during the Velir dynasty. Arikamedu-Virampatnam together find mention as Poduke, a major port in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea in the first century CE and as Poduke emporion in Ptolemy's Geographia of mid first century CE. Poduke is a Roman name and is also said to be a corrupted version of the Tamil name Potikai, meaning a "meeting place", also known for the local Poduvar clan. History The first mention about Arikamedu was in 1734, in a communication from the Consul of the Indo-French colony of Pondicherry. It informed the French East India Company that villagers were extracting old bricks from the Virampattinam. The earliest mention of the Arikamedu archaeological site was by Le Gentil of France, who the King of France had assigned to observe notable astronomical occurrences in the world. Gentil, after visiting Arikamedu, confirmed the earlier report of the Consul of the Indo-French colony. In 1765, when he visited the ruins at the site, he found the people of the village collecting large ancient bricks exposed at the river bank. The villagers told him that they had retrieved the bricks from an old fort of the king the Vira-Raguen. In 1937, Jouveau Dubreuil, an Indologist, also from France, purchased gem stone antiquities from local children, and also gathered some exposed on the site's surface. In particular, he found an intaglio carved with the picture of a man. As a numismatist, he identified the intaglio as Augustus Caesar. He also found fine beads and gems. He concluded that these antiquities belonged to the Roman Empire. Dubreuil informed the local Governor of Pondicherry about his find, and called Arikamedu "a true Roman city." He published a short note about his findings. In the early 1940s, Service des Travaux Publics carried out random excavations. Father Fancheux and Raymand Surleau, who were not qualified archaeologists, carried out the excavations at Arikamedu and sent a few antiquities to Indian museums, and also to the École française d'Extrême-Orient in Hanoi. Sir R.E.M.Wheeler, the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, in the 1940s saw a few potsherds of Arikamedu site displayed in the Madras Museum, which he identified as "terra sigillata", or Arrentine ware, an expensive ceramic made until 50 CE in Arezzo, Italy. Thereafter, when he visited the Pondicherry Museum and saw more of the findings from the Arikamedu site, he was impressed and thought that he had found the