Two 12th-century Chola bronzes were found buried beside their pedestals in southern India

Archaeologists digging in the port city of Nagapattinam, on the Bay of Bengal coast of Tamil Nadu, have recovered two bronze statues from the later Chola period: a four-armed Nataraja and a standing Sivakami Amman. Each lay about a metre below the surface, and each was buried beside its own pedestal rather than mounted on it.

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The pair came out of a scientific excavation run by the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology, which is why the find is drawing attention beyond the sculptures themselves.

A dancing Shiva and his consort, measured and dated

Nataraja, the dancing form of Shiva, stands 110 cm high and 100 cm wide, according to HeritageDaily. The figure has four arms and performs the Ananda Tandava, the dance of bliss, with one leg raised and the other foot resting on a small figure identified as Apasmara. The hands hold a drum and fire and make the abhaya mudra, a gesture of protection. Wikipedia’s entry on a stolen Chola Nataraja describes the same raised-leg pose as the god dancing on a dwarf-like figure that represents ignorance, a motif rooted in Chidambaram, where Nataraja is the principal deity.

Sivakami Amman, a form of Parvati and Shiva’s consort, is 82 cm high and only 23 cm wide. She has two arms and stands in the tribhanga pose, with the body bent at the neck, waist and knee. Her 23 cm width against an 82 cm height gives the figure a slender, upright profile, in contrast to the wide, radiating pose of Nataraja. HeritageDaily suggests the two formed an associated religious group, since Sivakami is typically shown beside the dancing Shiva.

Experts date both to the 12th century AD, the late Chola period, based on physical traits, iconography, ornamental etching and the style of the pedestals, as DT Next reports. The History Blog adds that the dating rests on design and craftsmanship.

Why a scientific excavation changes what the bronzes can say

Most Chola bronzes reach museums with thin paper trails. A famous example is the roughly 10th-century Sripuranthan Nataraja, which was stolen from a Tamil Nadu temple, smuggled abroad and sold to the National Gallery of Australia before it was returned to India in 2014, as Wikipedia’s account of that case recounts. These two arrived by a different route. Thieves first targeted such bronzes for their metal, the same entry says, before trafficking networks recruited them for the antiquities market.

Officials describe them as the first bronze images of this type that the department has recovered in a scientific excavation, a point repeated by both HeritageDaily and The History Blog. Because the layers around them were recorded, archaeologists can study how the statues relate to the surrounding deposits instead of guessing from style alone.

A. Rajmohan, the Tamil Nadu minister who announced the find on X on Friday, October 30, said he was delighted to report that several statues had been discovered, with the Natarajar and Sivakami Amman bronzes among them. The Hans India, which lists his Tamil Development, School Education and Information and Publicity portfolios, confirms both images were recovered with supporting pedestals under a metre of soil. DT Next adds that the department’s digging in Nagapattinam, which began on August 3, is continuing and that more statues may emerge as the work goes on.

Dates for the discovery differ across the coverage. GKToday says the idols were unearthed on October 30 and reported the next day, DT Next says the dig began on August 3 and was continuing, and The History Blog says the statues were found in August. The consistent thread is the Friday, October 30 announcement from the Tamil Nadu government and a department still digging at that point, which means more bronzes could yet be recorded.

Burial beside the pedestals and the work still to come

The burial is the open question. The History Blog says the statues were found buried together next to their pedestals. GKToday suggests the images may have been hidden to protect them during invasions, though the sources do not establish a reason. HeritageDaily notes that further study of the archaeological context may explain why the bronzes were buried with their pedestals, and that it has not been established whether they were used in temple processions.

Nagapattinam gives the find weight. The History Blog calls it the Chola Empire’s main port for eastbound travel across the Bay of Bengal, where pilgrims visited the Chudamani Vihara Buddhist monastery and the Soundarajaperumal Temple dedicated to Vishnu. An official quoted by DT Next said the bronzes shed light on religious practice, metallurgical engineering and the metal-sculpture schools tied to the port’s maritime trade.

Both statues have been taken to Chennai for chemical conservation, and researchers plan metallurgical analysis of the alloys and the casting techniques. That analysis, rather than any further speculation about invasions, is what should show how the Nagapattinam workshops made them. Until it is done, the alloy composition, and any link to known Chola foundries, remains unmeasured. GKToday notes this is the first time the state department has uncovered bronze idols in its own excavations, so the conservation lab in Chennai is also handling a new category of find for the agency.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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