of Rome and China. The land routes are shown in red, the maritime routes in blue.
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