Chaul
Chaul is a small town on the coast of the Arabian Sea in the western Indian state of Maharashtra with the ruins of a Portuguese trading post founded in the early 16th century.
location
In ancient times, Chaul was known under the name Chemulaka as a port on the west coast of India in the Konkan region about 56 km south of Mumbai . Chaul is located at the mouth of the Kundalika River, which is navigable up to the 30 km upstream market town of Roha. Chaul was since the 1st millennium BC. BC via the Roha valley and mule passes, which lead over the mountain range of the Western Ghats , with the settlements on the Dekkan Plateau and later cities of Pune , Ahmednagar and Aurangabad . Chaul ( Semylla ) was connected to the trade routes in the Arabian Sea, which connected the Mediterranean and the Middle East with India, Africa, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and China.
Excavations
The excavations carried out by Vishwas Gogte from the Archaeological Institute of the Deccan College of the University of Pune suggest that there is a marked trade between India and East Africa, including in glass beads , the so-called Indo-Pacific beads . Buddhist rock monasteries can be found in the vicinity of Chaul.
history
In the Periplus Maris Erythraei and in the Geographike Hyphegesis by Claudius Ptolemy , Chaul is mentioned under the name Semylla . Ptolemy reports that his knowledge of Chaul came from Egyptian merchants who visited the place regularly.
In 1508, a naval battle costing the Portuguese against the united fleet of Egypt and the Sultan of Gujarat took place in front of Chaul , but the Portuguese managed to make up for their defeat a year later in the naval battle of Diu . Portuguese fortifications had been in place in Chaul and on an offshore peninsula since 1521. In October 1531 the Portuguese built a square stone fort ( Santa Maria do Castello ) with a church and a crew of 120 men. In the years 1570–71, the fort was besieged by Nizam Shah , Sultan of Ahmadnagar , but expanded according to an agreement and reinforced by the upstream Fort Morro de Chaul .
In the 18th century, Chaul lost its importance and sank after it was ceded by the Portuguese to the Pune-based, rising feudal power of the Marathas in 1740 , in insignificance; but maybe also because the port was silting up. Apart from the ruins of two Portuguese forts, little remains of the former port city.
literature
- Gritli von Mitterwallner : Chaul. An unexplored city on the west coast of India. (Defense, sacred and secular architecture). Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 1964.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Prinsloo, LC & Colomban, P .: A Raman spectroscopic study of the Mapungubwe oblates: glass trade beads excavated at an Iron Age archaeological site in South Africa , 2008, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, 39 (1), pages 79-90.
- ↑ http://www.orbis-quintus.net/?p=2236
Coordinates: 18 ° 33 '3.24 " N , 72 ° 55' 36.83" E