india, the malabar coast in modern day carola. in 2007, scene of a spectacular archeological discovery. believed to be the site of the lost ancient port, missourious. archaeologist professor pj cherrian is leading excavations. we started our excavations in 2007. and so far, we have 61 trenches. that is a 1,000 square meter area. from the excavations at missourious, hundreds of thousands of pottery fragments have been found, thousands of which are clearly from the mediterranean world, particularly wine containers. on a scale that eclipses most other sites in india.
missourious was the center of a thriving global trade in luxury goods that stretched from europe to china. huge quantities of spices and aromatics were being brought as a result of the indian ocean traders. only an estimated 1% of the site has been excavated. but the volume of trade revealed suggests thomas could also have made the journey here in the first century. in the roman period, people know that if you follow the monsoon, you can get to india in under 40 days by ship. it would have been very hard. but it was certainly possible that thomas could have gone to india. and if jesus message is to preach his good news to the ends of the world, then india would
have been on that list. a stranger coming to missourious for the first time, it must have been quite a surreal experience. he would have encountered all kinds of people and languages and flavors and smells that he had never seen before, and gods he had never even heard of. you ve got a variety of different religious sects. these include bramans, essential early hindus. janes and also buddhists. a first point of contact for thomas might have been jewish traders, who spoke his language and shared his faith. because this is the center, the jewish community settled there. and there s a jewish town even today. an ancient jewish enclave still exists in the nearby port