ASI epigraphy: the first named Guntur is on Vishnuvardhana II’s Pune plates of 669 C.E., then Gomturu on the 10th-century Ederu plates.

The first named Guntur, on this epigraphy briefing, is not a new trench. It is a copper-plate name from 669 C.E.

On Monday, 24 August 2026, Archaeological Survey of India Director (Epigraphy) K. Munirathnam Reddy said new insights from archaeological discoveries had shed light on the antiquity of Guntur. As he put it, the first-ever epigraphical reference to Guntur appears in the Pune copper plates issued by King Vishnuvardhana II of the Eastern Chalukya dynasty, dated to his first regnal year in 669 C.E. That is an epigraphy note as told on Monday. It is not a 24 August excavation report. This desk will not invent a find-spot inside Guntur city beyond the plates named.

Epigraphical data, on the same briefing, highlight a linguistic transition through variations such as Kumturu, Gomturu and Gunturu. Further backing comes from the 10th-century Ederu copper-plate inscription, which records the city’s name as Gomturu. That nomenclature, the card says, remained in continuous usage across regional inscriptions from the 10th down to the 14th century. Kumturu, Gomturu and Gunturu are the three forms named. This desk will not invent a fourth spelling, a stone-inscription serial, or a village-by-village map of those centuries.

Experts stressed that the copper-plate inscriptions are historical milestones for the socio-political and linguistic evolution of Andhra Pradesh in the medieval period under the Eastern Chalukyas. That is the expert stress on the briefing. It is not a new dynasty history written by this newspaper. Vishnuvardhana II’s first regnal year and the 10th-century Ederu plates are the two dated anchors on this card. 669 C.E. is the first-reference date as given. The Ederu usage is cited from the 10th to the 14th century.

What this card is not must be said. It is not a Monday dig. It is not a claim that Guntur city has yielded a new copper plate on 24 August. The Pune plates and the Ederu plates are the documents named. Their present museum or archive location is not on this filing. This desk will not invent a cabinet number or a translation folio.

A nomenclature note can still be public news. A city’s name in a seventh-century copper plate, and a tenth-century form that then runs for four centuries, is a fact about how the place was written. It does not, by itself, settle every later municipal boundary. This desk will not stretch 669 C.E. into a tourism slogan or a foundation-day gazette.

Guntur is the dateline of the briefing. The plates named are the Pune copper plates and the Ederu copper plates. Form B and any poll date are not notified on a culture cutting.

Until a fuller epigraphic catalogue is published, the public ledger is a Monday Archaeological Survey of India epigraphy briefing by K. Munirathnam Reddy; a first named Guntur on Vishnuvardhana II’s Pune plates of his first regnal year, 669 C.E.; a linguistic line through Kumturu, Gomturu and Gunturu; a 10th-century Ederu inscription recording Gomturu; continuous cited usage of that nomenclature from the 10th to the 14th century; and a note that those copper plates are treated as milestones for medieval Andhra under the Eastern Chalukyas. A name on a plate. Not a new dig.