Ancient site · Other
Kumari Kandam (legendary)
Also known as Kumari Nadu
A lost land said to lie south of Kanyakumari, swallowed by the sea with an ancient Tamil civilisation. Medieval commentaries tell of Pandya lands and the first two Tamil literary academies (Sangams) lost to the ocean; 19th-century European ideas of a sunken continent, 'Lemuria', were then joined to these stories by Tamil revivalists, who coined the name Kumari Kandam in the 1930s.
Plate tectonics has disproved Lemuria, and no ruins have been found. The point here only marks where tradition places it.
- Dates
- legendary; no real date
- Still standing
- No, or only traces
- Location
- 7.30° N, 77.50° E
How we know
Not proven: no archaeological evidence has been found, and geology shows no sunken continent in the Indian Ocean.
Nearby sites
- Adichanallur c. 1000–600 BCE (radiocarbon); earlier claims debated
- Sivagalai c. 1200–700 BCE (rice from a burial urn); a claim of iron at 3345 BCE is disputed
- Keezhadi 6th century BCE–3rd century CE (radiocarbon); excavator proposes 8th century BCE; ASI questions this
- Anuradhapura settled c. 900 BCE; capital from the 4th century BCE to the 10th century CE; sacred city today
- Pattanam c. 3rd century BCE–5th century CE
- Sigiriya royal citadel 477–495 CE; monastery until the 14th century