Submerged wharves and several meter lengths of pier walls excavated in recent times have corroborated the literary references to Poompuhar.

Pottery dating back to the 4th century BCE has been discovered off shore by marine archaeologists east of the town.

[citation needed]The district of Maruvurpakkam was near the beach and had several terraced mansions and warehoused with windows shaped like the eyes of the deer.

Maruvurpakkam being close to the shore and hence to the shipyard was naturally preferred by the many overseas travellers, merchants and yavanas (Greeks).

[citation needed] Buddhadatta, the 5th century writer who lived during the reign of Accutavikkante vividly describes the capital Kaveripattinam in his manuals (Pali language) as follows:[4] In the lovely Kaveripattana crowded with hordes of men and women from pure families endowed with all the requisites of a town with crystal clear water flowing in the river, filled with all kinds of precious stones, possessed of many kinds of bazaars, beautified by many gardens, in a beautiful and pleasant vihara built by Kanhadasa, adorned with a mansion as high as the Kailasa, and having different kinds of beautiful entrance-towers on the outer wall, I lived in an old mansion there and wrote this work..

In the Nigamanagātha of Vinayavinicchaya, Buddhatta describes how he wrote the work while staying at the monastery built by one Venhudassa (Vishnudasa) on the banks of the Kaveri in a town called Bhootamangalam near Kaveripattinam.

Marine archaeologists from the National Institute of Oceanography have established that this could have been the effects of sediment erosion and periodic tsunamis.

Such a tsunami is mentioned in the Tamil poem Manimekhalai (see below), which relates that the town Kāveripattinam or Puhār was swallowed up by the sea.