The Tamil Bell is a broken bronze bell discovered in approximately 1836 (quoted as 1839 in the Taranaki Herald) by the missionary William Colenso. It was being used as a pot to boil potatoes by Māori women near Whangarei in the Northland Region of New Zealand.

The bell is 13 cm long and 9 cm deep, and has an inscription. The inscription running around the rim of the bell has been identified as old Tamil. Translated it says “Muhayideen Baksh’s ship’s bell”. Some of the characters in the inscription are of an archaic form no longer seen in modern Tamil script, thus suggesting that the bell could be about 500 years old. Eminent Indologist, V. R. Ramachandra Dikshitar claims in his The Origin and Spread of the Tamils that ancient Tamil sea-farers might have had a knowledge of Australia and Polynesia. The discovery of the bell has led to speculation about a possible Tamil presence in New Zealand, but the bell ‘is not in itself proof of early Tamil contact with New Zealand’.

The bell was bequeathed by William Colenso to the Dominion Museum – now the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

* Source: Ethnographical Considerations on the Whence of the Maori. National Library of New Zealand. 1871.

NOTE: This image from New Zealand is in the public domain both in New Zealand and in other countries adhering to international copyright treaties, because its author died more than 50 years ago. See the Copyright Act 1994.